Aviation

Photos: 'Alaska's Skyboys'

Author Katherine Ringsmuth balances popular history and academic research in her fascinating new book, "Alaska's Skyboys: Cowboy Pilots and the Myth of the Last Frontier."

Ringsmuth writes of the pilots' exploits in the Wrangell, Chugach and Saint Elias mountain ranges and the towns of Valdez and Cordova. By her own admission, this is only a small part of the Alaska aviation story, but it is a critical one, full of intriguing characters whose adventures more than fill the pages.

Ringsmuth is concerned with more than recounting mercy flights and life-and-death struggles against the elements. As she outlines in her introduction, the author seeks to understand how the Bush pilot myth came to be.

While Ringsmuth, a senior galley curator at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, cannot resist repeating some hair-raising flying stories, she is measured in her analysis of aviation's economic impact on pilots and their communities. These men — and they were overwhelmingly men — were certainly brave, but the author is clear to point out they were smart businessmen, too. They spotted business opportunities and they pursued them. That people labeled them heroes in the process was an unexpected bonus.

Read more: Despite myths, 'Alaska's Skyboys' takes a measured look at pilots of the north

ADVERTISEMENT