Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man

I ordered this book from Doug after seeing him on a local TV magazine program discussing his book. My husband and I took a vacation of a lifetime last summer by traveling for 3 weeks through Alaska by car and hiking. We left our hearts there and this book brought back wonderful memories. I enjoyed reading about Doug's adventures, especially his experience at Barrow (one place we would have liked to visit). This is a great read for any lovers of the outdoors or who dream of escaping the rat race to come back to nature...

ARRIGAA!! Journeying with Doug Fine on his many adventures in Alaska in pursuit of becoming "An Alaskan Mountain Man" is a truly wonderful experience. He leaves the safety net of a stable environment and heads for rural Alaska. His purpose was to discover his indigenous roots by learning the skills necessary to survive the subartic winter temperatures, create suitable shelter, and prepare a food supply to sustain him and his dog, Sunny, through the winter months.He is a 'cheechacko', a tenderfoot, who has some harrowing experiences as he attempts to master these skills. He elevated my heart rate while I anticipated the outcome of some of his adventures and had me laughing out loud as he mocked his foibles. He is a careful observer with an astute ability to give the reader and inside view. Can you just picture him eating his first piece of two-toned muktuk saturated in whale oil off his sword as a kabob? His interaction with the family of harvesters of this newly caught whale was both humorous an insightful. As a nature lover, I enjoyed seeing the beautiful, pristine land of Alaska through Doug's eyes. His writing flows from his heart as he describes the meadows strewn with bluebells, the meditative silence of the spruce forest, rainbows across Kachemak Bay,and the glaciated peaks that framed the scenes. From woodpeckers to kittiwakes, to moose, to snowshoe hares, he acknowledges their place on this earth and their struggle to survive. This book was a joy to read. Doug Fine is hilariously funny and an excellent writer. I look forward to reading about more of his adventures. In the end, he proves himself to be a true Alaskan Mountain man, a man unafraid to confront those challenges of growth and disconvery. AARIGAA!!

This is an excellent story which is told with a great sense of humor. Doug Fine morphed from New York City, through the American "west", to his rural Alaska living which he describes in the most entertaining manner. Since we share a love of animals, Doug's description of the moose around his cabin had special meaning. His free-spirited little dog, Sunny, is woven into the story leaving me surprised that a petite Golden Retriever mix could survive at all in the Alaskan wilderness, much less love her surroundings so much. Doug's trip to Barrow and beyond on the ice was yet another sensory level for me and perhaps for anyone who read Going to Extremes. Doug makes the ice and the native Americans feel like adventuresome but familiar friends -- it is a matter of focus. Doug's story struck home to the part of me that years ago secretly wished to homestead in the wilderness in Alaska - to live remotely and simply in a beautiful place without population pressures. (In my day dreams I added a dog team and sled training to my daily regimen, though it sounds like human survival would have been more than enough.) Though I worked in Alaska for several summer "field seasons" out of the Anchorage-Palmer area, and have been to Homer and the Kenai Peninsula, I never lived there and remain curious about Alaskan winter.

Anyone that loves the outdoors, or Alaska should read this wonderfully written book by Doug Fine. Doug applies a combination of intelligence and humor in recapping some of his personal experiences of living and surviving in the outlands of Alaska. If you ever felt incompetent in dealing with the challenges of the outdoors, you will find yoursel laughing outloud and dreaming of a simpler life in Alaska. I look forward to reading more from this fun living, intelligent young author.

I've lived in Boston, I've lived in New York. I've lived in the Louisiana Swamps. And when I arrived in the small desert town of Winnemucca, Nevada I suddenly knew that I was home at last. So it was with great delight that I found Doug Fine saying that when he got Alaska he knew he was home. The differences between here in the desert and the snows of Alaska are significant - temperature being a big one. Or maybe it's not such a big difference. After all, being outside at the middle of the Alaskan winter is not too different than being outside on a 110+ summer day. Both of them make you want to crave the inside of a nice comfortable bar. What I don't have is the sense of vision, the ability to convey the ironic, the writing style to find hilarity in the middle of catastrophe. ==You really don't have to go to Alaska to get a kick out of his life in a one room cabin, trying to survive the hardest winter since whenever, a three mile walk to school, uphill both ways - you know the story, it's the way its told that makes it a delight.