Review of "Strange Stories of Alaska and the Yukon," by Ed Ferrell

 Review of

Strange Stories of Alaska and the Yukon, by Ed Ferrell, ISBN 0945397518

Four out of five stars

Somewhat unique stories, yet very familiar

 The stories in this collection have as their location Alaska and the Yukon and are dated back to the early days of Russian and American exploration. The Yukon gold rush of 1896-1899, where somewhere around 100,000 prospectors made the journey to the gold fields led to many of the stories. Yet, most of the stories in this collection are similar to stories from other areas.

 Quite naturally, some of the stories are about lost gold mines. Although the weather conditions are much harsher than in the American Southwest, the general form of the lost gold mine stories closely match the tales of lost gold mines in the American Southwest. A lone or small team of prospectors find a gold mine, struggle out with high grade ore and then for whatever reason, cannot find or direct the way back to the find.

 Most of the ghost stories also share many features with ghost stories from other locales. Again, the only real difference is the location context. There are also stories of the “lost valley” form, where there is an isolated region warmed by hot springs with extremely lush vegetation and the best hunting. Pretty much the kind of heaven that people living in the arctic would create. There are also stories about a version of Sasquatch.

 The most interesting and perhaps the most plausible stories are those that involve the possibility of woolly mammoths still living in isolated regions of the Arctic in the late 19th century. Intact bodies of such creatures have been found and the scientific consensus is that they went extinct a few thousand years ago. Since the region is so isolated and the mammoths so well adapted to the cold conditions, it is conceivable, however remote, that some had survived into the nineteenth century. Finding instances of animals long thought extinct is an occasional phenomenon.

 While the stories in this collection are generally not wildly unusual or even unique to the area of Alaska, they are fun to read. Given the current movement to try to bring back the woolly mammoth, it would be amazing if one could be found that was well-preserved and had more recently died.

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