Northern Light Media

23/08/2025

In this issue: Sydney Laurence • Ruby • Bud & Daisy Whitney • Cordova • The New Deal in Alaska • Emily Craig Romig • History of the BIA in Alaska.

The September-October, 2025 issue of Alaskan History Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 5, features a wide variety of articles.

19/08/2025

The newest book published by Northern Light Media:

A Memoir of Sled Dogs, by Julie Verrette

10/07/2025

In 'True to the Trail' Anne Verdonk shares the story of her great-grandfather, Arthur Dallimore, who traveled to the Klondike in 1898 in search of gold. The following excerpt is from Anne's Preface, available to read in full at the book's website:

Arthur’s story is no different from the many tales already told of the gold stampeders who braved the overcrowded ships on ocean travel to Skagway or Dyea, and hiked the White Pass or Chilkoot Trail with a year’s worth of food and outfit in 1898. They camped near the frozen Lake Bennett while whipsawing what lumber there was to compete for, to build whatever raft or boat they had the skills to build while waiting for the ice to break. Then, the day the ice went out, so did a huge flotilla of craft, floating, sailing, rowing or paddling 600 miles down the Yukon River, hoping to be the first to Klondike to stake their claim to the gold.

This story does not focus on the Klondike story in detail, because that story has been told many times by others, including Pierre Berton in his book, The Klondike Quest, published in 1983 by Boston Mills Press, Canada.

Arthur’s story is different in that most of the gold hunters, if they had survived the journey, headed back home as soon as they could, broke, hungry and disheartened because they had arrived too late, and all the well-paying gold fields had already been staked. Arthur stayed for twelve years and journeyed further down the Yukon into Alaska to find other ways of making a dollar in this vast, unforgiving land, with many hard-luck stories and plenty of grit and determination. He had a dream of buying a farm, which he alludes to in his story. I share his love of the land.

Read Anne's full Preface to the book:

by Anne Verdonk, Author, Auckland, New Zealand An unexpected diagnosis in December 2023 prompted me to start, with some urgency, my retirement project to tell the story of my great-grandfather, Art…

04/07/2025

An excerpt from the newest book published by Northern Light Media, available to pre-order now and shipping in August, 'In Gentler Valleys Roaming, A Memoir of Sled Dogs,' by Julie Verrette:

I had already been in touch with Susan Butcher about another retiree. I needed a leader and told her of my plan to visit Aliy’s kennel in Two Rivers. Susan called me at Aliy’s kennel on the day of our planned camping trip. Aliy handed the phone to me with a big smile, saying “It’s Susan Butcher calling you,” a bit of a question in her eyes. I hadn’t mentioned to Aily that I was also going to visit Susan.

Susan said “Come early before your plane leaves and we’ll take a couple of leaders out that I think will work for you.” I told her “We have a planned camping trip today but it’s to be thirty below so I don’t think we’ll go.” Susan replied, “If I know Aliy, you’ll go!” We finalized our plans, Aliy would drive us to Fairbanks and we’d stop at Susan’s kennel enroute.

A new title from Northern Light Media: In Gentler Valleys Roaming A Memoir of Sled Dogs by Julie Verrette With a name inspired by the peaceful refuge in the song by the great Andy Williams, Summer …

16/06/2025

Shipping July 1: The newest book from Northern Light Media is "True to the Trail: A Great-Granddaughter’s Alaskan Quest a Century On," by Anne Verdonk. The book is a compilation of the journals and photographs of Englishman Arthur Dallimore, who joined the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898, prospected the Preacher Creek area of the Birch Creek Mining District, cut and sold firewood to Tanana River steamboats, and built the Ohio Creek Roadhouse. And he kept journals detailing it all!

The newest book from Northern Light Media is True to the Trail: A Great-Granddaughter’s Alaskan Quest a Century On, by Anne Verdonk. The book is a compilation of the journals and photographs of Eng…

19/05/2025

https://northernlightmedia.substack.com/p/book-review-the-tender-life
The Sunday editions of the Anchorage Daily News and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner include another terrific review of one of our books by reviewer extraordinaire David A. James:

Anne Winters' Tales of Life on the Sea

10/05/2025

https://northernlightmedia.org/2025/05/10/true-to-the-trail/

The next book scheduled for publication by Northern Light Media is True to the Trail: A Great-Granddaughter’s Alaskan Quest a Century On, a compilation of the journals and photographs of Englishman Arthur Dallimore, who joined the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898, then traveled down the Yukon River to try his hand at prospects in Alaska, staying in the North for a dozen years, finally building a roadhouse northwest of Fairbanks. Dallimore was an astute observer and an excellent journaler, detailing his travels in handwritten notes, postcards and letters which he sent to his father in England, who meticulously transcribed them into journals. These troves of history, carefully preserved in an old leather suitcase, were given to Dallimore’s great-granddaughter, Anne Verdonk of New Zealand, in 2005.

True to the Trail: A Great-Granddaughter’s Alaskan Quest a Century On, by Anne Verdonk, with the journals of Arthur Dallimore, foreword by Professor Emeritus William (Bill) Schneider, University of Alaska Fairbanks. To be published in July, 2025, approximately 380 pages, 6″x9″ b/w format, with dozens of maps, charts, photographs and images. $29.95 postage paid from Northern Light Media.

The next book scheduled for publication by Northern Light Media is True to the Trail: A Great-Granddaughter’s Alaskan Quest a Century On, a compilation of the journals and photographs of Englishman…

03/05/2025

Free 56 page PDF catalog:

There’s a new link in the header above, and at the top of the sidebar to the right of this site when viewed fullscreen. It’s a 56 page full color catalog of books published by Northern …

22/02/2025

Denali, Deering, McCarthy, Anchorage, Kenai and Nome

24/06/2024

The third issue of Mushing History Quarterly will be published July 1!

The articles in this issue include the beautiful pastel sled dog portraits of Alaskan artist Josephine Crumrine, painted for the menus of the Alaska Steamship Company in the 1940s. The dogs depicted were well-known in their day, sled dogs being a major form of transportation even that late in the Territory’s history.​ Other articles include a unique primer on acquiring and driving a sled dog team from a 1922 Rand McNalley guidebook; a profile of the “Dean of American Dog Racers,” Dr. Roland A. “Doc” Lombard by Dr. Robert Forto; the intrepid long-distance musher Clyde “Slim” Williams; and a look at the Dogs of the North, excerpted from "The Book of Dogs," by Ernest Harold Baynes, published by the National Geographic Society and reprinted in National Geographic Magazine, in March 1919.​ The book excerpt in this issue is from Elizabeth M. Ricker’s book "Seppala, Alaskan Dog Driver," published in 1930 by Little, Brown & Co. The story of Leonhard Seppala’s incomparable leader, Togo, is told in the last three chapters of the book, and a sidebar at the end answers the question, ‘who was Elizabeth Ricker?’

The First Two Issues of this publication are available at the website below, at Amazon, or from your favorite bookstore. Articles in Vol. 1, No.1, Jan-Feb-March, 2024 included The 1917 Winnipeg to St. Paul Race, A.A. ‘Scotty’ Allan and Baldy of Nome, Split-the-Wind, The Stained Glass Dog Team, The 2009 Mushing History Conference, and an excerpt from Hudson Stuck’s classic "Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled."

Articles in Vol. 1, No.2, April-May-June, 2024 included On the Trail with the U.S. Mail, The American Dog Derby, Alaska Nellie and the Dog Angel of the Trail, Estell Mason: Around the World by Dog Team 1908-1915, Samuel King Hutton’s travels in Labrador, and book excerpts from "Harness & Pack" and "A Dog-Puncher on the Yukon," by Arthur Treadwell Walden.

Volume 1, Number 3 will be available July 1st:

https://mushinghistoryquarterly.com/issues/

16/06/2024

When I completed 'The History of Sled Dogs in North America' last year I was left with a multitude of files on the history of mushing, and links to hundreds of resources, books, articles, photographs, and more. After thinking about it for several months, I began this project last winter, and the first two issues are already in print. Anyone familiar with my books, my website, and my writing for other magazines and newspapers will recognize many of the articles in these first issues, as I’ve pulled from those sources to preserve that history in this new format. But there will be plenty of new material, and I am very happy to finally announce this new journal!

“For years, with great dogs, I toiled and often with them was in great perils. Much of my work was accomplished by their aid. So I believe in dogs, and here in this book I have written of some of t…