A writer known for a book about a post-college Walk Across America in the 1970s takes his family (2nd wife and 4 of six kids) to Seward AK to spend a year living there and experiencing The Last Frontier. This is a good book for the Outsider wanting to understand the 49th state and what Alaska is to Alaskans. Jenkins authorial reputation gets him into good places, and he writes with “first time eyes” and an experienced observer’s perceptions about what makes Alaskans different from the Americans to the south, and about the beauty and dangerous wildness of the place itself. Memorable insifghts into: Jeff King, the musher who is a multi-time winner of the Iditarod, “TheLast Great Race,” of dogsled teams from Anchorage to Nome; Eric the vet, who turned out not to be a psychopath after all, and who lives –well and with wise independence - deep in the interior, where on your own really is just that; about Eleanor Hornblower, Boston socialite and daughter of Harry Hornblower who founded Plimoth plantation – who gave that world up to become the postmaster of Unalakleet , married to a handsome Inupiat son of Unalakleet; of Hobo Jim, Alsaka’s legendary folk entertainer, who sang the life he also lived; of a fishing trip with Inupiat, Haida, and Yupik leaders, who measured him as much as the fishing lines; an Alaska Wildife Management officer in Seward who brings the dangers of bears in the woods and towns vividly to life; the people of Seward, writ large, and strange, and tough, and themselves, and daughter Rebekah,the beloved one, torn between finding herself and being her dad. The country –its size,beauty, dangers, moods, spaces, weathers, differences - is the star of this book. This book convinces me I will only bounce off Alaska on my first visit. But I will go as a better observer, understanding why I am necessary, but invisible. ( )

This book ended up getting tedious - there is so much information in it that eventually my brain got tired and I had to read leisure books at the same time just to free up some space. There is a lot to absorb, but most of it is interesting. Jenkins really hits every aspect of the Alaskan life, from in-depth discussions of the wild life and hunting, to the native tribes. Through it all you get snippets of his family. Not a bad book if you're interested in the Alaskan lifestyle (the real Alaskan lifestyle) but it gets easily overwhelming and dense. ( )

The stories in this book make want to go there ( )

Enjoyable read of a family who lives in Alaska for the purpose of the experience. Since I had been to Alaska and to many of the locations, it was especially meaningful. As I started the book, I thought "I would like to live there for a year." After I finished the book, I decided reading about the experience was enough!!! Jenkins and his family have nerve!!! ( )

I'll be honest, my opinion of this book is not unbiased. I was one of the many people who found Walk Across America to be a formative piece that sowed the seeds of wanderlust in me at a young age. Then later on I found Jenkins' book about his journey of faith, and that really excited me because I like it when people I look up to share my faith. It seems pretty clear from this book that Jenkins has left most of that behind. Now divorced, he rarely talked about God in a book about Alaska. If you can see the Aurora and the mountains and all that and not talk about God, how far must you have wandered from your faith? Or fallen prey to a publisher's demands?

Okay, that said...

The stories are great, the people are great, and the pictures that go with them are decent. I love travel books, I love Alaska books. Jenkins waxes poetic about Alaska, but fails to evoke a real "sense of place." He definitely captures the people and the events, but I fail to really feel like I am there. His adventures don't seem spontaneous and accidental, they seem as though he had a list of things his publisher said would make for a good book and he did those things. But those things are still cool!

Worth the read, but it could have been better. ( )