I read John McPhee's "Coming Into the Country" and Joe McGinness's "Going to Extremes" in the late 70's. I hadn't even been there then, and long before the TV gold mining craze hit, but the two images that still prevail are the "ice fog" McGinness describes on a -40 degree day in Fairbanks, and the guy in McPhee's book who drove a Cat D9 up the AlCan to his homestead on the Yukon. Not a lot of hunting and fishing stories, but good writing and powerful descriptions. I've since fly fished it 4 times on the Alagnak R. and other and Iliamna drainages, but cant say I have any other knowledge of the state than that of a tourist, so I dont know if McPhee and McGinness were simply writing for the urban masses or whether their observations were accurate. Little of both, I suspect. Good reads, nevertheless.
Quite accurate!
As a sequel to Coming Into The Country, you might enjoy A Land Gone Lonesome by Dan O'Neil as he brings the reader up to date on the places and characters of John McPhee's book.
O'Neil also wrote The Firecracker Boys an interesting story of the attempt by Edwin Teller to create a harbor in NW Alaska with nuclear explosions.
