By Rod Perry (Sundog Media, $19.95)
The blurb: Volume I is the most complete and accurate telling of how the fabled Iditarod Trail came to be. As it relates the 1840-1930 progression of events establishing the "Last Great Gold Rush Trail in North America," the book educates and corrects long-standing myths and misinformation that have grown up.
Excerpt: "Through the early winter of 1908 as snows again whitened the land, Colonel Goodwin's reconnoitered route between McGrath and Susitna Station lay dormant except for the occasional prospector possessed of some powerful need to dare the passage and take on the cruel vicissitudes. Out on that desolate stretch, nothing had changed. As far as anyone knew, nothing would.
"Near the foothills of the Kuskokwims, Beaton and Dikeman, with the help of Murdock, sank test hole after test hole, probing the unknown country for the yellow lure."
Wild for Alaska
By Jerry S. Dixon (Entry Way Publishing, $11)
The blurb: Dixon has been a smokejumper, a fire management officer and a fire ecologist for the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service. He is a philosopher, a biologist, an ultramarathoner, a climber, a kayaker, an extreme skier, a conservationist, a guide, a writer and a teacher of the gifted. In this book he recounts his adventures.
Excerpt: "The inner gorge of the Alsek River's Turnback Canyon is a place where few people in the world have ever been. On one side, smooth, water-carved rock walls drop precipitously into the savage current. A steady rain of debris slides off the slopes of Mt. Blackadar and the glaciers above. Across the Alsek is the Tweedsmuir Glacier, eight miles wide and 40 miles long. It pushes to the water's edge, some years surging and blocking the Alsek entirely so that the river flows under the ice."
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