The Last Frontier

by Melody Webb

Book Overview

Covering vast distances in time and space,Yukon: The Last Frontierbegins with the early Russian fur trade on the Aleutian Islands and closes with what Melody Webb calls "the technological frontier."... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826308090
• ISBN13: 9780826308092
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Alaska state history

The tone and tenor of this excellent history of Alaska matches perfectly the subject it details: straightforward, lively, tough-minded, and sincere. She relates the history of the state from the first Russian fur trading stations of the 1700s through the most recent trends, including the building of the Alaskan pipeline and modern mining developments. Still considered a frontier up to the present day, Webb focuses on various "frontiers" throughout Alaska's history: the trader's frontier, the explorer's frontier, the miner's frontier, and others, including transportation (3 chapters), the military, and missionaries. Webb has a great feel for this vast land and for the people who have chosen to inhabit it; she obviously is concerned with the big issues, but she also includes the simpler human-interest concerns, such as what mail carrier Ed Biederman went through to deliver the mail in winter in the early 1900s. Her writing is vivid and the story of Alaska that she tells is interesting and informative from beginning to end. Highly recommended.