Midnight
Sun, Arctic Moon: Mapping the Wild Heart of Alaska
Mary Albanese
Publisher: Epicenter Press; 1st edition (April 1, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1935347179
ISBN-13:
978-1935347170
216 pages
Publicity: Maryglenn <maryglenn@maryglenn.com>
Author bio: Mary
Albanese is an author, artist, and scriptwriter. She currently resides in England.
Autobiography, Alaskan
History and Science
Reviewer: Jeff Lowenfels
It was easy
for this reviewer to relate to the circumstances that brought the author of Midnight Sun, Arctic Moon to Alaska. We both immigrated
to the new, 49th State around the
same time, both drawn by some serendipitous force as people don’t grow up planning to move to Alaska. We both quickly
learned why it was nicknamed “The Great Land” and both instantly fell in love with it.
It was never
easy to explain those heady days when the young state of Alaska presented wide open, unlimited, opportunity to those who came
to live there. The State was young.underpopulated and under talented and an inexperienced geology student named Mary could
find herself above the Arctic Circle before her first letters even arrived from back home and could soon become the expert
rather than an apprentice.
This was the world of Mary Albanese and so many others who came
to Alaska in the 60’s and 70’s. And she captures that exciting world, mixing in just the right doses of Alaska’s
undeniable sexism, its understaffed land grant school, its badly insulated living quarters, ever present dog poop, undeniably
shitty weather and terrible bugs,all with exactly the right dashes of special, Alaska love for neighbors and friends, flying,
cold, snow, sledding, extreme recreating, and bizarre working conditions, newness and freedom. Mary Albanese nails it.
She captures an Alaska, a place where there really was a need for sled dogs and wood stoves really
were needed to heat homes. Alaska, where there was gold and other minerals and helicopters and young students to help find
it. Alaska, before the big oil money and the hoards of Outsiders and cell phones and Hummers and fast food places. Alaska,
where there were places no person, let alone a woman new to a profession that wouldn’t let the fair sex underground,
had stepped.
Encounters with bears, runaway dog sleds, cold that you have to live to understand are all so wonderfully
described Ms Albanese. She delivers the soul of a time when a special way of life still existed, so special that it made it
worth living so far North. She gives this period a voice and feeling so those who weren’t there can understand why
so many of us found so much warmth even in the coldest of cold.
You made friends fast and they
became your family. When they left or died or suffered a death, no matter how or why, it was like loosing your real family.
It was losing your real family. Albanese felt it and was able to put it into words. Exactly
This is the real
deal, folks. “Midnight Sun, Arctic Moon: Mapping the Wild Heart of Alaska” won’t take you long to
read. It so accurately captures a time when there a special feeling you could find only in Alaska, one of hope and innocence
and the sky is the limit. I know. I was there and I was taken back there again through Mary Albanese’s auto biography.
Reading Midnight Sun, brought it all back, just before the last frontier stopped being a frontier.
