ALASKA

Using stories of individuals and families to illuminate important events and aspects of the Alaskan experience, the Millers subtly convey the message that there is still great opportunity there. Frank and Mary Miller came from Austria to ride the gold rush to Fairbanks, where they prospered and raised 11 children. Jim Dobson was a pioneering bush pilot; Willie Hensley, an Inuit, became politically savvy. Other chapters center on the recent oil spill, the great 1964 earthquake, a fishing family, and back-to-the-land trappers and sledders. Generally entertaining and informative, if stylistically bumpy. Factual accounts of oil development and the newly established friendship with the USSR are appended. Glossary (somewhat sketchy); selected facts; bibliography. (Nonfiction. 12+)