Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In Alaska Tales the author recounts his extensive travels on the "Last Frontier" over the past twenty years. From an early age he was always fascinated with the concept of the frontier, rapidly diminishing in today's modern world. As one of the seekers in the back to the land movement of the early '70s he hitchhikes to Alaska in search of land and a wilderness lifestyle.
Mark A. York soon finds that federal homestead programs closed while he was still in high school and finding a legal site for a homestead is almost impossible. This begins a series of stops in the outposts of the north trying to find a niche in the woods.
The first stop is Talkeetna and the community of Chase at Mile Post 236 of the Alaska Railroad, the lifeline of the central Alaska bush. The residents are an eclectic bunch from a Brooklyn professor to those with a more dubious background. Old pioneers and newcomers converge in a somewhat controversial way to form a puzzling, but unique slice of Americana.
The next stop is a wilderness cabin off of a remote dirt highway near Denali National Park. A land of refugees from all points of the globe, each trying to find nirvana, but occasionally finding there still isn't enough room for everyone even in this vast space.
The story continues in the more settled areas of Anchorage, Juneau and Valdez in search of the necessary dollar and on to the wildest part of the continent: the Brooks Range in the winter; life on the edge of the earth; a story of those who leave the familiar behind for the possibility of the unknown.
From the Publisher
In Alaska Tales, Mark York travels the back trails of the last frontier in search of adventure and a simpler way of life close to the land. Meet the people who left the modern world behind for a rugged life in the shadows of Denali to the wilds of the Brooks Range. A life filled with wonder and an equal amount of danger; the real Alaska where the tour buses and cruise ships can't go.
Alaska Tales
Alaska Tales,Mark A. York,Writers Club Press,0595219977,Biography & Autobiography,Biography/Autobiography,Essays & Travelogues,General,Travel - General,United States - Pacific - Alaska
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