Alaska

Across immense spans of time, the novel follows the land that becomes Alaska from its geological formation and prehistoric wildlife to the arrival of Indigenous peoples adapted to sea, ice and tundra. Later narratives introduce Russian explorers and fur traders, Native communities subjected to exploitation, missionaries, prospectors and settlers whose lives are shaped by the territory's resources and severe environment.

The story moves through Russian America, the United States purchase, the Klondike era, the growth of fisheries and mining, the Second World War and the political struggles surrounding statehood and Native claims. Interconnected families reveal the competing impulses that drive Alaska's history: survival, profit, migration, cultural endurance and the desire to control a land that repeatedly resists control.