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A Land Gone Lonesome by Dan O’Neil.

I've a book, copyright 1983 that I enjoyed titled "My Lost Wilderness" by Ralph W. Young

Does he ring a bell with anyone?

Would a few folks mind going into more detail on, "Pilgrim's Wilderness- A True Story of Faith and Madness On the Alaskan Frontier" by Tom Kizzia. I'm not from that area but am interested in the story behind the story. Thanks -tnscouter

''Caribou, Have you read “The Last Shot”? It’s a good read about how the Confederates chased the North’s whaling ships around the world during the civil war and since word of the surrender at Appomattox hadn’t gotten to them and for them the war continued long after the surrender.''

Yes. I eat that stuff up!!

Indeed, not only did the destroy the Yankee Whaling fleet in the Arctic, but they didnt kill anyone doing so.....

When the US Gov sued Brittan for selling the Shenandoah (sp??) to the Confederacy, and its subsequent ravaging of a very wealthy industry, the payoff was used to fund the purchase of Territorial Rights over Alaska in 1867.....

I have found, a few years back, in the sands, what I believe is the keel to the ship ''Lousiana'', a whaler that the Shenandoah chased into Kotzebue Sound and grounded off Garnet point just inside Escholts Bay (on my way to the Kiwalik, I know it well)
When they got stuck, the crew burned the shjp rather than accept capture, and jumped on a small sloop and went into the very shallow Escholts Bay to escape the Confederates.
Its mostly buried, but we dug and looked at a 3x3 x100 or so feet long oak timber with bronze fittings, and records show that that was the only ship of that size to have sunk in the Sound....

I wrote this years ago, but it mentions it;

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/summer-hunting-2-sir-john-franklin.471886/


''Several books on the northland by Vilhjalmur Stefansson including defense of himself for the Wrangle Island debacles. Enjoyed reading his stuff, but he was obviously quite the self promoter.

A north east account that's a short and fun read is Nunaga by Duncan Pryde. A Hudson Bay account of times when some of us here were youngsters.

Also amazing what disease and alcohol did to Alaska's natives back in the day.''


Stefansson was a prolific writer, mostly about the Northern shores of Alaskas Coast and Islands, and the doings of Eskimo and Whalers and the side storys of Ada Black Jack, and others who ended up on Wrangle Island (The story of the USS Jeanette, etc)

Alcohol and Disease have wracked the world again and again. Most went on unrecorded, but the awfull accounts are not only Alaskan Natives, but around the world, several society's adapted and some just dissapeard. "Guns, Germs and Steel'', is a great book on that subject. My connect would be that wifes grandmother died in the 1918 flu in Nome.

Get a copy of "Grizzlies Don't Come Easy." He guided for brown bear in SE AK for a long time. Out of Ketchikan IIRC. I think he wrote a third book, also.

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!