Editorial Reviews
Book Description
His father is a white trapper, his mother an Athabascan Indian who walks a thousand miles in winter to reunite with her family. Thus, Jimmy Huntington learns early how to survive on the land. When his mother dies, Huntington-at age seven-must care for his younger siblings.
A courageous and inspiring man, Huntington hunts wolves, fights bears, survives close calls too numerous to mention, and becomes a championship sled-dog racer.
On the Edge of Nowhere is an enduring Alaska classic, still "tingling with excitement." Jimmy Huntington's memoir is being republished in a handsome new third edition to which photographs have been added.
Lawrence Elliott, who has written several books and numerous magazine articles, was Reader's Digest correspondent for Alaska and western Canada when this story was written in the mid-1960s. Elliott now lives in France.
". . . Funny, wildly exciting, and heartbreaking . . . a wonderful reading experience." -Publishers Weekly
"One afternoon, we heard a great rumble upriver. It was an angry sound, like thunder rolling at you out of the sky. Dad and old Charlie, who knew right away what it was, ran for the bank, and Sidney and I followed. Half a mile up the river, a blue-white wall of ice had been shoved fifty feet out of the water, massive chunks under terrific pressure, groaning against one another as they were forced up from a winter-long lock on the river. The ice was going out, and it was going fast.
"'Get everything out of the cabin,' Dad said sharply. 'Put what you can on the roof. Put the rest in the cache.' Even as we worked, the ice came thundering down the river, reaching high above our heads, and geysers of water shot up over the bank. We knew we were in for it. . . . Then the ice jammed up just below the cabin, a heaving dam building from bank to bank, and the river came tearing over the land in a wild rush. 'Into the boat!' Dad yelled." -from ON THE EDGE OF NOWHERE
On the Edge of Nowhere,James Huntington,Lawrence Elliott,Epicenter Press,0970849338,1915 or 16-1987,Alaska,Athapascan Indians,Biography,Biography & Autobiography,Biography / Autobiography,Biography/Autobiography,Huntington, James,,Indians of North America,Mixed descent,Personal Memoirs,Pioneers,Reference,Travelers
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