Peril and Promise: Mostly True Stories of Alaska

Peril and Promise is a captivating collection of more than two dozen narratives that cover Alaska’s history and legend, and its shaping over nearly three centuries since the Russian “Discovery” of the Great Land and the people who had been there for thousands of years. The stories take us through the troubled voyage of Bering and Chirikhof and the “Days of Destruction” that followed. As Russia consolidated her claim, the voyages of Cook and Vancouver brought the North Pacific region into brighter light. The narrative follows the spread of Gold Fever from Old Mexico through the American and Canadian West and into the Alaskan sub-continent. It introduces us to the early explorers; the lucky and unlucky; the drifters, grifters and owlhoot politicians who skimmed and skedaddled. We also meet well intentioned seekers of a better life for their families, and the morally and physically strong hard workers who came into the country—or were born into it. We become acquainted with important individuals and families who were lost in the greatest maritime disaster to ever occur in Alaska. We come to know others who overcame natural and man-caused calamities of unprecedented scale, and gave lasting contribution to the legend of the Last Frontier.