Yukon: The Last Frontier

'Surely the finest regional study yet done on Alaska' - Ted C. Hinckley, "Western Historical Quarterly". Webb 'separates fact from fancy, an uncommon feature of writings about the North. This alone would be sufficient to place students of the region's history in her debt' - Stephen Haycox, "Pacific Historical Review". 'Webb ...has given us a guide we can ill afford to ignore...[It is] timely and valuable reading. The next decade may well determine our future as a nation, and as the old Yukon prospectors used to say, 'You can't get where you're going unless you know where you've already been' - "Montreal Gazette". 'The story is grounded in rich detail, and the author shows a sure knowledge of the facts of wilderness life...Highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of Alaska or the American frontier' - Terrence Cole, "New Mexico Historical Review".Covering vast distances in time and space, "Yukon: The Last Frontier" begins with the early Russian fur trade on the Aleutian Islands and closes with what Melody Webb calls 'the technological frontier'.
Colorful and impeccably researched, her history of the Yukon Basin of Canada and Alaska shows how much and how little has changed there in the last two centuries. Successive waves of traders, trappers, miners, explorers, soldiers, missionaries, settlers, steamboat pilots, road builders, and aviators have come to the Yukon, bringing economic and social changes, but the immense land "remains virtually untouched by permanent intrusions. Melody Webb, who spent time in the Yukon wilderness before writing this book, is the assistant superintendent of Teton National Park.