For the past year my attention has been focused on writing, editing, and publishing two books, Lew Freedman’s 50 years of Iditarod Adventures, and my own The History of Sled Dogs in North America. Lew’s book was published last January, and this coming January my newest title will be officially published, but it will be available for pre-publication purchase very soon. I am wrapping up details this week.
Those interested in my sled dogs history book have been following my progress in an email newsletter similar to this one, but dedicated to the book, available at this link. Next week I’ll begin construction of a website for the book, similar to the sites I built for some of my previous books, including Alaskan Roadhouses and The Alaska Railroad 1902-1923. Just an FYI, I posted information about those two books on my main website this morning. Either one would make a great Christmas gift for someone special!
This newsletter, which was begun to help preserve the stories of my Alaskan History Magazine, will soon go back to sharing Alaskan history, but from varying sources, as a sort of online library for references and resources I find interesting and want to share, and to save for future research. As an example, here are a few links to some of my favorite and most often visited sites:
Alaska’s Digital Archives are a wealth of historical photographs, albums, oral histories, moving images, maps, documents, physical objects, and other materials from archives, museums and libraries throughout our state.
Alaska’s Digital Newspaper Project As of August 2022, the Alaska State Library will have digitized at least 310,000 pages of Alaskan historical newspapers representing Alaska regions and special interest groups, ranging in date from 1898-1963.
Chronicling America Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1777-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
End of the Trail Obituaries of Alaska’s pioneers, as extracted from "End of the Trail," a feature article of Alaska - The Magazine of Life on the Last Frontier. This links to the main database, entries are alphabetized in segments: A-D, E-L, M-R, S-T, U-Z.
Dictionary of Alaska Place Names Searchable online version of the classic Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, by Donald J. Orth.
I have hundreds of bookmarked sites like these, and I’ll share more in the next newsletter. Meanwhile, check out some of the links, and some of my books!
Smiles,
Helen