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Eighteen Wheels North to Alaska Click Picture of Cover for Larger View Bishop, Cliff $19.95 In spite of the obstacles the Alaska truckers were presented with they never weakened in their determination to get the job done. These pioneer drivers never conquered or tamed Alaska's roads and weather, but they learned to operate on the back trails and paths--always making their way to the trip's end. In spite of all the challenges, they never quit. The following from Teddy Roosevelt is an appropriate salute to Alaskan truckers: "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that high place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." Eighteen Wheels North to Alaska: A History of Trucking in Alaska is the story of Alaskan drivers who guided, coaxed, pushed, pulled, plowed, and somehow made it to the end of the road--and beyond--over high mountain passes, whiteout conditions, seventy below zero temperature, through mud, muck, and tundra terrain--even onto the Arctic Ocean ice beyond the shore. Eowyn and Linus on the Iditarod Trial Click Picture of Cover for Larger View Henry, Guy $12.95 Why would anyone run more than a thousand miles through some of the world's most untamed arctic wilderness? What makes the sled dog a stand-out athlete? Can 16 dogs carry a man all that distance? Eowyn and Linus on the Iditarod Trial: Two Alaska Sled Dog's Adventure on Alaska's Iditarod Trail to Nome gives a dog's eye view of the last great race on earth with breath-taking photos taken straight from the trail. Join Eowyn and Linus on their first trek through the great white north. El Gancho Click Picture of Cover for Larger View Travis, Michael $29.95 Prudenciano Nava is a Mexican colleador -- a rodeo performer of exceptional skill and strength who flips bulls on their backs by grabbing their tails. A trained horse and agile colleador partner allowed him to escape the deadly horns, and bask in the admiration of the crowd. Nava, scornful of honest labor, has an uncontrollable temper, a weakness for drink, and abandoned his wife. Pursued on horseback, the 49-year old Nava eloped with his brother's 15-year-old stepdaughter, leaving the drudgery of his father's rancho, for riches in Mexico's northern states. But the Mexican revolution explodes, shattering the nation and Nava's dreams. He and his family flee north yet again. During a botched train holdup in New Mexico, Nava nearly kills a man; now he must elude the law and a fearsome Apache bounty hunter. Nava becomes Tereso Minjares and seeks a quiet life. But his lust for fame lures him to run guns for the legendary rebel, Pancho Villa. Ultimately humbled, Tereso never realizes that he was the instrument of the greatest El Gancho (Hook) of all. Because of Tereso's faults and God-given strengths, the Minjares family is brought to a new destiny in Los Estados Unidos. El Gancho, the true stories of an illiterate great-grandfather once taken as a spinner of exaggerated tales, is the experience of real people who endured the hardships of history, and became the foundation of a nation. Elim Click Picture of Cover for Larger View Jackson, Joan $9.95 Elim, The Determined Athlete is based on a true story and told according to the pup. Elim, The Determined Athlete, reveals the real reason a four month old Alaska village husky joined champion musher, Jeff King's team on the Iditarod trail. Uplifting and motivating, the reader learns about setting goals, working hard, proving oneself, and ignoring peer rebuffs. Jeff King assisted the pup in becoming a real athlete -- a sled dog, instead of just another basketball wanna-be. Elnguq Click Picture of Cover for Larger View Jacobson, Anna $12.95 Elnguq, An Alaskan Girl's Childhood in the Alaska Wilderness is a translation of the first novel written in the Yup'ik Eskimo language of Southwestern Alaska. Its author, Anna Jacobson, was born and spent her early years in a small, remote and now long abandoned Native settlement in the vastness of the mountains, rivers, forests, and tundra of Southwestern Alaska. As a girl, the author imagined that the few inhabitants of her settlement surrounded as they were by seemingly endless wilderness -- were the only people in the world. This book, though a work of fiction, draws on those early memories, portraying a traditional Native Alaskan way of life. "Elnguq," the name of the young girl who is the main character of the story, is the Yup'ik Eskimo word for "birch tree," and it also means "strength through flexibility." Coincidentally, "Elnguq" has another meaning: "that which is." Enticed by Gold Click Picture of Cover for Larger View De Vries, Doug $12.00 In the spring of 1902, Sven Olafsen decides to return home to Minnesota, but he doesn't want to leave his partner, old Tunis Vander Werff, who refuses to leave Alaska. After traveling from Nome by dog sled and river boat, they arrive at Captain Barnette's store on the banks of the Chena River. Pedro Felix's discovery of gold in the area shortly after their arrival leads Sven and Tunis north into the hills where they stake claims on three streams. Sven stays with Tunis through another winter and into the summer of 1903. Together they build cabins on two of their claims and another in the developing town of Fairbanks. Together they dig shafts in hope of finding more gold, and together they face scoundrels who attempt to take over their claims. Enticed by Gold Hard Cover Click Picture of Cover for Larger View De Vries, Doug $12.00 In the spring of 1902, Sven Olafsen decides to return home to Minnesota, but he doesn't want to leave his partner, old Tunis Vander Werff, who refuses to leave Alaska. After traveling from Nome by dog sled and river boat, they arrive at Captain Barnette's store on the banks of the Chena River. Pedro Felix's discovery of gold in the area shortly after their arrival leads Sven and Tunis north into the hills where they stake claims on three streams. Sven stays with Tunis through another winter and into the summer of 1903. Together they build cabins on two of their claims and another in the developing town of Fairbanks. Together they dig shafts in hope of finding more gold, and together they face scoundrels who attempt to take over their claims. Erik's Story Click Picture of Cover for Larger View Thompson, Linda $17.95 Erik's Story is the true story of young Erik David Behnke, born with Down's Syndrome, autism, and at one time --no future. His single mother, Linda Kay Thompson, takes a job in rural Kenny Lake, Alaska, as a special education teacher, determined to free the light she glimpses within her child. Where everyone struggles to survive in a frigid land, Linda finds more than a loving community; she discovers her oldest son is an artistic savant. Thrilled beyond her greatest hopes, she works tirelessly, helping him develop as a professional artist, which she knows absolutely nothing about, before he graduates from high school. Erik has three professional shows in Alaska his first year, which lead to his art being shown and sold around the world. Erik's Story is a triumph of survival, the faith of a family, and the grace that is love. Extreme Conditions Click Picture of Cover for Larger View Strohmeyer, John $15.95 Pulitzer-winning journalist Strohmeyer (Crisis in Bethlehem, 1986) examines in relentless, devastating detail the wealth of miseries brought to Alaska with the 1967 discovery of oil deposits at Prudhoe Bay. In chronicling oil exploration in the region from post-WW II prestatehood days onward, a number of key figures emerge--from gung-ho state boosters to field engineers whose optimistic prognostications were finally justified, and on to the Native American activists whose vigilance enabled their people to gain a sizable share of the bounty through leases of their land. With the first big strikes came a variety of turf battles, such as a lengthy dispute over the construction of an 800-mile pipeline from the oil fields, or one over the right to dispense enormous state revenues garnered from the crude once it began to flow. Swindles abounded as politicians and businessmen vied for a piece of the action, with corruption also tainting the Native Americans, who experienced for the first time the seductive pleasures of a cash economy. A particularly egregious misuse of oil money occurred in the North Slope municipality of Barrow as millions were siphoned from public- works projects by advisers to the Eskimo mayor in the early 1980's, creating a statewide scandal and prompting litigation that ultimately allowed the worst offenders to go unpunished. Furthermore, the influence of oil interests lulled legislators into a sense of false security regarding supertankers plying Alaska's dangerous waters, so that the disastrous spill from the Exxon Valdez in 1989 was simply an accident waiting to happen. At times overly strident in its crusading tone, but still a damning, vivid study of a state all but undone by wealth and greed.