New Book List

"A biography of the extraordinary Nellie Cashman, a well-loved miner, entrepreneur and philanthropist who lived and worked in the roughest boomtowns of the West in the late-nineteenth century. At a time when well-bred women wore tight corsets and entertained each other at tea, Nellie Cashman (1845-1925) was trekking for hundreds of miles through blizzard conditions to deliver food and supplies to trapped miners in northern BC. An Irish immigrant, Cashman travelled from Boston to San Francisco in search of opportunity. She followed the mining boomtowns, all the way from California to northern BC, and Arizona to Alaska opening up restaurants and boarding houses, and staking mining claims. She was friends with the likes of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday during her years in Tombstone, and was known among them for her kind heartedness and charitable acts. This biography is a fresh look at the fascinating life of an under-appreciated historical character."-- Provided by publisher.

The story of Roshier H. Creecy is a portal into a reformative and rapidly changing era in America's history. Born in 1866, he was among the first generation of African Americans who were free to migrate. The societal obstacles Roshier encountered one hundred years ago, and his strategies to circumvent them, are still present for men of color today. Escaping southern culture intent of retaining a racial hierarchy, Roshier joined the U.S. Army's Ninth Cavalry, known as the "Buffalo Soldiers." Following the discharge, Roshier married in Washington, D.C., and had a son but chafed at the indignities of daily life under "Jim Crow" laws. He joined the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898 and became the owner of a roadhouse at which the North-West Mounted Police billeted. In 1906, he mushed his dog team to Alaska, bound for the Koyukuk gold fields, where he remained the rest of his life. Roshier's wanderings were prompted by the search for freedom and prosperity, but his journey led him to discover personal growth and sense of belonging in a wondrous wilderness hinting of gold

"The United States needed a road to Alaska so they could defend the Aleutians from Japan. They sent soldiers to build the Alaska Highway. The segregated Black 97th Engineers built the road in Alaska, and when their disorganized white officers struggled to make progress, the army replaced their commander. The new one got the job done but ignored military protocol and discipline, so the army, worried about undisciplined black soldiers, replaced him too. And to put the fear of God into the soldiers, the army trumped up a mutiny charge against ten of them and sentenced them to long prison terms at hard labor."

Summary"Mining has a significant presence in every part of Canada - from east to west coasts to the far north. This book tells the stories of the people and companies who pushed mining into new territories, created new towns and generated jobs by the thousands. It highlights the experiences of those who lived and worked in mining settlements across the country, as well as the rise of major mining companies and the emergence of Toronto and Vancouver as centres of global mining finance. It also addresses the effects these developments have had on Indigenous communities and the environmental changes and challenges that have accompanied mining at every step. Mining Country is richly illustrated with more than 150 photos drawn from the well-recorded history up to the present. The story begins with the development of copper mining and trading networks among pre-contact Indigenous groups in Canada. Industrial scale mining of iron and coal emerged in Quebec and Nova Scotia in the eighteenth century. The book describes the growth of mining towns in northern Ontario, Quebec and western Canada in the nineteenth century, and the famous Cariboo and Klondike Gold Rushes. Demand for strategic minerals and metals during the Second World War and the Cold War pushed development into remote northern regions. The most recent period embraces the North West Territories diamond rush and controversial expansion into Ontario's "Ring of Fire" region. Much has been written about the history of individual mining towns, mine unions and mining companies. This book offers a readable account of the full scope of this key industry's story, in words and a collection of carefully researched and selected visuals."-- Provided by publisher.

We are pleased to share with you Black History in the Last Frontier, published in 2020 and prepared by historian Dr. Ian Hartman through a partnership with the University of Alaska Anchorage and the National Park Service Alaska Regional Office. The book illuminates historical records and oral histories of African Americans who have worked and lived in Alaska for over 150 years – hunting for whales, patrolling the seas, building roads, serving in the military, opening businesses, winning political office, and forging communities.

Black History in the Last Frontier and the seven short companion stories featured below highlight the achievements and contributions of Alaska’s Black community, while demonstrating how these women and men have endured racism, fought injustice, and made a life and home for themselves in the forty-ninth state.

Nearly a thousand Yukoners, a quarter of the population, enlisted before the end of the Great War. They were lawyers, bankers, piano tuners, dockworkers and miners who became soldiers, nurses and snipers; brave men and women who traded the isolated beauty of the north for the muddy, crowded horror of the battlefields. Those who stayed home were no less important to the war’s outcome—by March of 1916, the Dawson Daily News estimated that Yukoners had donated often and generously at a rate of $12 per capita compared to the dollar per person donated elsewhere in the country. Historian Michael Gates tells us the stories of both those who left and those on the home front, including the adventures of Joe Boyle, who successfully escorted the Romanian crown jewels on a 1,300-kilometre journey through Russia in spite of robbers, ambushes, gunfire, explosions, fuel shortages and barricades. Gates also recounts the home-front efforts of Martha Black, who raised thousands of dollars and eventually travelled to Europe where she acted as an advocate for the Yukon boys. Stories of these heroes and many others are vividly recounted with impeccable research.

Tucked away in the northeastern corner of Alaska is one of the most contested landscapes in all of North America: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Considered sacred by Indigenous peoples in Alaska and Canada and treasured by environmentalists, the refuge provides life-sustaining habitat for caribou, polar bears, migratory birds, and other species. For decades, though, the fossil fuel industry and powerful politicians have sought to turn this unique ecosystem into an oil field. Defending the Arctic Refuge tells the improbable story of how the people fought back. At the center of the story is the unlikely figure of Lenny Kohm (1939-2014), a former jazz drummer and aspiring photographer who passionately committed himself to Arctic Refuge activism. With the aid of a trusty slide show, Kohm and representatives of the Gwich'in Nation traveled across the United States to mobilize grassroots opposition to oil drilling. From Indigenous villages north of the Arctic Circle to Capitol Hill and many places in between, this book shows how Kohm and Gwich'in leaders and environmental activists helped build a political movement that transformed the debate into a struggle for environmental justice. In its final weeks, the Trump administration fulfilled a long-sought dream of drilling proponents: leasing much of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain for fossil fuel development. Yet the fight to protect this place is certainly not over. Defending the Artic Refuge traces the history of a movement that is alive today--and that will continue to galvanize diverse groups to safeguard this threatened land.

For many communities around the world, the revitalization or at least the preservation of an indigenous language is a pressing concern. Understanding the issue involves far more than compiling simple usage statistics or documenting the grammar of a tongue—it requires examining the social practices and philosophies that affect indigenous language survival.

In presenting the case of Kaska, an endangered language in an Athabascan community in the Yukon, Barbra A. Meek asserts that language revitalization requires more than just linguistic rehabilitation; it demands a social transformation. The process must mend rips and tears in the social fabric of the language community that result from an enduring colonial history focused on termination. These “disjunctures” include government policies conflicting with community goals, widely varying teaching methods and generational viewpoints, and even clashing ideologies within the language community.

"The Yukon River is 3,190 kilometres long, flowing northwest from British Columbia through the Yukon Territory and Alaska to the Bering Sea. Every summer, millions of salmon migrate the distance of this river to their spawning ground, where they go to breed and then die. The Chinook is the most highly prized among the five species of Pacific salmon for its large size and rich, healthy oils. It has long since formed the lifeblood of the economy and culture along the Yukon--there are few communities that have been so reliant on a single source. Now, as the region contends with the effects of a globalized economy, climate change, fishing quotas and the general drift towards urban life, the health and numbers of the Chinook are in question, as is the fate of the communities that depend on them. Travelling in a canoe along the Yukon River with the migrating salmon, a three-month journey through untrammeled wilderness, Adam Weymouth traces the profound interconnectedness of the people and the Chinook through searing portraits of the individuals he encounters. He offers a powerful, nuanced glimpse into the erosion of indigenous culture, and into our ever-complicated relationship with the natural world. Weaving in the history of the salmon run and their mysterious life cycle, Kings of the Yukon is extraordinary adventure and nature writing and social history at its most compelling."-- Provided by publisher.

"Yukon Historian Michael Gates unearths the rich origin story of Eagle Mine, the largest gold mine to ever operate in Yukon territory. Generations of prospectors and miners have sought to unlock the mineral treasures from the craggy hills of Dublin Gulch, in the heart of the Yukon wilderness. On this tiny tributary, an hour north of the village of Mayo, families were raised and lives lived, dreaming of finding the motherlode. For a century, miners and their families sifted gold from Dublin gravels while prospectors with grit, drive and determination burrowed into the granite below, seeking elusive veins of gold. Yet, it was there all along, invisible to the eye, waiting for the right people to find it and the right technology to release it from the bedrock. This story begins with these dreamers and ends with the opening of the Yukon's biggest gold mine: The Eagle. It is the story of the little company that could, Victoria Gold; of a veteran miner, John McConnell; and his committed team of determined men and women who beat the odds and turned the dream into a reality. With insight into both the natural and human forces at play, author Michael Gates illuminates an important history of a profoundly significant industry in the Yukon--and in doing so, illuminates the landscape of the North with verve, detail and affection."-- Provided by publisher.

"Hundreds of hardy people have tried to carve a living in the Alaskan bush, but few have succeeded as consistently as Heimo Korth. Originally from Wisconsin, Heimo traveled to the Arctic wilderness in his twenties. Now, more than three decades later, Heimo lives with his wife and two daughters approximately 200 miles from civilization—a sustainable, nomadic life bounded by the migrating caribou, the dangers of swollen rivers, and by the very exigencies of daily existence.

In The Final Frontiersman, Heimo’s cousin James Campbell chronicles the Korth family’s amazing experience, their adventures, and the tragedy that continues to shape their lives. With a deft voice and in spectacular, at times unimaginable detail, Campbell invites us into Heimo’s heartland and home. The Korths wait patiently for a small plane to deliver their provisions, listen to distant chatter on the radio, and go sledding at 44 degrees below zero—all the while cultivating the hard-learned survival skills that stand between them and a terrible fate.

Awe-inspiring and memorable, The Final Frontiersman reads like a rustic version of the American Dream and reveals for the first time a life undreamed by most of us: amid encroaching environmental pressures, apart from the herd, and alone in a stunning wilderness that for now, at least, remains the final frontier." Back Cover

Above the Arctic Circle transports the reader back in time to the Alaska of 1911 into the Athabaskan Indian village of Fort Yukon and beyond. It was a time when travel was by trail or river on routes shared by man and wild beast, when communication reached only as far as the echo of one's voice, and when the first order of each new day was survival in the face of unyielding natural elements. This is the time and place chronicled in the personal journals of James A. Carroll: explorer, pioneer, dogsled musher, trapper, trader, husband, and father. It is an authentic first-hand account of a young man's first decade in the territory of Alaska, a straightforward telling of the adversity and adventures of life on the far north frontier. This story, told with honesty and more than a little humor, offers a kind of kinship connecting author and reader thereby extending a personal invitation to take the journey north through time with James A. Carroll -- Above the Arctic Circle