Perseus Academic: In a Far Country by John Taliaferro

In the fall of 1897, eight whaling ships became trapped in the ice on Alaska’s northern coast. Without relief, 200 whalers would surely starve to death by winter’s end. In a Far Country is the story of an unprecedented and epically heroic trek to save them. Leading the rescue mission was the extraordinary missionary Tom Lopp. In rich and vivid prose, John Taliaferro tells of how Lopp and seven native Eskimo herders drove 400 reindeer over 700 untracked miles. He also depicts the personal odyssey of Tom and his wife, Ellen-their commitment to the natives and the rugged but happy life they built for themselves amid a treeless tundra at the top of the world. Their accomplishment would surely have received broader acclaim had it not been eclipsed by two simultaneous events: the Spanish-American Warand the Alaska gold rush. Despite the Lopps’ determined efforts, the natives of the North were soon overwhelmed by a force mightier than the fiercest Arctic winter: the twentieth century.

John Taliaferro is a former senior editor at Newsweek and the author of Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore; Charles M. Russell: The Life and Legend of America’s Cowboy Artist; and Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs. He lives in Pray, Montana, and Austin, Texas.

John Taliaferro is a former senior editor at Newsweek and the author of three acclaimed books, Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore, Charles M. Russell: The Life and Legend of America's Cowboy Artist, and Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs. He lives in Pray, Montana, and Austin, Texas.