In pursuit of Alaska : an anthology of travelers' tales, 1879-1909 / Jean Morgan Meaux.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Meaux, Jean Morgan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

History.

Frontier and pioneer life.

Alaska--Description and travel--Anecdotes.

Alaska.

Travelers' writings.

Frontier and pioneer life--Alaska--Anecdotes.

Alaska--History--1867-1959--Anecdotes.

Genre:

Anecdotes.

Physical Description:

xxviii, 284 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2013]

Summary:

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 socialite 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 dogsled 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 fives. 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 of early writings, accompanied by Meaux's lively and concise introductions, offers a broad view of American encounters with Alaska. 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. Book jacket.

Contents:

Preface: Jumping Off the End of the Earth

Note on Original Sources

Part I. Romantic Voyage : A Tour of Southeastern Alaska

Fort Wrangel, Alaska, August 8, 1879 / John Muir

A Great Day in Sitka / Charles Hallock

The Patriarch and His Little Detective / C.C. Hine

The Alaska Barnum's Dancers / Septima M. Collis

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

Part II. Untamed Alaska : Into the Vast Unknown

Chilcat Mission, Haines, Alaska / Caroline Willard

Living Upon the Country / Lieutenant Henry T. Allen

Escape from Icy Bay / H.W. Seton Karr

Living Off the Enemy / John Bremner

Whaling with the Fleet of 1887 / Herbert L. Aldrich

Perilous Crawl Up the Chilkoot / Harry de Windt

One Night on Valdez Glacier / Captain William Abercrombie

From Nowhere to Nowhere / Robert Dunn

Invitation to a Card Game / Agnes Herbert

Mistakes at Sixty Below / Hudson Stuck

Part III. Inexhaustible Optimism : The Mad Rush for Gold

Outfit for an Argonaut / Ernest Ingersoll

Heartbreak on the White Pass / Robert C. Kirk

Ho for the Land of Gold! / Mary E. Hitchcock

The Mosquitoes' Bugle on the Koyukuk / J.D. Winchester

A Bureaucrat Comes to Call / Josiah Edward Spurr

Pluck on the Kowak / Joseph Grinnell

No Time for Sonatas / May Kellogg Sullivan

Playing for Stakes / M. Clark

The Great White Silence / Edward J. Devine

The Alien God of Gold / Addison M. Powell

On the Other Side of Disenchantment Bay / Arthur Arnold Dietz

Twenty-One Days from Rampart City / John F. Stacey

Epilogue: A Cabin on the Edge of the Forest

Chronology of Alaska History through 1910.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780295992884

0295992883

OCLC:

817563143