Alaska in the Wake of the North Star

As a descendent of Alaska early settlers (my grandfather arrived in Valdez in 1898 to look for gold and stayed to edit the Valdez newspaper and raise a family), I found Loel Shuler's account of mid-20th century Alaska fascinating. Enough of the old ways particular to Alaska remained in place during Ms. Shuler's amazing journey to give me a glimpse of what life may have been like for my grandparents. What a useful historical memoir! Well written, well illustrated, and thoughtful.

ALASKA---In the Wake of the North Star by Loel Shuler This book accomplishes the goal for which so many historians strive. Loel Shuler has given us a rare and entrancing look into life along coastal Alaska in 1949. She has both informed and entertained. Her experience in the publishing field, and her keen eye for detail uniquely qualified her to chronicle one aspect of Alaskan life, one which has mostly faded away. She has combined incite and careful research into this fascinating account of her journey on the ship, North Star, in its annual supply trip from Seward to Pont Barrow and ports of call in between. The picture is far different from the tourist oriented portrayals to which we have become accustomed. Loel Shuler writes with clarity and human feeling about a people and a way of life which have nearly disappeared, and is to be found in villages which, today, have taken on an almost museum-like quality, similar to Plymouth Village. The story is enhanced by the artwork of Rie Munoz, who gives us an interpretation of primitive Alaska native art. Prospective readers should not make the mistake, as I did, of thinking that the cover art indicated book for children. It is for all of us. Brian Fortier

I came upon Loel's book by a series of happy accidents. Her adventurous excursion to Alaska's North Coast was in 1950; I had spent several years in government weather service in that area, 6 to 8 years previously, and knew well most of the places and some of the people she saw and met and wrote of. An item in the local paper and a shot-in-the-dark phone call led to a contact which led to my acquiring her book. I read it almost in one sitting, even though my eyesight is far short of acute. Its appeal to me of course is amplified by my familiarity, but there is an intrinsic appeal which does not need that familiarity. Of this spirited young woman, carrying with her the "stowaway" her yet unborn daughter, encountering and appreciating a people and their culture that were soon to be forever altered, if not destroyed. It is poignant, it is informative, it is fun. It is one of those things that grab you; you cannot put it down. When you do you say to yourself Gee, I wish I could have done that.

Loel Shuler's Alaska in the Wake of the North Star is part memoir and part travelogue -- a candid and insightful account of the author's 11,000 mile, three-month voyage from Sitka to Point Barrow as a passenger aboard the USMS North Star. Shuler (who was pregnant with her first child during this rugged odyssey) offers a one-of-a-kind snapshot of every day life in coastal Alaskan communities in the summer of 1950 - - shortly after the war, before statehood, before the pipeline, before tourism, even before bathtubs, and weeks before the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb. Her natural and unaffected prose reads like a letter written to loved ones back home, full of the details and revelations that make such correspondences worth savoring. Like the cliff dwellers of Alaska's King Island, the lifestyles and communities she describes have literally vanished in the short half-century since. This is a rare and memorable addition to the small collection of books about the people who make their home in our 49th state.

"Alaska!" Said with that unique combination of awe and respect that Alaska seems to elicit, the word "Alaska" alone is enough to garner attention. Loel Shuler had both, plus the curiosity and determination to learn all she could about her adopted home. "Alaska...in the Wake of the North Star" is the story of her literal three-month voyage of discovery aboard the North Star as it made its annual 11,000 mile circuit between Sitka and Point Barrow. Like most who come to call Alaska home, Shuler came to the realization that to know a small part of Alaska isn't to know Alaska. First begun in the 1950's, then tucked away for nearly fifty years, "Alaska in the Wake of the North Star" is an intriguing, thought provoking look at a world that largely no longer exists, but one that helped shape Alaska and Alaskans. Graced by artwork by Rie Munoz, as well as photos provided by the author, it's a book that should be read. The Alaska described by Loel Shuler is no more, although traces of it echo in remote areas of the state. Yet, even today, it's difficult to imagine leaving family and friends to undertake such a voyage. Shuler and her fellow passengers weren't passengers on a cruise ship. Instead, they sailed on what might today be deemed simply a cargo ship that carried passengers. As it made its ports of call, Shuler, pregnant at the time of departure, documented the trip and those ports of call. You can almost feel the cold on your skin at times as she describes being hoisted aboard via a net, not nice, safe steps, and fruitlessly returning time after time to the docks on-shore for hazardous trips back to the ship, a procedure that occasionally lasted for days. Yet, while her frustration occasionally shows, so to does her respect for the culture she was seeing played out before her. Perhaps her most vivid memory is of the friendship shown by total strangers. That's an aspect of Alaska that still rings true today, I might add. More than a half century into the future, it's often intriguing to realize how "right-on" her observations were, particularly in regard to the death of the culture she found so intriguing and bewildering. Given Alaska's designation today as a popular tourist stop, her comments about how tourist-ready some of the villages had become even then, one has to wonder where Schuler got her psychic abilities. Yet, in the face of death, the Native cultures did what they had to in order to survive, adapting to and playing to those who came in awe and curiosity. Shuler had nothing but admiration for those struggling to preserve their culture in the face of 1950's progress and it shows. Today one can only look at her intriguing photos of King Island, for instance, and wonder what it must have been like to live in one of those houses-on-stilts built into the side of a mountain. What must it have been like to scale steep slopes to reach your "refrigerator," a labyrinth of frozen caverns in the mountainside? You feel her ex