Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier
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Many of the themes that make Alaska such an appealing subject were first scribed on the landscape by my teacher at Hampshire College, David Smith, who introduced the writings of Leo Marx, Henry Nash Smith, and Roderick Nash—to say nothing of Go Down, Moses and the “fresh, green breast of the new world” that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes.
This book would not have been written without the early enthusiasm and close attention of my agent, Alice Martell. At Crown Publishers/Random House, I am indebted to Miriam Chotiner-Gardner, Kevin Doughten, and to Charlie Conrad, who worked diligently to keep me from straying too far into copper country ghost stories or the arcana of ANILCA.
I am profoundly grateful to Chip Brown and Blaine Harden for helping me find and hold on to my story. Thanks also to Dan Coyle, Maurice Coyle, Tom Bodett, Nancy Lord, and Rich Chiappone for reading drafts and offering good advice, and to Howard Weaver, Barbara Hodgin, Anne Raup, Todd Stoeberl, and Fred Hirschman for help with photos. The Mesa Refuge and Ted and Frances Geballe gave me places to write portions of this manuscript. For general encouragement and sustenance through this period I want especially to thank Nancy Gordon and Steve Williams, Lisa and Tim Whip, Deb McKinney and Paul Morley, my mom, Peggy, and also my dad, Joe Kizzia, who died while this book about fathers was being born.
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS
tp.1: Danny Rosenkrans, National Park Service
1.1: Barbara Hodgin
2.1: Fort Worth Independent School District
3.1, 4.1, 5.1, 6.1, and 8.1: Courtesy of Kurina Rose Hale
7.1, 9.1, 11.1, 12.1, 13.1, 15.1, 16.1, and 18.1: Marc Lester, Anchorage Daily News/MCT/LANDOv
10.1: Tom Kizzia
14.1 and 17.1: Courtesy of National Park Service
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TOM KIZZIA has traveled widely in rural Alaska writing prizewinning stories about places, people, and politics for the Anchorage Daily News. His work has appeared in the Washington Post and has been featured on CNN. His first book, The Wake of the Unseen Object, was named one of the best all-time nonfiction books about Alaska by the Alaska Historical Society. He lives in Homer, Alaska.