Alaska In The Wake Of The North Star [Paperback]

Loel Burket Shuler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2005

This book gives a fascinating and compelling account of that moment in time when dramatic and powerful changes were just beginning to bubble in the far north. During a three-month journey of 11,000 miles between Sitka and Point Barrow on the USMS North Star, Loel Shuler had the privilege of an intimate look at the ways of life and the unique peoples of Alaska as they were in 1950.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Loel Shuler

Product Details

• Paperback: 221 pages
• Publisher: Hancock House Pub Ltd (April 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0888395876
• ISBN-13: 978-0888395870
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,066,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alaska. In the Wake of the North Star, January 20, 2007

By 

Brian Fortier - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alaska In The Wake Of The North Star (Paperback)

ALASKA---In the Wake of the North Star

by Loel Shuler

This book accomplishes the goal for which so many historians strive. Loel Shuler has given us a rare and entrancing look into life along coastal Alaska in 1949. She has both informed and entertained. Her experience in the publishing field, and her keen eye for detail uniquely qualified her to chronicle one aspect of Alaskan life, one which has mostly faded away.

She has combined incite and careful research into this fascinating account of her journey on the ship, North Star, in its annual supply trip from Seward to Pont Barrow and ports of call in between. The picture is far different from the tourist oriented portrayals to which we have become accustomed. Loel Shuler writes with clarity and human feeling about a people and a way of life which have nearly disappeared, and is to be found in villages which, today, have taken on an almost museum-like quality, similar to Plymouth Village.

The story is enhanced by the artwork of Rie Munoz, who gives us an interpretation of primitive Alaska native art. Prospective readers should not make the mistake, as I did, of thinking that the cover art indicated book for children. It is for all of us.

Brian Fortier

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An engaging look back at Alaskan people and cultures., August 9, 2006

By 

Delwyn C. Rasmussen "Rass" (Oakhurst CA U SA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alaska In The Wake Of The North Star (Paperback)

I came upon Loel's book by a series of happy accidents. Her adventurous excursion to Alaska's North Coast was in 1950; I had spent several years in government weather service in that area, 6 to 8 years previously, and knew well most of the places and some of the people she saw and met and wrote of. An item in the local paper and a shot-in-the-dark phone call led to a contact which led to my acquiring her book. I read it almost in one sitting, even though my eyesight is far short of acute. Its appeal to me of course is amplified by my familiarity, but there is an intrinsic appeal which does not need that familiarity. Of this spirited young woman, carrying with her the "stowaway" her yet unborn daughter, encountering and appreciating a people and their culture that were soon to be forever altered, if not destroyed. It is poignant, it is informative, it is fun. It is one of those things that grab you; you cannot put it down. When you do you say to yourself Gee, I wish I could have done that.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Part Memoir and Part Travelogue - Well worth the reading!, August 10, 2006

By 

Adam Miller "Folksinger" (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alaska In The Wake Of The North Star (Paperback)

Loel Shuler's Alaska in the Wake of the North Star is part memoir and part travelogue -- a candid and insightful account of the author's 11,000 mile, three-month voyage from Sitka to Point Barrow as a passenger aboard the USMS North Star.

Shuler (who was pregnant with her first child during this rugged odyssey) offers a one-of-a-kind snapshot of every day life in coastal Alaskan communities in the summer of 1950 - - shortly after the war, before statehood, before the pipeline, before tourism, even before bathtubs, and weeks before the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb.

Her natural and unaffected prose reads like a letter written to loved ones back home, full of the details and revelations that make such correspondences worth savoring. Like the cliff dwellers of Alaska's King Island, the lifestyles and communities she describes have literally vanished in the short half-century since. This is a rare and memorable addition to the small collection of books about the people who make their home in our 49th state.