Fred Hatfield was a young man looking for adventure when he arrived in Alaska in 1933. It was one place he knew had much to offer — an untamed land of tre mendous rivers, wide valleys and majestic mountains, of gold, game and self-reliance. He found the legendary life he sought, spending the next twenty years in the back country of the Tikchik Lakes — the old Eskimo Ipeetla called it "the place of the gods" — and in the rough-anctumble coastal town of Dillingham.
This is Fred Hatfield's chronicle, from showdowns with grizzlies and trapping furs and hunting for the winter's food to marrying a young woman and raising children in a remote cabin he built on his own. At the center of this book are two exciting and unsettling tales: one of a terrifying and deadly feud. with a murderous trapper named Klutuk, the other of a partner who lost his wits in the lonelywoods, endangering both his own life and Hatfield's. Throughout, Hatfield reveals himself as a man of plain moral conviction, a true naturalist and one of the last American frontiersmen.
Told with uncompromising candor and spare elegance, this book is infused with subtle observations. To read North of the Sun is to be transported to a cold, wild, mystical Alaska that is vanishing. It is a compelling and often moving memo r that will captivate those who cherish the mettle of a man living in concert with the natural world, with all its beauty, danger and profound mystery.