ROLLING NORTH

The exaltations and excruciations of a pioneering journey to Alaska there to settle are set forth with vim and whim by the mother of three who followed her husband's star with determination and adoration. The Greenwoods were Philadelphians who, with a boat and pony owning childhood behind them were ready to rough it. Dick prepared himself with Navy, carpentry and geology training; he made a trailer and sort of stole a jeep, packed in his family and tagged on an ""Alaska or Bust"" sign, and the long trek was on. It carried them through Dakota blizzards, over rivers swollen with the March rains, the dirt roads of Canada to the Alcan Highway and Anchorage. Dick proves his epic heroism as he battles storm and soothes spouse -- and always fixes up everything. The route to Alaska is marked with heart-touching acquaintances from the undefeatable friendly truckdriver Crosby to the tipsy Corporal to a bunch of Harvard boys traveling in a hearse and some Floridians facing the frigid north in summer clothes, the Canadian who lost his shirt on an Alaskan farm and the boys who were trying to auction their way home after failure to find jobs in Anchorage. Behind the personal story is the sense of the journey into the soul and toward an unknown future. For the ladies.