Throughout the book, the author’s first-hand experience lends vivid reality to the formidable challenges of the mountain and to the bonds formed and broken in the pursuit of its summit. Beyond the physical tolls, O’Connell presents in stark relief the internal debate about the price of success—all the more urgent at the earth’s extremes.

Stubborn Gal is the true story of a 60-mile sled dog race and a young woman determined—if not precisely qualified—to run it. Sarah has never competed in a race before and never run a big team of dogs. But when a race official strongly discourages her from entering, she boldly signs up. To answer the naysayers, she must learn how to control a dog team twice as powerful as any she has ever run. And she has three days to do it. Two practice runs end disastrously. On the third day, Sarah enters the race, and the results surprise everyone.

“I wish I were a dancer to let lines fall like that. / But I am dressed like you, roughly for the North.”
 
Roughly for the North is a tender and complex portrait of an Arctic and sub-arctic world. Full of lush language and imagery, each poem is an act of devotion and love to one’s family and land. Carrie Ayaġaduk Ojanen weaves a moving portrait of grief, of the rippling effects of historical trauma on succeeding generations, of resilience in the face of adversity, of respect for the Alaska Native traditions she grew up in. With vivid imagery, she draws the reader into Northern life, where the spiritual and industrial collide. She uses formalism and lyrical free verse to explore the natural world and to conjure a place of staggering beauty that hides death around every corner.

A member of the Ugiuvamiut tribe, Ojanen grounds her work in a web of familial relationships. Especially important is her connection with her grandparents, members of the last generation to make their home on Ugiuvak (King Island), Alaska. With heartfelt verse, her poems reflect the staggering cultural changes her grandparents faced and the way traditional art forms continue to unite her community and help them connect to the past.

 The most detailed and well-illustrated study of material culture for any northern Athabascan language group to date, Gwich’in Athabascan Implements reproduces pre- and early post-contact tools that are historically important to the Athabaskan people. A long-term collaboration between anthropologist Thomas O’Brien and Athabascan elder David Salmon, this volume provides more than one hundred one-to-one sketches of a wide variety of implements, many of which are no longer commonly found in use.