Book Description

Told in a voice rich with humor and insight, Hunter: The Alaska of Robert Hunter Fitzhugh, is a fascinating first-person account of life in Alaska during the gold rush of a century ago. Hunter Fitzhugh left St. Louis in 1897 dreaming of fortune and adventure.Blessed with keen intelligence, a sense of humor, and an eye for detail, Hunter discovered the reality of a land about which he had only read, and he recreated that land in his writing. Cut off from his family and friends hack home, he poured his thoughts and feelings into letters, which form a riveting narrative of the exciting life he led in the far north.Supported with over thirty illustrations, including maps and photographs of numerous sites frequented by the Alaska gold prospectors, Hunter is a combination of factual historical account and compelling personal story.Hunter chronicles his preparations for the journey across the frontier, the exorbitant prices that were paid for his supplies, and the struggle of transporting hundreds of pounds of goods across the ice and snow. Accounts of his partners that quickly become friends in the face of such challenges are vivid with details of daily life: hands frost-bitten from digging in the ice, a deadly fight with a grizzly bear, a treacherous fall through thin ice into the river, the teams of dogs he learns to rely on like family, as well as moving passages about the minister and his church that comforted Hunter in the strange land.Hunting for riches, he found them not in the nuggets he dug from the frozen mountains but in the human relationships he mined in the tiny gold-rush towns and camps.Hunter searched not only for fame and fortune, but also for an understandingof his place in this world. His letters reveal one individual's quest for purpose and meaning in life. His determination and hope in the face of daunting obstacles, both physical and spiritual, is a testament to man's courage.Finally, Hunter's abrupt end, described in the telegraph that informed his family of his death in an avalanche, is a reminder of man's ultimate frailty.Hunter: The Alaska Letters of Robert Hunter Fitzhugh is a revealing portrait of a remarkable place at a historic moment.