First-Hand History
Lance Mackey, Icy Hell, Addison Powell, James Taylor White and more
One of my first website headers featuring the 1910-era stained glass dog team which I discovered while researching the history of sled dogs in 2007. I wrote a book, The Stained Glass Dog Team, about the search for its origin and the gold rush history of Seattle, Alaska, the Arctic Club, and much more.
It has been almost two decades since Northern Light Media was founded, and one of our first projects was producing a DVD/video about Lance Mackey, who was just beginning his meteoric rise to become a legend in sled dog racing history. The DVD, Appetite and Attitude: A Conversation with Lance Mackey, is not currently available, but you can watch the first few minutes of the video at my website.
From the video: “From the stories that I’ve been told—obviously I wasn’t quite around when my dad started—but it was in the 60s, and people like George Attla, Doc Lombard.... There wasn’t an Iditarod at this particular time. Joe Redington Sr. happened to become a friend of my dad’s, and it just kind of evolved, the people he was hanging out with, and the people he was affiliated with, were all getting into—or were already into dogs. And I remember dad telling me that he picked up a registered black lab dog—with no intentions of having a sled dog team—and then my mom, she had a registered Siberian dog, And that’s basically where his kennel started, those two teamed up and gave him a litter of pups.”
In 2014 I published a book about those years I spent following Lance, titled Long Hard Trails and Sled Dog Tales. The book is currently under revision.
Also scheduled for release this winter is a reprinting of Will E. Hudson’s rare and hard to find 1937 book, Icy Hell. Experiences of a news-reel cameraman in the Aleutian Islands, Eastern Siberia and the Arctic fringes of Alaska. The book is an account of a private hunting and exploring party’s 1913 trip in the schooner Polar Bear, through the Bering Strait into the Beaufort Sea, then east to Demarcation Point, and then overland by dogsled to Ft. Yukon when the Polar Bear became trapped in the sea ice.
The publication of Icy Hell marks the return of my publishing company to my first love, vintage books about the history of Alaska. The first-hand experiences and photographs found in these books are true history, told by those who lived it, and I’ve shared some of that history in books such as Trailing and Camping in Alaska, by Addison Powell, subtitled Ten Years Spent Exploring, Hunting and Prospecting in Alaska – 1898 to 1909, republished in its entirety by Northern Light Media in 2018.
Addison M. Powell was an adventurer, prospector, hunter, and a former guide for Captain William R. Abercrombie’s 1898 Copper River Exploring Expedition, which was one of three military expeditions organized under the direction of the Secretary of War with directives for exploring the interior of the new territory of Alaska. Powell’s familiarity with the land made him a valuable addition to Abercrombie’s efforts over the next several years, and brought him into contact with many men who would help to shape the future of Alaska.
Another book which shares first-hand accounts and photographs is The Alaska Diaries of Dr. James Taylor White, 1889, 1890, 1894, 1900-1901, by Gary Stein, Ph.D., which provides a first-hand look at life aboard a revenue cutter during Alaska’s early years. More than simply a dry text about historic events, Dr. Stein’s book was the result of four decades of research, during which he developed an affinity for the good doctor, writing, “I met James T. White in 1980 while I was researching in the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. We instantly became fast friends. He had been dead for sixty-eight years, but he let me pry into his life through his diaries, correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs, and natural history and ethnological collections located in various archives, museums and cemeteries in Alaska, Washington State, California, and Washington, D.C. We are friends still—I’ve even smoked a pipe with him at his grave—and there is a great deal of his life to share.”
I’ve published more books which share history by those who wrote it, such as the 2018 anthology Alaska & the Klondike, Early Writings and Historic Photographs, which is comprised of excerpts from books by early explorers and travelers in Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada. Last year I published The First Newspapers of Knik and Anchorage: The Knik News and the Cook Inlet Pioneer and Knik News, which is the name given when the newspaper moved from Knik to the new Knik Anchorage townsite at Ship Creek in 1915. The book is comprised of the actual pages of each publication, reprinted in full from archives at the Library of Congress.
Four years ago, when Alaskan History Magazine collapsed during the Covid epidemic, I published two books which collected the articles from the magazine. Available separately or as a set, Alaskan History Anthology: Volumes One and Two captures the first two years of Alaskan History Magazine. The full texts of every article which ran in the first two years of the magazine, with historic photos and vintage illustrations. Edited by Helen Hegener, with contributions by Gary Stein, Thomas Eley, Tim Jones, Patricia De Nardo Schmidt, Thom ‘Swanny’ Swan, Jon Van Zyle and others.
Other Notes
I am working on several projects this winter in addition to the books mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter. The history of the Iditarod Trail is still my primary focus, but there are also two other revisions, updating all of my websites, and I am considering the addition of some swag and merch for Northern Light Media, whether in the form of stickers, tote bags, coffee mugs, calendars or what-have-you.
The idea has been around for a long time, many years, in fact, beginning with a reader’s request for a calendar with roadhouse photographs several years ago; she wanted to gift it to a friend who owned a historic roadhouse, along with a copy of my book on the subect. The calendar turned out beautifully, and I’ve often thought I should do more merchandise relating to my books, but it’s foreign territory to me. Suggestions pro or con are definitely welcome as I dip a tentative toe into those uncharted waters.
And as always, thanks for reading!
Helen