Breathtaking and manifold, inspiring and unforgiving, America's last great frontier is vividly revealed in this collection of twenty-eight remarkable eyewitness accounts. An enraptured John Muir first glimpses Glacier Bay in 1879. While running the Iditarod, Libby Riddles loses her grip on the sled, only to see her huskies lope off into the night.

Jon Krakauer marvels at the fresh size 20 grizzly print next to his size 9 boot; and Anne Morrow Lindbergh is amazed simply at the sight of a road after a long-flight over the trackless wastes of the North Slope.

By gathering the diverse "reports" of intrepid travelers to the land of Seward's folly, from John McPhee's encounter with "kamikaze" bush pilots to Jonathan Waterman's tale of humanity lost on Denali's precarious slopes, The Reader's Companion to Alaska offers readers an incomparably richer perspective on the real Alaska than could possibly be offered by any standard guidebook.