Books, Maps and Movies
More Books About Alaska
- Guidebooks
- Our advice on guidebooks to Alaska can be summed up very briefly - The Milepost. If you are driving to Alaska, you need it. If you are taking a plane or ship to Alaska, then renting a car, you will still want it.
- Naturally there are other guidebooks to Alaska. Peggy Wayburn's Adventuring in Alaska is excellent. Moon and Lonely Planet each have pocket size guides. Others, such as Alaska, the Cruise Lovers Guide, approach it from the cruise-ship travellers point of view. The National Geographic Driving Guide has only two chapters on Alaska, but it might be worth having.
- Maps and Atlases
- De Lorme makes a large format and very detailed Alaska Atlas and Gazetteer. There are topographic maps available of major recreation areas such as Denali National Park, Prince William Sound, and Glacier Bay.
- Fiction
- Much of the fiction associated with Alaska is actually about Canada - specifically, the Yukon. Still, classics such as the stories of Jack London (see The Works of Jack London) and the poems of Robert Service are as much about the gold rushes in Alaska as they are about the Klondike.There is also a small body of fiction about other aspects of Alaska. A recent entry is the mystery writer Dana Stabenow (see Mystery Writers of the West), whose protagonist is a native American police detective.
- Tom Bodett has written a couple of charming short books about everyday life in his home town of Homer.
- History and Biography
- The best all around introduction to Alaska's fascinating history is Coming into the Country, by John McPhee. James Michener has, not surprisingly, writtten a massive work of historical fiction: Alaska, and also a novel: Journey.
- Nature
- If you are going to Fairbanks or further north, be sure to take Pielou's A Naturalist's Guide to the Arctic with you. See E.C. Pielou's Books on the Arctic for comprehensive background on the natural history of the far north. A number of books are available about the distinctive wildlife species of Alaska, especially bears and wolves. Several of the Lone Pine plant guides cover various parts of Alaska. Roadside Geology of Alaska covers all the major roads of the state.
- Movies
- One of the early movie classics was Nanook of the North, a silent movie era documentary (sound added later) about the life of Eskimos.
- Not many movies that are purportedly about Alaska were actually filmed there. The John Wayne classic North to Alaska was filmed in the high desert of Owens Valley, California. The marvellous television series Northern Exposure, was set in fictional Cicely, Alaska, but filmed in the Cascades of Washington.
- On the other hand, The Hunt for Red October used Resurrection Bay near Seward to stand in for the Russian submarine base at Murmansk.
- Not many movies that are purportedly about Alaska were actually filmed there. The John Wayne classic North to Alaska was filmed in the high desert of Owens Valley, California. The marvellous television series Northern Exposure, was set in fictional Cicely, Alaska, but filmed in the Cascades of Washington.
More Books About Alaska
