The Wake of the Unseen Object : Travels Through Alaska's Native Landscapes

"In the course of a two-year odyssey . . . Kizzia visited numerous native settlements, interviewed leaders and followers, and wrote the feature articles that make up this charming, informative book. . . . Kizzia writes a clear, unobtrusive prose that crystallizes in memorable images."--Washington Post. "A boatful of native Alaskans slapping downriver through the chop on their way to the biggest softball game of the season. A hunter singing the old songs for hunting luck, as he snowmobiles onto the ice with his rifle. Such contrasts--Eskimo and outsider, ancient and modern--run through Tom Kizzia's chronicle of travels in the Alaska bush in search of 'ancestral landscapes.'"--Smithsonian. "Kizzia writes with a quiet compassion that brings the people and their hard land clearly into focus."--Boston Globe. "Kizzia . . . is a thoughtful and lyrical writer who manages to be sensitive without veering into sentimentality. . . . [He] joined Eskimos and Athabaskan Indians in steambaths and softball games. He visited their homes and their Russian Orthodox churches and their fishing camps. He even went on a ruthless whale hunt with two young Eskimos, a skiff and a .22-caliber rifle. A careful and sympathetic observer."--Philadelphia Inquirer. Tom Kizzia is a journalist at the Anchorage Daily News.