A Land Gone Lonesome

the long version

"A literary kin of John Muir's Travels in Alaska and John McPhee's Coming into the Country, A Land Gone Lonesome is the book on Alaska for the new century." "Though he treks through a beautiful and hostile wilderness, the heart of O'Neill's story is his exploration of the lives of the few tough souls clinging to the old ways - even as government policies are extinguishing their way of life. More than just colorful anachronisms, these wilderness dwellers - both men and women - are a living archive of North American pioneer values." "As O'Neill encounters these natives, he finds himself drawn into the bare-knuckle melodrama of frontier life - and further back still into the very origins of the Yukon River world. With the rare perspective of an insider, O'Neill here gives us an intelligent, lyrical - and ultimately, probably the last - portrait of the river people along the upper Yukon."--Jacket.