Edges of the Earth: A Man, a Woman, a Child in the Alaskan Wilderness

This book was throughly enjoyable from cover to cover. It's about a couple that leave New York and moves to Alaska. They know nothing about survival in the Alaska wilderness but somehow they learn and make a go of it. I'd love to see a follow up book! If you like wilderness adventures, dog sledding, nature, and survival stories...you should enjoy this book!

This is a wonderful book, a true tale of the ultimate daydreamer's adventure taking on flesh and bones through the personal experiences of the young author, Richard Leo. In many ways the effort is a foolhardy and dangerous ones, and one comes to points of exasperation with his arrogance, frenzies, and almost mystical sensibilities as he turns from a 20's something Harvard-educated urban dweller with less than $1,000 to his name into some kind of hopped-up Alaskan mountain man. This guy actually drags his girl friend deep into the Alaskan wilderness to begin a life of what he hopes will be the real sensations and genuine life experiences of someone unfettered by civilization, and succeeds almost beyond belief. They single-handedly construct a log cabin good enough to live in, forage for food, and finds a way to eke out a living as they struggle to survive. Along the way they have a son, who the author feels he must give the opportunity to grow up naturally, without all the cultural distractions of the modern world. Of course, there is a price to pay for such bold and foolhardy adventurism, and Leo pays it by way of isolation, deprivation, and dealing with the elements. Before the smoke clears, his girlfriend/wife has exhausted her patience and tolerance for the difficult living conditions and the incredible isolation, and flees in desperation back to something better approximating normal human contact and civilization. Thus Leo and son are left to find their own truths and their own future in the splendid isolation of the Alaskan tundra in sight of Mount McKinley. This is a remarkable tale, told in brash but sometimes soaring prose by a gifted young writer, and I soon recognized that often my frustration was with the fact that he kept succeeding at things I thought were dangerously foolish to attempt. Finally I realized somewhere along the way that my concern was exactly the reason I am sitting in this armchair reading the book instead of following in his footsteps. I am too settled and "civilized' to try to do what he does with fervor and enthusiasm, and it is this remarkable quality of his, his zany and almost mystical faith in himself that makes the book so interesting and so easy to read. One caution; he is not an easy guy to empathize with, and he sometimes has an annoying arrogance, self-absorption and a tendency toward self-righteousness that is hard to bear, but you will enjoy his tale and all the strange and off-beat characters he bumps into, interacts with, and includes in this superbly well-written voyage of self-realization and discovery. The book is curently 'out of print', but I trust you can find it through a good search as a used commodity. By the way, if publishers can find an excuse to put books like "Running to the Mountain" about a New Jersey suburbanite's silly attempts to become a "mountain man" in rural New York state into paperback, they should also be able do so for this real adventur

Through Leo's adventures in the city as well as the bush... He writes about his life like it was the greatest thing sence sliced bread. All who like Alaska should read!

Richard Leo paints a fantastic portrait of life in rural Alaska. And by rural I mean no neighbors for a 100 square mile area. It's the story of a man disenchanted with life in the city and a search for something more. His quest becomes fulfilled as a father to a newborn son. To build a new life for himself and Janus takes ever ounce of strength. But the rewards are lasting, as is Denali.

The edges of the earth is must reading for those of us who find North American society a greedy, consumer-driven regime which must be avoided whenever possible; for author Richard Leo chronicles exactly how this can be achieved. Leo's inspirational story of escaping to find a new life in the Alaskan wilderness will have you sitting on the edge of your imagination at times and marvelling at the spirit that lies inside all of us if we reach deep enough. Disillusioned with the mundane rat race of New York, Leo chucks it all in for the unknown wilds of Alaksa with $900 in savings and an extremely resourceful mind. Eventually he literally carves a new life for himself in the Alaskan wilderness, far from the shallow trappings of the society he escaped. His journey is a difficult and heroic one and well worth reading about. Leo's story appeals on many levels, from the psychological to the physical and at its simplest, details what happens when a man tries to strip life down to the barest essentials. Leo shows us the frightening beauty that can exist in the basic struggle to survive on a sometimes hostile planet. Great stuff!