How Sportsmen Saved the World

By E. Donnall Thomas, Jr. 2009. Lyons Press. 240 pages. $24.95 hardcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.globepequot.com.

In How Sportsmen Saved the World, Thomas examines the lives and work of wildlife sportsmen and concludes that their contributions to the environment have been far more substantial than those of environmental organizations that have taken stances against hunting and fishing.

What we now call the environmental movement stems originally from efforts of sportsmen to preserve the land and animals they loved.  Some, like Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold, are well known; others might be unknown even to lifelong outdoorsmen.  All were hunters and anglers who recognized an essential relationship between the management and future of wildlife sport.

Don Thomas, who grew up in an outdoor family, completed his medical training and afterward began a career that took him to rural Montana and Alaska.  Twenty years ago, he began combining his passion for the outdoors with an interest in writing and photography.  He now writes regularly about bowhunting, fly-fishing, wing-shooting, adventure travel and wildlife for more than two dozen publications.

Hunting the Comeback Trail

By Lt. Bill Padilla. 2008. Dorrance Publishing. 156 pages. $15 softcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.dorrancepublishing.com.

Roy’s lack of depth perception caused him to stumble while negotiating deadfalls.  When Roy twisted his ankle on one of those logjams, he thought it safer to stay along the road.  Roy’s patience had grown as would have any man who’s suffered a serious injury.  He waited, and when shadows started getting long that evening, he spotted his first bear….

Hunting the Comeback Trail is a historical documentary about a group of disabled hunters, including author Bill Padilla, who transcended impairment in the 1970s and 1980s to stay active in their favorite sport. 

Padilla recreates the drama and triumph of these men on the hunt.  His explanations of the adjustments and accommodations these hunters had to make demonstrates their determination not to let disability interfere with their passion.

Through his own disability, Padilla realized the rehabilitating benefits of hunting.  Hunting the Comeback Trail documents the stories of six other men making similar discoveries. 

The Boreal Gourmet

By Michele Genest. 2010. Harbour Publishing. 224 pages. $26.95 softcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.harbourpublishing.com.

Throughout this edible journey, readers discover the jams, sauces and tarts to be made with the various berries of the north; the transformative power that birch syrup, spruce tip, fireweed honey and rose petal have on a recipe; the intriguing flavors of caribou, moose and elk; fresh new recipes for pike, salmon, trout and arctic char; and the surprisingly sundry uses of sourdough.  The Boreal Gourmet is not limited to residents of the North.  Author Michele Genest pairs international flavors from places such as Italy, Greece, Asia and India with her northern recipes.  Nevertheless, be it braised moose ribs with espresso stout and chocolate, marinated caribou blade steak with blueberry reduction or elk liver pate, Genest remains faithful to the rich culinary culture of Canada’s north.

Since moving to Canada’s northern territory, Genest discovered how to enhance store-bought foods with the natural diet on which First Nations people have been surviving for thousands of years.

Genest learned about good food from her mother, a gourmet cook with a firm belief in lots of butter and red wine.  Later Michele lived, traveled and cooked in Greece.  When she moved to the Yukon in 1994, she discovered an exciting cuisine based on indigenous boreal ingredients; the adventures in northern cooking began.  She continues to cook and write in Whitehorse.

The Great Death

By John Smelcer. 2009. Henry Holt and Co. 176 pages. $16.99 hardcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.us.macmillan.com/henryholt.aspx

As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous peoples had no natural immunity. From about 1918 to1920, fully two-thirds of all Alaska Natives perished from epidemics of measles and small pox and a pandemic flu, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. No community was spared. In most cases, half of a village’s population died within a week. In some cases no one survived. It was the tragic end of an ancient way of life.

Natives still refer to the dreadful period as The Great Death.
Author John Smelcer’s full-blood Indian grandmother, Mary Joe, and her older sister, Morrie Joe, daughters of Tazlina Joe, were born at Tazlina Lake Village less than two decades after the Klondike Gold Rush. They were girls when their tiny village was infected. They were the only survivors. Alone and frightened, the sisters struck out downriver at the onset of winter with only two sled dogs as companions, searching for a settlement they had only heard about somewhere far below where two great rivers meet.

The two sisters, a few years apart, faced what awaited them in a struggle for survival. Their journey took them across a vast and unforgiving wilderness, through the teeth of winter. In the end they persevered, testimony to their ingenuity, resolve and sisterhood.

This amazing story was inspired by their incredible journey.

By Cecilia “Pudge” Kleinkauf. 2010. Amato Publications. 184 pages. $19.95 softcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.amatobooks.com.

An intriguing creature with its graceful sail-like dorsal fin, constantly willing to take your fly, the Arctic Grayling is a fish like no other: “the flower of the fishes.”   Add its preferred habitat of the clear cold streams of the northern wilderness.

A well-respected guide, instructor, award-winning writer and volunteer, Pudge Kleinkauf has owned and operated Women’s Fly-fishing for 22 of the 39 years she has lived and fished in Alaska.  An Arctic Grayling fanatic, Kleinkauf is just the person to write about this fish.  Entertaining and in-depth, Fly-Fishing for Alaska’s Arctic Grayling includes the grayfish’s lifecycle, the art of catching the fish, productive fly patterns, Arctic grayling around Alaska and the world, protecting the grayling and more.  The biology and history of grayling, their habitat, feeding habits, location, techniques for catching them and conservation fill Fly-Fishing.  Everything you could need to know about Arctic grayling. 

The Little Seal: An Alaskan Adventure

By Ram Papish. 2009. University of Alaska Press. 48 pages. $15.95 hardcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.press.uchicago.edu.

Written and illustrated by a biologist with years of experience in Alaska, The Little Seal introduces young readers to the amazing life of a northern fur seal in the Bering sea. 

The northern fur seal spends most its life in the open ocean of the North Pacific, from California up through Alaska and down to Japan.  They are only occasionally seen from land except when they gather on isolated rocky islandst o give birth and breed.  They travel hundreds of miles, farther than any other seal or sea lion, to reach their remote breeding grounds.  Most fur seals go to the Pribilof Islands of Alaska, where historically, several million fur seals converged annually.  Their population in the Pribilofs in 2008 was less than one million and dropping rapidly. 

Papish’s children’s book follows these magnificent creatures during the most important part of their lives, educating about the fur seals and the environment in which they live.

In Close to My Heart: Writing and Living Stories on Kodiak Island

By Michael Rostad. 2010. Aaron Book Publishing. 358 pages. $19.95 softcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.amazon.com. 

Alaska author Michael Rostad takes the reader into the heart of this North Pacific island, Kodiak, where bears are the
kings of the mountains and fishermen do battle with wind and waves as they fish the deep waters. Hunters, fishermen, trappers, artists, teachers,
doctors, nurses, biologists, fishing and hunting guides, military people (to name a few) have found a niche here. They share their stories and, in doing so, let the reader know what makes this island an exceptional place.  

Michael Rostad is former editor of The Kodiak Times and co-publisher
and editor of The Kodiak Fisherman.  He has free lanced for the Kodiak
Daily Mirror, Alaska Fishermen’s Journal, Pacific Fisherman and The
Fishermen’s News.