<p>Thirty years ago, celebrated American writer EdwardHoagland, in his early fifties and already with a dozen acclaimed books underhis belt, had a choice: a midlife crisis or a midlife adventure. He chose theadventure.</p><p>Pencil and notebook at the ready, Hoagland set out toexplore and write about one of the last truly wild territories remaining on theface of the earth: Alaska. From the Arctic Ocean to the Kenai Peninsula, thebackstreet bars of Anchorage to the Yukon River, Hoagland traveled the “real”Alaska from top to bottom. Here he documents not only the flora and fauna ofAmerica’s last frontier, but also the extraordinary people living on thefringe. On his journey, he chronicles the lives of an astonishing andunforgettable array of prospectors, trappers, millionaire freebooters,drifters, oilmen, Eskimos, Indians, and a remarkably kind and capable frontiernurse named Linda. In his foreword, novelist Howard Frank Mosher describesEdward Hoagland’s memoir as “the best book ever written about America’s lastbest place.”</p><p>In thetradition of Twain’s <em>Life on the Mississippi</em> and Jonathan Raban’s <em>OldGlory</em>, with a beautifullove story at its heart, this is an American masterpiece from a writer hailedby the Washington Post as “the Thoreau of our times.”</p>