Product Details
A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage Along the Yukon River

A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage Along the Yukon River
By Dan O'Neill

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Product Description

In his square-sterned canoe, Alaskan author Dan O’Neill set off from Dawson, Yukon Territory, onetime site of the Klondike gold rush, to trace the majestic Yukon River. His journey downriver to Circle City, Alaska, is an expedition into the history of the river and its land, and a record of the inimitable and little known inhabitants of the region. With the distinct perspective of an insider, A Land Gone Lonesome gives us an intelligent, rhapsodic-and ultimately, probably the last-portrait of the Yukon and its authentic inhabitants.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #284455 in Books
  • Published on: 2007-06-25
  • Original language: English
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 272 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Outdoorsman O'Neill (The Last Giant of Beringia) steers his canoe through the history and topography of the Yukon River, which runs through Canada and Alaska, letting its course carry his witty travelogue. Drawing from legend, interview and observation, he evokes the river's rustic majesty and the spartan dignity of its vestigial towns, briefly fed by the frenzied Gold Rush of the 1890s. His engaging account of the river's history punctuates its backwater charm, pulling readers into a realm of frigid wilderness and frontier stakeouts. He captures the hardiness of its scattered dwellers in vignettes of outmoded customs and bawdy tourist traditions, including the tale of someone chugging an amputated-toe cocktail in the Canadian town of Dawson. Exploring the conflict between nature and society, O'Neill writes of legendary holdouts (such as crusty Dick Cook, who he acknowledges was also a subject of John McPhee) who chafe at federal mandates that threaten their hardscrabble homesteads. O'Neill's meditations on the river branch into epic themes of self-reliance, heroism and humanity. Poetic renderings of creeks, camps and log cabin settlements bestow a refined gloss on rough terrain, reviving the moribund spirit of the "ghost river connecting ghost towns." (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
O'Neill, who lives in a log cabin in Fairbanks, Alaska, chronicles his journey along the Yukon River in a canoe and his forays into the wildness into which the river takes him. His exciting trip begins in Dawson, Yukon Territory, and ends in Circle City, Alaska. O'Neill gives readers a brief history of the land and then proceeds to describe the beauty of the woods, water, birds, bears, and bluffs. O'Neill is charmed by the characters he meets along the way, including Randy Brown, who lived in a six-by-nine-foot cabin before marrying a schoolteacher, and Charlie Kidd, who walked 120 miles in snowshoes over the Woodchopper Trail once a year rather than make the trip by boat or dog teams. Then there's Dick Cook, who "looked like a marooned pirate in Birkenstocks, a castaway scavenger of random goods." O'Neill's love of the land shines through on every page. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"A colorful and meandering portrait.... O'Neill casts a mold of the Yukon landscape before nature takes back the last human footprint."