Explore Alaska

Have you received your "personal" invitation from Sarah Palin to come visit? I have (it's a yellow envelope, so keep an eye out), but with the recent winter weather and storms, I think I'll just read about it in front of the fire, instead. Although today's temps in most coastal areas of Alaska are actually warmer than here in TN, after 70F to 90F degree warmups in the last week, winters in Alaska are not for the faint of heart or for those with small pocketbooks. Mistakes in planning can mean disaster and even death due to exposure and the storms this winter are starting to take their toll on those dependent on imported fuel for winter heat and Juneau is once again dependent on diesel for electricity due to avalanche damage to their incoming electric lines. But not everyone in Alaska is tied to the modern world. Instead, a hardy few still live in much the same manner as the early settlers to the area.

The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska's Arctic Wilderness $7.99. Note that there are two Kindle editions of this book, one shows a cover and the other does not, which appears to be the only difference between the two. The one with the cover image sells for $9.59, while the $7.99 edition above is the one linked from both the paperback and hardcover editions.

I'll have to admit, Heimo Korth has divorced himself from the modern world in a pretty extreme way. He's a true subsistence hunter, the only permanent resident of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Living on the northern border of the interior, temps of -50F are a normal winter day. But the possible record of -80F might have even convinced him that it was a might cold winter day (and it's a "possible" record because the thermometers in use are only certified accurate down to around -50F, which was considered to be good enough for the region).

One reviewer noted that if Chris McCandless, the subject of JonKrakauer's Into the Wild had read The Final Frontiersman first, he might still be alive today. For those who have only seen the movie, the book goes into more depth, providing insight in the character in a way that a movie seldom does. Another book McCandless might wanted to have read was James Oliver Curwood's The Alaskan or John Muir's Travels in Alaska (free at Manybooks.Net), as Muir's solitary travels suited his spirit more than the mode of travel highlighted in the average guidebook to Alaska, such as the aptly named Alaska Highway Adventure Guide (Adventure Guides), where you seldom are far from a paved road (although still the adventures are more remote and wilder than what you'd find on a highway in the lower 48).

Steve Rinella is another modern adventurer in Alaska, one of 24 people in 2005 to win a lottery to hunt buffalo in the foothills of Alaska's Wrangell Mountains and which he writes about in American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon. Unlike McCandless, Rinella heads out prepared with a compass, rifle, bone saw and skinning knife, all of which he puts to use. If you prefer your adventures to be with smaller (and colder) game, consider Fool's Paradise, by Gierach & Wolff:

"You're on a lovely, remote wilderness river in the Alaskan backcountry. There are people who would make this trip and not even bring a fishing rod." Musing on the enduring appeal of fishing, Gierach theorizes, "We're so used to the fake and the packaged that encountering something real can amount to a borderline religious experience." Equal parts fishing lore, philosophy, and great fish stories, Fool's Paradise may not be a perfect substitute for actually being out on the water, but it's surely the next best thing.

For a guide that is more specific to Alaska (Fool's Paradise also covers British Columbia and the Rocky Mountains), be sure to check out Flyfishing Alaska and Fly-Fishing Secrets of Alaska's Best Guides. And if your adventure plans don't include fishing or hunting, there is still plenty to do and lots of guidebooks to assist you, from 50 Hikes in Alaska's Chugach State Park to Alaska's Southeast, 11th: Touring the Inside Passage to The Unofficial Guide to Adventure Travel in Alaska to Coming into the Country.

If you are more interested in the history of the region, be sure to read Alaska, an in depth 600+ page treatise that covers everything from the first European explorers thru the activism of native Alaskans' in the 60's. Or, if you would rather explore the eccentricities of a "typical" small town in Alaska, don't miss If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska. It might not answer every question you have about Sarah Palin, but it will shed some insight on the odder things that came up about her hometown during the election (after all, if the entire world is your small town and you know everyone's name, perhaps feeling Russia is just over the next hill isn't all that unreasonable). Just be glad some of the other characters in this biography/memoir weren't picked instead.