Alaska Reading

Incredible!

It's easy to find books based in Alaska, so I have a nice variety to pick from.  My favorite of the bunch is actually a recommendation from our food tour guide, Jared.  He recently started teaching history at an Anchorage high school, so I ask if he has any reading he recommends. The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic by Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury is one of his picks, and it's an exciting tale. It's one of those perfect non-fiction publications that has an excellent overarching plot with lots of side bits that explain little known facts of history and science that add to the drama. (Such as France requesting dog teams for help during WWI because they were having a hard time moving supplies in the deep snow, so an Alaskan brought over a group of 400 dogs to successfully assist operations.)  I'm constantly reading out small tidbits to Steve and muttering, "Wow" to myself in disbelief at what humans and canines are capable of doing.  It's up there with Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, which is probably my favorite non-fiction book. 

My favorite non-fiction book!

With some proof reading, this would be a better book.

What sells me on The Alaskan Laundry is the involvement of the main character, Tara, in the fishing industry. As one of the big businesses for the state, I want to learn more about it (and I don’t watch a lot of reality tv, so I’ve never seen Deadliest Catch, etc).  Tara is running away from problems at home when she arrives in Alaska, so she’s a bit gloomy.  Her experiences working and living there are realistic and believable, according to reviews written by people from Alaska (except she manages to find jobs very easily with no experience).  I learn a lot about the different aspects of fishing and crabbing, but not too much – you don’t get bogged down in the details.  I suppose this would be categorized as modern day Alaska women’s fiction (you have to mention the state – it influences everything in the narrative). 

There are a few small continuity issues.  Sometimes it seems like a sentence is missing that connects two events (or it could be a problem with transferring the text to e-book form). If the publishers don’t make an effort, sometimes the spacing is wrong (such as when there should be a few blank lines between paragraphs, which usually indicates to the reader that time has passed before the next events).  For example, Tara is in a skiff with the crew to go into town.  But she decides to get off and return to the boat before they go to town.  Then she’s grabbing some candy bars and walking to town…but I thought they were anchored out, so how can she walk??  It disrupts the flow of reading because you stop and read back over the past few sentences to see if you missed anything so it makes logical sense.  It occurs more frequently in the first few chapters, but then it doesn’t happen as often, so it becomes easier to read.  Having the editor take another look through the content would have been beneficial.  Overall, I’m glad I read it. 

The Wind is Not a River is historical fiction, taking place during WWII, while the Japanese have possession of the Aleutian Islands.  Chapters alternate between the perspective of a husband and wife.  He’s a journalist who has embedded himself with a military flight and has his plane crash on one of the islands.  His part of the story is mainly about trying to survive.  (A piece of advice – don’t read two novels that involve small plane crashes and characters slowly starving to death, right before you’re about to take a small plane flight. The pictures in your head during the trip are not pretty.)  The wife’s tale focuses on trying to find out what has happened to her husband.  It’s well written, and interesting.  I didn’t pick up any good survival tips in this one, though…except maybe you should look for a cave to sleep in.

I'd skip this one!

The Quality of Silence is the third title I’ve read by Rosamund Lupton.  The pace of her plots are always slow, and there’s lots of internal dialogue (thoughts) expressed by the characters. The bestseller focuses on a mother and her precocious, deaf 10-year old after they arrive in Alaska.  Once there they discover her photographer husband is presumed dead in an explosion along with the rest of the natives in a village (relatively) close to Prudhoe Bay. Despite the evidence, they’re both determined he’s still alive, and they need to be the ones to find him.

The novel loses all credibility. Without giving away too much, the mother at one point decides she’ll drive the 40 ton truck along Dalton Road, probably the most dangerous road in the world.  With no experience driving on ice or in trucks.  In negative 40 degree weather.  Over and through mountains.  During a snowstorm with hurricane strength winds.  And professional truckers telling her over the CB that everyone else has gotten off the road.  It should end with them driving off the side of the mountain…but it doesn’t.  Other than the fact I learn a lot about Alaska – fracking, truck driving, wildlife, etc – I would have put it down.  It did make me want to watch an episode of Ice Truckers!

Very good, not great, non-fiction

The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush by Howard Blum is more of a biography of three different men, who all end up in Alaska, than a history of the gold rush, so it's a little different than I expect.  It's still good (but not at the same level as The Cruelest Miles).  All three men are different and lead fascinating lives - one a creative con man, another a cowboy-business man-top Pinkerton agent and the third an AWOL Marine who marries a native and makes the discovery that starts the Klondike gold rush.  Chapters shift from one man to the next, so sometimes you have to flip back to reacquaint yourself with that person's chronicle.  Occasionally, their lives intersect.  I think with a better title my expectations would have matched the story line, and I would have appreciated it more.