After two years of planning and fundraising, I am beginning research on a new, comprehensive, up-to-date history of Alaska.
I got here in the most unusual way, and I’m utterly surprised and deeply gratified. Rather than receiving grants from cultural institutions, the project will be paid for mostly with private contributions.
This is daunting vote of confidence. And it demonstrates that real hunger persists for serious non-fiction.
My idea is to interpret Alaska’s history after we’ve discarded the traditional narrative of hearty pioneers taming an empty land. Not only including the events of the decades since the last such book, but also the new ways we think now about the past.
What does it mean to be Alaskan? That’s a big question for a book, but history has to be the starting place. I’d like this book to be a brick in the rebuilding of the Alaska identity.
[I’ve written more about my goals here.]
To write such a book is a huge job and cannot be funded by sales alone. The budget is large. Besides the cost of keeping food on my table for the years of work, there will be expenses for research assistants, travel, photo research and image rights. The total was well outside what Alaska’s small philanthropic foundations usually support.
With the sponsorship of the Alaska Historical Society, which put in yeoman’s work, we applied to the foundations, and waited. But all backed away, giving jargon reasons for their refusal, or no reason, or saying they didn’t think I could raise the full amount.
But by the time I got those responses, I’d already raised much of the money—to my own astonishment. It started after I gave a lecture on my book ideas to a college alumni group in 2024. Contributions from individuals just showed up. Next, I wrote emails to Alaskans I knew were public spirited, and bigger donations showed up.
[Here’s more on the financial part.]
And it branched out from there. A friend who has been a fan of my work started raising money for me, reaching out to his network, and bringing large contributions from folks I’d never met. A recent widow dedicated memorials for her husband to the book, in recognition of his contributions to Alaska—the late Steve Sllver.
The Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage made me an affiliate, and its benefactor and former director, Lee Gorsuch, encouraged endowment funds he had donated be dedicated to the book.
Forty-five contributions ranged from $15 to $30,000. We’re within 10 percent of our goal.
These generous people will get from my book only what everyone else will get. Their gifts are pure service to history.
Their trust in me to write it, with no strings attached, makes my career of writing about Alaska feel worthwhile. Writing is a lonely job. Suddenly, I sense people were really listening.
At the same time, I feel a tremendous sense of purpose and responsibility. This will take years. And it had better be good.