Alaska Books: The Best Books Set in the 49th State

Book Summary

The Call of the Wild is perhaps the most classic Alaska book, and it remains an entertaining novel more than 100 years later.

When a domesticated dog living the good life in California is dog-napped, he’s brought to the harsh land of the Alaskan Gold Rush to become a working sled dog. He faces constant challenges and lessons, eventually deciding if he wants to return to the comfortable domestic life or respond to the call of his ancestor to live in the wild.

Book Summary

This adventure novel is based on an Athabascan Indian oral legend that was passed down through many generations of women in Alaska’s Yukon River Valley.

In the midst of a brutal winter famine, two old women are abandoned by their tribe. Although these women had a reputation for complaining more than contributing, once they are cast out on their own, they must rely on each other to survive – or die trying.

Book Summary

Tara grew up a tough boxer in Philadelphia but her mother’s death and subsequent fights with her father are too much for her to maintain the status quo. Instead, she flees west to “The Rock,” a remote island in Alaska governed by the seasons and the demands of the world of commercial fishing.

She soon works her way up through the ranks of the commercial fishing world, leaning on the discipline she learned as a boxer. When she begins restoring an old tugboat, she creates a new home all of her own.

Book Summary

This father-daughter epic weaves back and forth through time and across America, from Alaska to the Adirondacks. Samuel Hawley has been on the run for years, but is moving to settle down with his teenage daughter in Olympus, Massachusetts, his late wife’s hometown. Daughter Loo struggles to fit in at school and is becoming more curious about her mother’s mysterious death.

The twelve scars on Samuel’s body haunt him, especially when his past begins to reappear in his daughter’s present. The novel is told in an alternating past-present format as we see Loo’s challenges being different from the other kids today, but we also learn the stories of how her father received each of his scars.

Book Summary

When Cameron’s husband, John, disappeared while hunting off-grid in the wilderness, the assumption was that he was killed in a bear attack. However, after discovering her husband was hiding his involvement in a string of serial murders in Seattle, Cameron worries that he’s not really dead.

With her reputation and finances destroyed by the media, Cameron sets off to Alaska to hunt for the truth.

Book Summary

When two small aircraft collide over the Alaskan wilderness, ten people are killed. But what caused the crash? Was it a bird strike, pilot error… or premeditated murder?

Private investigator Kate Shugak is hired by the family of the 87-year-old pilot who is being blamed for the crash. They believe he is innocent and want to clear his name. Kate, along with the assistance of her wolf-dog mix Mutt, is determined to find the truth about the crash, even if she must risk her own safety to counter those who seem to be hiding something.

Book Summary

When Rinn commits some property damage at a logging camp, he has no idea a Tlingit elder was murdered at the same location around the same time. When his former lover, Kit, is arrested for the crime AND the murder, he’s unsure if he should confess to the property crime and risk being accused of the murder.

Out on bail, Kit is in a major battle with the Alaska legislature to save Alaska’s ancient forests. She needs the help of Dan, a Tlingit trying to get what was promised to his people long ago. Can they save the forest and stay out of jail?

Book Summary

Snowy Alaska makes the perfect setting for a cozy winter rom-com read!

Zoey has been dreaming of visiting Alaska for as long as she can remember! She’s invested her life savings in a two-week trip to Moose Springs, and she’s planned out every detail. What she didn’t plan on was Graham.

If there is one thing that Graham can’t stand, it’s the tourists crowding his hometown, and worse yet, his diner. He dishes up intentionally poor customer service to try to keep them away, but instead, his grumpiness has become a local tourist attraction. He never expected to fall for a dreaded tourist.

Book Summary

When 26-year-old city girl Calla learns that her estranged father is dying, she heads back to the remote frontier town her mother left behind when Calla was only two. Despite her father’s clear faults, she cares for him enough to endure the wildlife, odd daylight hours, and even the outhouse.

Adjusting to life in the small village is a struggle, but the worst part might be Jonah, the brooding pilot keeping her father’s charter company going. He’s convinced that pampered Calla will never make it in Alaska and is ready to fly her right back to Toronto. While Jonah could be right, Calla is still ready to prove him wrong.

Book Summary

Nate Burke needs a change after watching his partner die on duty as a Baltimore police officer. When the remote town of Lunacy, Alaska needs a police chief, Nate packs up his life and heads to the tiny frontier town.

While he was looking for an escape to a low-crime area, his detective skills are soon needed. The body of someone missing for 15 years is found, and it’s clear he has been murdered. Soon, there is another town death, which appears to be a suicide and confession, but Nate isn’t buying it.

Along the way, Nate develops a complicated relationship with Meg, the daughter of the murder victim. You’ll be drawn into this town’s characters, the beautiful scenery, and of course, the mystery!

Book Summary

Part romance, part wilderness adventure, The Name Curse takes us on a Denali hike. Bernie has been in a rut since her father’s death. While she’s never been adventurous, her concerned friends decide she needs to shake things up and book her a mountain hiking adventure in Alaska.

Matthew is a struggling screenwriter who uses annual trips to the wilderness to reset and recharge. He’s less than thrilled when he’s paired to bunk with Bernie because the hike organizers don’t realize Bernie is short for Bernice. He’s a hardcore camper and experienced hiker, while she’d rather not “rough it.” Can they see through their differences to find common ground?

Book Summary

It’s 1885 and newly married Colonel Allen Forrester has received the commission of a lifetime. He is being sent to lead a small group of men to navigate Alaska’s Wolverine River. Finding a way to pass the river is the key to opening Alaska to the outside world, but previous attempts have been fatal.

Sophie is pregnant and not excited about being relegated to a year in the military barracks away from her husband while he attempts the impossible. She’s worried about her pregnancy and what will happen while apart from Allen.

Book Summary

Donna and her younger brother, Will, grew up in an industrial town in Ohio. A talented senior in high school, Donna thinks of little other than her desire to leave her Midwestern home to pursue a career in design. But her father and her brother are both dependent on her.

Will is in poor health and spends all of his time with his mute Siberian Husky named Trusty, watching a television show called Sergeant Striker and the Alaskan Wild.

After an event inspires Donna to reconsider her dreams, she packs up her yellow convertible and leaves town with Will and Trusty. Armed with just a road atlas, the trio sets off for the Alaskan Territory.

Book Summary

In The Snow Child, you’ll be transported to remote 1920s Alaska. Jack and Mabel are nearing 50 when they decide to move to Alaska. As newcomers to the harsh environment, it is a struggle for them. Between the intense physical labor required and the even more extreme loneliness, they’re not sure they’ve made the right decision with the move.

Then, during the first snowfall of the year, they decide to have some fun and build a child out of snow. In the morning, the snow child is gone, but they see a young girl running through the trees with the items they had used to dress the snow child. Is she real, or are they hallucinating and dreaming of the child they’ve always wanted?

Book Summary

The author graduated from medical school amid the Vietnam War, but on eve of being drafted into the Army to serve as a M.A.S.H. surgeon in Vietnam, he was offered a commission in the U.S. Public Health for assignment in Anchorage, Alaska. Once he arrived in Anchorage, he discovered he was being transferred to a remote outpost over 500 miles northwest in Nome.

In addition to covering the frontier town alone, he was responsible for the care of 13 Eskimo villages in the Norton Sound area. Equipment and supplies were sparse, nothing like his time learning on state-of-the-art equipment in school. Additionally, he was seen as an outsider and not trusted by those he served. This memoir tells about his time serving patients on the icy shores of the Bering Sea.

Book Summary

This is the true story of Anne Hobbs who arrived in harsh and beautiful Alaska in 1927, at the young age of nineteen. She quickly discovered that running a ramshackle schoolhouse would expose her to more than just the elements.

After she allowed Native American children into her class and fell in love with a half-Inuit man, she learned the meanings of prejudice and perseverance, irrational hatred, and unconditional love.

“People get as mean as the weather,” she discovered, but they were also capable of great good.

Book Summary

In 1899, railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman organized an epic trip. He converted a steamship into a luxury “floating university” and invited some of the brightest scientists and writers to join him on a journey through Alaska’s beauty.

Author Mark Adams retraced this journey more than 100 years later. He traveled three thousand miles, following the itinerary north through Wrangell, Juneau, and Glacier Bay, then continuing west into the colder and stranger regions of the Aleutians and the Arctic Circle.

Along the way, several unusual characters are encountered, and Adams examines how lessons learned in 1899 could apply today. While this non-fiction travelogue is often humorous, it’s also a realistic look at how Alaska’s resources are being depleted and endangered.

Book Summary

Carrot had a very difficult childhood in Alaska, marked by neglect, poverty, and periods of homelessness. Striking out on her own, Carrot found a sense of belonging among a group of straight-edge anarchists. They taught her how to travel the country by freight train. It’s a life of adventure and freedom, but also of hardships like foraging in dumpsters for food. And she finds that no matter how far she rides the rails, she’s still haunted by her traumatic childhood.

Book Summary

Christopher Johnson McCandless grew up in a wealthy suburb of Washington DC, and attended Emory University. Seeking to follow in the footsteps of his heroes like Jack London and John Muir, Christopher began roaming around the West and South West and leading an increasingly nomadic life.

In April of 1992, he donated his savings to charity, abandoned his car and his possessions, and set about to invent a new identity for himself. He gave himself a new name (Alexander Supertramp) and hitchhiked to Alaska. He then walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Despite the efforts of his desperate parents and sisters, he vanished into the wild.

Four months later, a party of moose hunters found his decomposed body. In this book, author Jon Krakauer searches for answers about how he came to die.

Book Summary

Katherine Keith spent her whole life searching for a remote and wild place where her soul would feel at peace. After traveling all around the US, she finally found that place in Alaska. She and her husband built a log cabin miles from the nearest road and created the life she’d always dreamed of. But after experiencing a tragic loss, she and her infant daughter are left to brave the Alaskan backcountry alone.

That’s when she discovered long-distance dog sledding, which, for her, is the perfect combination of wilderness solitude and athleticism. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the “Last Great Race on Earth,” is a true test of character that offers Katherine the opportunity to explore the frontier that she has come to love intimately.

Book Summary

Only a small number of people call Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge home. When James Campbell’s cousin, Heimo Korth, asked him to spend a summer building a cabin in this harsh and lonely place, Campbell hesitated about inviting his fifteen-year-old daughter, Aidan, to join him. He wasn’t sure she’d be able to withstand the grueling labor, the threat of grizzlies, and bathing in the ice-cold river. But to his surprise, Aiden embraced the wild.

A few months later, Aiden returned to Alaska, amid windchill of negative 50 degrees, to help the Kroths set traps and hunt for caribou.

Heimo’s wife told James about a tradition in Eskimo culture in which some daughters can earn a rite of passage usually reserved for young men. With this in mind, Campbell returned to Alaska with his daughter one final time for an ambitious backpacking trek over Alaska’s Brooks Range, where they assembled a folding canoe and paddled the Hlahula River to the Arctic Ocean. The journey tested not only their individual endurance but also their relationship.

Book Summary

Carrie is a society-page journalist, but wants to be writing more serious news articles. She’s thrilled when her editor promises she can cover anything she wants with one condition. First, she must score an interview with reclusive author Finn Dalton.

Finn lives in the remote Alaskan wilderness, and despite his bestselling memoir about surviving in the wild, no one is quite sure where he resides. Complicating matters even more, he’s notorious for refusing to speak with any press. Using her best investigating skills, Carrie puts together a theory about how to find Finn, and when she’s right, she discovers he is more charismatic and more stubborn than she expected.

Book Summary

Lana’s wealthy family is heavily invested in Moose Springs, Alaska, but to everyone in town she is, and always will be, an outsider. An unwelcome one at that, because she has visions for changing things in the town (for the better, in her opinion). But change is the last thing the people of Moose Springs want.

The one person in town who is happy to see Lana is Rick Harding. The last few years have been hard for him, but with Lana back in town, he’s determined to finally catch her eye.

Things get complicated when a mischievous moose – dubbed Santa Moose by the locals – begins destroying Christmas decorations all over town. Hoping to win some brownie points with the locals, Lana is determined to be the one to track the moose and stop his hijinx. When she accidentally tranquilizes Rick instead of Santa Moose, it might just be the opportunity Rick’s been waiting for.