This collection of Alaskan adventures begins with a newspaper article written by John Muir during his first visit to Alaska in 1879, when the sole U.S. government representative in all the territory's 586,412 square miles was a lone customs official in Sitka. It closes with accounts of the gold rush and the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle. Jean Meaux has gathered a superb collection of articles and stories that captivated American readers when they were first published and that will continue to entertain us today. The authors range from Charles Hallock (the founder of Forest and Stream, a precursor of Field and Stream) to New York society woman Mary Hitchcock, who traveled with china, silver, and a 2,800 square foot tent. After explorer Henry Allen wore out his boots, he marched barefoot as he continued mapping the Tanana River, and Episcopal Archdeacon Hudson Stuck mushed by dog sled in Arctic winters across a territory encompassing 250,000 miles of the northern interior.

Although the United States acquired Alaska in 1867, it took more than a decade for American writers and explorers to focus attention on a territory so removed from their ordinary lives. These writers-adventurers, tourists, and gold seekers-would help define the nation's perception of Alaska and would contribute to an image of the state that persists today. This collection unearths early writings that offer a broad view of American encounters with Alaska accompanied by Meaux's lively and concise introductions. The present-day adventurer will find much to inspire exploration, while students of the American West can gain new access to this valuable trove of pre-Gold Rush Alaska archives.

For more information go to: inpursuitofalaska.com

Foreword by Stephen Haycox

Preface: Jumping Off the End of the Earth

Acknowledgments

Note on Original Sources

PART I. ROMANTIC VOYAGE: A TOUR OF SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA

1. John Muir, Fort Wrangel, Alaska, August 8, 1879

2. Charles Hallock, A Great Day in Sitka

3. C. C. Hine, The Patriarch and His Little Detective

4. Septima M. Collis, The Alaska Barnum's Dancers

5. Charles M. Taylor, Jr., Riding the Rails through White Pass Canyon

PART II. UNTAMED ALASKA: INTO THE VAST UNKNOWN

6. Caroline Willard, Chilcat Mission, Haines, Alaska

7. Lieutenant Henry T. Allen, Living Upon the Country

8. H. W. Seton Karr, Escape from Icy Bay

9. John Bremner, Living Off the Enemy

10. Herbert L. Aldrich, Whaling with the Fleet of 1887

11. Harry de Windt, Perilous Crawl Up the Chilkoot

12. Captain William Abercrombie, One Night on Valdez Glacier

13. Robert Dunn, From Nowhere to Nowhere

14. Agnes Herbert, Invitation to a Card Game

15. Hudson Stuck, Mistakes at Sixty Below

PART III. INEXHAUSTIBLE OPTIMISM: THE MAD RUSH FOR GOLD

16. Ernest Ingersoll, Outfit for an Argonaut

17. Robert C. Kirk, Heartbreak on the White Pass

18. Mary E. Hitchcock, Ho for the Land of Gold!

19. J. D. Winchester, The Mosquitoes' Bugle on the Koyukuk

20. Josiah Edward Spurr, A Bureaucrat Comes to Call

21. Joseph Grinnell, Pluck on the Kowak

22. May Kellogg Sullivan, No Time for Sonatas

23. M. Clark, Playing for Stakes

24. Edward J. Devine, The Great White Silence

25. Addison M. Powell, The Alien God of Gold

26. Arthur Arnold Dietz, On the Other Side of Disenchantment Bay

27. John F. Stacey, Twenty-One Days from Rampart City

Epilogue: A Cabin on the Edge of the Forest

Chronology of Alaska History through 1910

Bibliography