Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska AK required reading?

Last night I finished the book about Frank Glaser: "Alaska's wolfman."

What else all time AK great reads would you recommend?

Thanks so much fellas,
Tres

Take a look at Russell Annabel's "Adventure" series. They chronicle his life in the Alaska Bush from the 1930's through the 1950's.
They are a compilation of articles he wrote for various outdoor magazines back then along with some previously unpublished stuff.

Ed

Try a search by author, for Jim Rearden's books.

Thanks fellas,
Will do!
TM

Bear man of Admiralty Island by Howe
One thing after another by Marcus Jensen
My lost wilderness, by Ralph W Young.
Grizzlies don't come easy, my life as an Alaska bear hunter by Ralph Young
Shadows of the Kayokuk, and anything by Jim Rearden.
Fair chase with Alaskan guides by Waugh and Alaska Game trails with master guide, Waugh by Kiem
Any of the Conkles books. Wind on the water etc.
Alaska Yukon trophies won and lost, G.O. Young
Pinnell and Talitson: The last of the great brown bear men.
Charles Sheldon's books are interesting also.

I'd like to read Hardy Trefzger's My 50 years in Alaska if I could find a copy.

There's a start for you. TK

I'll second Shadows on the Koyukuk - Huntington with Reardon; also the brother's similar book: On the Edge of Nowhere

Mercy Pilot Dirk Tordoff- it's a great look at early aviation in Alaska, a technology that really changed life in Alaska

Descent into Madness - the story, Yukon T and Alaska in the 1970s, about the raving madman who was crazy to begin with, but became crazier as he lived alone in the wilds, eventually killing several including a Canadian Mounty before he was killed by the RCMP.

Ice Master Jennifer Niven - the early 1900s story of one of Steffanson's expeditions, this one involving the ship Karluk along with Captain Robert Bartlett. It's an incredible story of survival. Ada Blackjack is another book that dovetails with it; the perspective of some of the crew as they awaited rescue.

Danger Stalks the Land Kaniut - the "bear stories" author writes about more general survival stories.

Any of Spike Walker's stuff: Working the Edge, Nights of Ice, etc.

Great info, Thanks.
I have homework.

I had forgotten: I have read "Danger Stalks the Land" as well. I got it a few years back, it interested me as I was on a S&R team for a decade or so. (CAP< Civil Air Patrol. Per my understanding- far more a common knowledge there than I hear it ever was/is/will be here)

If you can find it...

"Hunters Of The Great North" by Vilhjalmur Steffanson, Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York, (c)1922.

From the woodlands of Manitoba, to the Dakotas, to New York, across Canada to the remote and wild north of Alaska and Canada, Steffanson lived a life that many of us envy in the great -- and unforgivingly harsh -- north country. He lived for years with the natives of that area.

His favorite rifle was a .256 Mannlicher Gibbs, with which he killed Polar bears, and everything else that roamed the far north country.

Enjoy.

L.W.

The Final Fronteirsman by James Campbell is a good read. It's about one of the last folks to legally homestead in ANWR.

I remember that one... it was pretty good.

Larry Kaniut's "Alaska Bear Tales". There are several volumes now. Just don't read it on the plane to bear camp...or any camp, really!

"Alaska's No. 1 Guide" about Andrew Berg.

"Hunters of the Northern Forests" I lent my only copy and regret it. Hard to find back in the 70 when I got this book. Maye next to impossible to find now. "My life with the Eskimo" vary good book but vary dated.

1) -148
2) Dangerous Footsteps: Tejas

Following the Alaskan Dream - Marilyn Jordan George.

Not a hunting book, but it's a really good look at what SE Alaska was like from the 40's through present day. It's autobiographical and follows her and her husband as they power troll around SE Alaska. Makes me think I was born about 50 years late.

Stephanson, definitely. You did pick a great one to start with. "Tikka"? - the spelling might be off. Written by a school teacher in Eagle in the 20's or 30's.

New Bedford Whaling Museum has a bunch of published stuff out about whaling off Alaska in the late 1880's, and since. Including some stuff pretty much unbelievable to us moderns- like the time an ice stranded group of whalers (80-some? ships were trapped and crushed in the ice) sent two messengers to Seattle- on foot-overland - for rescue. One man went more or less down the coast from north of Pt Hope (Icy Cape-?) - been a long time since I read this- caught a southbound ship in Kenai - the other went inland, thru a series of Hudson Bay Posts thru Canada. Each solo. They arrived a few months later within days (like 5!, IIRC) of each other, and a rescue operation was mounted, saving over 1,000 whalers and their wives, walking/whale-boating south on the ice pack along the coast to open water. That loss of ships, and a subsequent smaller ice-squeeze a few years later, the invention of elastic (vs baleen for corset stays) and "coal oil" doomed the New England whaling industry.

Louis L'Amour has died, but I've always wanted to see a yarn about the one whaler (Sackett?, Talon?) who deserted the refugee party, returned to the ice-fast ships, and spent the winter salvaging booku baleen to shore-side before the ships were crushed in moving ice, only to have the local Eskimos take it all away from him the next spring and - I'm guessing- sell it to one of the few remaining whaling ships.

If I could only write sufficiently well...... but my imagination- especially in creating dialog- is somewhat lacking, I'm afraid.

"Bush Pilot" by Bud Helmrickson ("You can play cat-and-mouse with the weather in the Arctic- as long as you remember who is 'mouse' "). He once got caught in the air in a white-out, turned around to go back to a long lake he knew he'd just overflown. Used the tips of live caribou antlers sticking out of the ground drift there for landing markers, praying there were none bedded down in his chosen landing path, with antlers/bodies hidden below the top of the drift. There weren't.

"Wager With the Wind" - about Don Sheldon, Mt. McKinley flyer, by Jim Greiner (with whom I tipped a few before he died). I also flew a few times with George Kitchen out of Cold Bay/Alaska Peninsula- he's mentioned in the book- the SECOND man to land a Super Cub on Ruth? Glacier - he should have listened to Sheldon, just ahead of him, but his pilot's instincts took over and he chopped throttle when the skis touched down, instead of keeping the power up and packing a take-off track up until he got turned around..... had a heck of a time getting his aircraft unstuck from the deep snow, then had to snow-shoe pack a take-off run .... Still a helluva a Cub pilot!

One time at Bear Lake, I watched him land in the length of his airplane. I told him as he handed our groceries and mail out the door (while, I think, standing on the brakes to keep from going backwards). "George- you should put a STAHL) (sp?) kit on this airplane."

"J.C." he exploded, "I'd never get the thing on the ground out here!"

Just thinking about those books make me shiver...

There are David Robert's books on climbing in AK as well - Deborah and The Mountain of My Fear.

I enjoyed Sitka Man as well, but it was on sale at Old Harbor books when I was there. Can't say that I'd work too hard to find a copy otherwise.

Scott

Make that "Tisha" !

Tkinak, I found you a couple of copies of Hardy Trefzger's "My 50 years in Alaska" on Amazon.com, heck they only range in price from $202.04 to $550.00, seems pretty reasonable. I'm sure you would loan me your copy after you had bought and read it..:)
I've read Alaska Game Trails, Shadows on the Koyukuk, & Alaska Yukon Trophies Won and Lost, will attest to them being good books.
Another I have just started that seems pretty interesting, is Born on Snowshoes by Evelyn B. Shore

Happen to be in one.

Has anyone read "Out of Season: The Johnny Luster Story"? Wondered if it was worth the buy, sounds good, but no cheap copies laying around the local book stores. Thanks!