Overview

Edward Abbey, who never much liked Alaska, called it “our biggest, buggiest, boggiest state.” To others, it has been a cure for despair. When the author moved to Fairbanks more than three decades ago, he was a cheechako, a subarctic tenderfoot. Gathering skills and experiences the hard way, he attained “Sourdough” status while realizing there would always be more to learn, see, and do in the land of midnight sun and auroras. En route, Engelhard suffered frostbite, stubborn yaks, grizzly charges, trophy hunters, cold-water immersion, heartbreak, incontinent raptors, one pesky squirrel, and honeymooners from abroad. He tried to rescue a raven and explored Arctic dunes and a glacier’s blue heart, and his own, as he mingled with caribou on their epic journeys.

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Michael Engelhard worked for 25 years as an outdoor instructor and wilderness guide in Alaska and the Canyon Country. He received a Master’s degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where he also taught very briefly—indoor classrooms just weren’t his thing. He is the recipient of a Rasmuson Individual Artist Award, a Foreword INDIES and Independent Publisher Book Award, and three Alaska Press Club Awards. His books include Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon; his account of a solo trip from the Canada border to the Bering Sea, Arctic Traverse: A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks Range; and No Walk in the Park: Maunderings and Meanderings of a Canyon Guide. A Luddite fence sitter and migrant by training and inclination, he moves wherever his needs are met best, just like the people and critters he so admires.

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