from the 17th Kate Shugak novel

One Memorial Day Father Smith was the proud proprietor of a forty-acre homestead in the Park, a wife and seventeen children, all of whom still lived at home.   Not that he would ever have admitted it, even to himself, this registered as nothing compared to the fact that he was the sole owner of…

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Everyone is lockstepped into obedience, of culture, of class, of church, of citizenship

This book will stay on my shelf, as I can see myself pulling it down from time to time and checking out all those pages I dogeared and all those passages I highlighted. One thing, though–I’m not entirely certain the authors answered their own question–how did humanity get stuck in this particular rut? They posit three freedoms–the…

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In Alaska, the first Saturday in March is reserved for the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

O Lord give my dogs / the strength to continue on / and me the knowledge to survive. —Richard Burmeister, “The Musher’s Prayer” QAEY WILLIAMS HAS BEEN standing in line in front of the Fourth Avenue Theater in Anchorage since eight am. It is the first Saturday in March. She is armed with a folding chair, a…

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from the 16th Kate Shugak novel

Six months ago VANCOUVER, BC (AP) – A Canadian-based mining firm, Global Harvest Resources Inc. (GHRI) yesterday announced the discovery of a gold, copper and molybdenum deposit on state-leased land in Alaska’s Iqaluk Wildlife Refuge.  At a press conference at the company’s headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, GHRI said preliminary estimates put the recoverable gold…

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Close encounters with Generals Bradley and Eisenhower, J.R.R. Tolkien, and a near miss with Ernest Hemingway

Another slam-bang (as always, especially bang) adventure featuring Earl Swagger, Bob Lee’s father, set after the D-Day invasion of France. The Allied advance has bogged down due to a band of German snipers terrorizing the front lines and the Americans call in Earl, a Marine master sergeant who made his bones on Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and…

Read more Close encounters with Generals Bradley and Eisenhower, J.R.R. Tolkien, and a near miss with Ernest Hemingway