You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Leaving behind a nomadic and dangerous career as a journalist, Sarah DeVaughan returns to India, the country of her childhood and a place of unspeakable family tragedy, to help preserve the endangered Bengal tigers. Meanwhile, at home in Kentucky, her sister, Quinn-also deeply scarred by the past and herself a keeper of secrets-tries to support her sister, even as she fears that India will be Sarah's undoing. As Sarah faces challenges in her new job-made complicated by complex local politics and a forbidden love-Quinn copes with their mother's refusal to talk about the past, her son's life-threatening illness, and her own increasingly troubled marriage. When Sarah asks Quinn to join her in I...
Written with wit, wisdom, and a grateful heart, A Tender Distance presents fifteen finely-crafted vignettes that explore the perils and joys of raising two fearless boys from toddlerhood to young men. Mothers everywhere will relate to the hard, familiar choice between holding close and letting go. "Presents parenting on a 'high-voltage tightrope' between adventure and safety in rugged conditions." --Foreword Footnotes This is a mother's story about raising her two boys in Alaska were wilderness is just out the back door of their home. Written with wit, wisdom, and a grateful heart, A Tender Distance presents fifteen finely-crafted vignettes that explore the perils and joys of raising two fearless boys from toddlerhood to young men. Mothers everywhere will relate to the hard, familiar choice between holding close and letting go.
Ray and Barbara Bane worked as teachers in Barrow and Wainwright, Alaska, in the early 1960s—but they didn’t simply teach the children of their Iñupiat Eskimo and Koyukon friends and neighbors: they fully embraced their lifestyle. Doing so, they realized how closely intertwined life in the region was with the land, and, specifically, how critical wilderness was to the ancient traditions and wisdom that undergirded the Native way of life. That slow realization came to a head during a 1,200-mile dogsled trip from Hughes to Barrow in 1974—a trip that led them to give up teaching in favor of working, through the National Park Service, to preserve Alaska’s wilderness. This book tells their story, a tale of dedication and tireless labor in the face of suspicion, resistance, and even violence. At a time when Alaska’s natural bounty remains under threat, Our Perfect Wild shows us an example of the commitment—and love—that will be required to preserve it.
Barrie Gilbert’s fascination with grizzly bears almost got him killed in Yellowstone National Park. He recovered, returned to fieldwork and devoted the next several decades to understanding and protecting these often-maligned giants. He has spent thousands of hours among wild grizzles in Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, Alberta, coastal British Columbia, and along Brooks River in Alaska’s Katmai National Park, where hundreds of people gather to watch dozens of grizzlies feast on salmon. His research has centered on how bears respond to people and each other, with a focus on how to keep humans and bears safe. Drawn from his decades of experience, One of Us: A Biologist’s Walk Among Bears explodes myths that depict grizzlies as bloodthirsty beasts that “kill for pleasure” and reveals the intelligent, adaptable side of these astonishingly social animals. He also explains their pivotal role in maintaining and protecting their fragile ecosystems. Accordingly, Gilbert pulls no punches when outlining threats to bear conservation. Most importantly, this book extolls a new way of appreciating grizzly bears, the same way we regard wolves, whales, chimpanzees, and gorillas.
Sarah Palin, a tough 42-year-old former small-town mayor, became a long-shot candidate for Alaska governor by demanding a higher ethical standard in state government. Surprising everyone, Palin won the general election to become Alaska's first female chief executive.
Barrie Gilbert’s fascination with grizzly bears almost got him killed in Yellowstone National Park. He recovered, returned to fieldwork and devoted the next several decades to understanding and protecting these often-maligned giants. He has spent thousands of hours among wild grizzles in Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, Alberta, coastal British Columbia, and along Brooks River in Alaska’s Katmai National Park, where hundreds of people gather to watch dozens of grizzlies feast on salmon. His research has centered on how bears respond to people and each other, with a focus on how to keep humans and bears safe. Drawn from his decades of experience, One of Us: A Biologist’s Walk Among Bears explodes myths that depict grizzlies as bloodthirsty beasts that “kill for pleasure” and reveals the intelligent, adaptable side of these astonishingly social animals. He also explains their pivotal role in maintaining and protecting their fragile ecosystems. Accordingly, Gilbert pulls no punches when outlining threats to bear conservation. Most importantly, this book extolls a new way of appreciating grizzly bears, the same way we regard wolves, whales, chimpanzees, and gorillas.
In July 1923, President Warren G. Harding visited Alaska to drive in the ""Golden Spike"" commemorating the grand opening of the new, federally funded railroad linking Seward with Fairbanks. The Government Railroad had taken eight years and the influence of three U.S. presidents to complete. Shortly afterward, it was renamed the Alaska Railroad. In the eighty-plus years since then, America's northernmost railroad has remained a critical transportation link, a working train as well as a touring train that wends through some of the most fabulous country in the nation. Resplendent in blue and gold, the engines and cars of the Alaska Railroad remain disconnected from other rail lines, set apart on a track that travels north through the wilderness to a dead end near Fairbanks, and south to a dead end at the seaport of Seward. But, oh, what beauty lies between. In this lavishly illustrated and authoritative book, the Alaska Railroad rides in the spotlight. Through words and color-rich photos, Johnson and Corral offer an entertaining history of the railroad, the routes, the engines and railcars, the landscape and wildlife, and much more.
The history of the Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area in Alaska. A comprehensive guide to early settlement history of the region.
Originally from the Denver suburbs, the author later moved to Palmer, Alaska, where she began to take horseback riding lessons. As a novice horsewoman, Nancy Pfeiffer took off across Patagonia alone on horseback. Over the next two decades and three thousand kilometers of rugged horse trail, the hospitable people who live there took her in, and Patagonia slipped silently into her soul.
The history of the small frontier town of Moose Pass in Alaska at the turn of the century.