Alaska Novel- intro
"On The Shores of the Arctic" A novel Deep in interior Alaska, north of Fairbanks, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline runs through a harsh, beautiful wilderness, carrying black gold all the way to the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay, just short of the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean. On its way to the Arctic, the pipeline transverses forests and tundra, and passes in places through brilliant magenta wildflowers, over the regal, snow-capped Brooks Mountains that slope gently downward to green valleys, and across the powerful Yukon River. Some Native Alaskans think the oil pipeline is a blight on the landscape. But for me it represented something else: the way my father supported our family, and happy childhood memories that I continued to relive-- many years later. My story begins when I am twenty-three and living in Washington, D.C. as an employee of the federal government at the Bureau of Land Management. *** My father was born in 1944 in Coldfoot, Alaska. His family were natives...