Alaska is a historical novel by James A. Michener. Like other Michener titles, Alaska spans a considerable amount of time. An historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, where the time the action takes place in predates the lifetime of the author -- distinguish and contrast the alternate history genre. ... James Albert Michener (February 3, 1907? - October 16, 1997) was the American author of such books as Tales of the South Pacific (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948), Hawaii, The Drifters, Centennial, The Source, The Fires of Spring, Chesapeake, Caribbean, Caravans, Alaska, Texas and Poland. ...

Contents

Published in 1988 by Random House, Alaska is 868 pages long. Along with the reading, Michener provides a table of contents, a list of acknowledgements, and a Fact and Fiction section. The third item offers the reader an insight into what occurred in real life and what the author invented. 1988 is a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Random House is a publishing division of Bertelsmann AG. It was founded in 1927 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, two years after they had acquired the Modern Library imprint. ...

Drawings and Maps

Throughout the novel are (at the beginnings of chapters) and maps (frontispiece, pages 102-103, and inside back cover). There is also an amount of impressive calligraphy. The maps are credited to Jean Paul Tremblay. Carole Lowenstein is responsible for the book's physical and calligraphy. In architecture, a frontispiece constitutes the elements that frame and decorate the main, or front, door to a building; especially when the main entrance is the chief face of the building, rather than being kept behind columns or a portico. ... Calligraphy in a Latin Bible of AD 1407 on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ...

Book's Jacket Design

The jacket of Alaska features an illustration on the front and a photograph of Michener on the back. The illustration is an oval-shaped sketch of items easily identifiable with the state of Alaska.
They include (clockwise): A photograph (often just called a photo) is an image (or a representation of that on e. ... An oval or ovoid was originally an egg shape (from Latin OVVM); it is now usually used to refer to ellipses, but can also mean any similar shape, such as egg shapes or race-course shapes (a semicircle on either side of a quadrilateral). ... State nickname: The Last Frontier, The Land of the Midnight Sun Other U.S. States Capital Juneau Largest city Anchorage Governor Frank Murkowski Official languages English Area 1,717,854 km² (1st)  - Land 1,481,347 km²  - Water 236,507 km² (13. ... Clockwise can refer to: Clockwise and counterclockwise Clockwise (movie) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

• a snow-capped mountain
• a sky of pink, orange, and yellow hues
• an amphibious airplane (known as a 'bush plane' in the state)
• a dark gray-green hill
• a floating, craggy iceberg
• calm, highly-reflective water
• a small figure in a kayak
• a tiny village at the foot of another hill

The photograph of James Michener, on the back cover, was taken not too long before his death in 1997. This page is about the form of precipitation. ... Mount Cook, a mountain in New Zealand A mountain is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain in a limited area. ... Pink is a color made by mixing red and white and sometimes described as being a light red, but it is more accurately a bright undersaturated red. ... The colour orange occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum at a wavelength of about 620-585 nanometres. ... Yellow is the color of light whose wavelength is between 565 nm and 590 nm, or is a mixture of red and green light that appears to be the same color. ... Fixed-wing aircraft is a term used to refer to what are more commonly known as aeroplanes in Commonwealth English (excluding Canada) or airplanes in North American English. ... An iceberg (berg is the German word for mountain) is a large piece of ice that has broken off from a glacier or ice shelf and is floating in open water. ... A kayak is a type of small human-powered boat. ... 1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Reef. ...

The jacket design and aforementioned sketch are credited to Wendell Minor. Michener's picture is credited to Michael A. Lewis of the Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Alaska. Sheldon Jackson College is a small college in Sitka, Alaska. ... Sitka City and Borough is a borough located on the west side of Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean, in the state of Alaska. ...

Fact and Fiction

It is important to remember that although Alaska is based on fact, Michener uses factual people or places in fictional events. He also invents characters, places, and like any other novelist. Alaska is not a history textbook. A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ...

Acknowledgements

• Dr. Jean Aigner -- early peoples
• Layton Bennett -- transportation
• Price Brower -- Will Rogers memorial near Nome, Alaska
• Randy Crosby -- see Price Brower, above
• David Finley -- education above the Arctic Circle
• Dr. David Hopkins -- Beringia
• Joe Horiskey -- mountaineering
• Kim Johnson-Bogart -- Michener's "word-processing wizard"
• Dr. Timothy Joiner -- salmon
• Mary Ann Kaelke -- provided lodging for the author
• Mike Kaelke -- see Mary Ann Kaelke, above
• Dee McKenna -- the Nome gold rush
• Bob Reeve -- the Aleutian Islands
• Prof. Frank Roth -- Mike Healy and Sheldon Jackson
• Tom Rupert -- the Yukon River
• Elva Scott -- life at low temperatures (-42°F)
• Officer Pete Spence -- Three Saints Bay
• Dr. David Stone -- terranes
• Officer Tom Walters -- see Pete Spence, above
• Ken Ward -- salmon canneries
• Jonathan Waterman -- Denali

Will Rogers. ... Nome or Sitnasuaq is a city located in Nome Census Area, Alaska. ... Arctic Circle - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... The Bering land bridge, also known as Beringia, was a land bridge roughly 1600 km (1000 miles) north to south at its greatest extent, which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia at various times during the ice ages. ... The Chinook or King Salmon is the largest salmon in North America and can grow up to 58 long and 126 pounds. ... General Name, Symbol, Number Gold, Au, 79 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11 (IB), 6, d Density, Hardness 19300 kg/m3, 2. ... Looking down the Aleutians from an airplane. ... Sheldon Jackson was an early missionary and political leader in Alaska during the late 1880s and early 1900s. ... The Yukon River is a watercourse of northern North America. ... Fahrenheit is a temperature scale named after the German physicist Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736), who proposed it in 1724. ... David Stone is also the name of a professioal keyboardist. ... A terrane in paleogeography is an accretion that has collided with a continental nucleus, or craton but can be recognized by the foreign origin of its rock strata. ... Denali redirects here. ...

Synopsis

Chapter I: The Clashing Terranes

A sweeping, yet compelling, description of the formation of the North American continent. The reader follows the development of the Alaskan terrain over millenia.

Chapter II: The Ice Castle

Chapter III: People of the North

Chapter IV: The Explorers

Chapter V: The Duel

Chapter VI: Lost Worlds

Chapter VII: Giants in Chaos

Chapter VIII: Gold

Chapter IX: The Golden Beaches of Nome

Chapter X: Salmon

Chapter XI: The Rail Belt

Chapter XII: The Rim of Fire