Faculty/Emeriti/ae

Briefly Noted     

Alumni/ae     

1939—John H. Daniels. Affectionately H: A Tribute to Helen Burt Hennessey [Twenty Years of Correspondence Between a Bookseller and a Collector]. (Nothing Could Be Finer Press, 1999).

1943—Gore Vidal. The Essential Gore Vidal, edited by Fred Kaplan. (Random House, 1999).

1948—Schuyler Brown.Text and Psyche: Experiencing Scripture Today. (Cassell & Continuum, 1998).

1950—Peter Israel and Stephen Jones. Others Unknown: The Oklahoma City Bombing Case and Conspiracy. (Public Affairs, 1999).

1953—M. Scott Peck. Golf and the Spirit: Golf Lessons for the Journey and the Spirit. (Harmony: Crown, 1999).

1956—Stewart Brand.The Clock of the Long Now. (Basic Books, 1999).

1956—Lowell Edmunds.Martini Straight Up: The Classic American Cocktail [Revised edition of The Silver Bullet published in 1981]. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).

1960—David Watson Kruger. Jonathan Watson (1650-1714) of Dover, New Hampshire who settled there by 1672 [in two vols.]. (Newbury Street Press, 1998).

1961—George W.S. Trow. My Pilgrim's Progress: Media Studies, 1950-1998. (Pantheon Books, 1999).

1963—David Kovacs (editor). Euripides: Suppliant Women Electra—Heracles. (Harvard University Press, 1998).

1963—William T. Loomis. Wages, Welfare Costs and Inflation in Classical Athens. (University of Michigan Press, 1998).

1968—Eric T. Dean Jr. Shook Over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War. (Harvard University Press, 1997).

1968—John Katzenbach.Hart's War. (Ballantine, 1999).

1975—Neil Harvey [co-producer]. Deep Ecology for the 21st Century [Radio series and resource guide]. (New Dimensions Radio, 1998) [Recipient of the 1998 National Federation of Community Broadcaster's Award].

1975—David S. Potter and D.J. Mattingley. Life, Death & Entertainment in the Roman Empire. (University of Michigan Press, 1998).

1983—Maud S. (Cinader) Bryt. Baby Love: A Tradition of Calm Parenting. (Dell Publishing, 1998).

Faculty/Emeriti/ae     

Dolores Kendrick "What About Humphrey Bogart?: An Alleluia for Ike" [an essay]. In Father Songs: Testimonies by African-American Sons and Daughters,edited by Gloria Wade-Gayles. (Beacon Press, 1997).

Rex McGuinn. "The Battered Kettle" [a poem]. In Commonweal (vol. 125, no. 15, September 11, 1998).

Ralph Sneeden. "The Eyes on the Scallops" [a poem]. In Hayden's Ferry Review (spring/summer 1999, issue 24).

Continuing Demands" and "Your Friends Have Gone to Florida" [poems]. In Poetry (Jan. 1999, vol. 173, no. 3).

Briefly Noted

1959—Alan J. Clark. "Will the Right Seaman Michael Smith of the American Revolution Please Stand Up?" In The Connecticut Nutmegger (vol. 31, no. 3, December 1998).

1972—Juliet P. Kostritsky. "Why Infer? What the new institutional economics has to say about law-supplied default rules." In Tulane Law Review (vol. 73, no. 2, 1998).

1988—William J. Corrin and Thomas D. Cook. "Design elements of quasi-experiments. In Advances in Educational Productivity, by A.J. Reynolds and H.J. Walbert, editors. (JAI Press Inc., 1998).

1990—Erica Strecker Downs and Phillip C. Saunders. "Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism: China and the Diaoyu Islands." In International Security. (vol. 23, no. 3, winter 1998).

Running North, Ann Mariah Cook's account of this experience, takes the reader to Twin Rivers, Alaska, where they lived for several months, and then on to the trail of the Quest. Her vivid account of the excitement, exhaustion, and anxiety of the race, as well as her compelling picture of life in this town devoted to mushers and dogs, introduces the reader to a world where partnership, teamwork, and community are essential to success and survival.

As suburbanites in Hartford, Connecticut, Ann and George Cook bought Mocha, their pet Siberian Husky. For fun, they harnessed the dog to a sled and ran him around the backyard. What began as a lark quickly turned into a passion. Twelve years later, with 30 dogs and their own kennel at their home in New Hampshire, Ann and George "lived for rocketing down trails." And after competing in all of the major eastern dog sled races, the couple wanted to test their dogs and themselves in one of the epic races. They chose the Yukon Quest.

That race, dubbed "a thousand miles of Hell," runs from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Whitehourse, Yukon Territory. The major difference between the Quest and its better-known cousin the Iditarod is the distance teams travel in remote, wilderness areas. While the Iditarod has 26 checkpoints where the team signs in, receives shelter, has access to medical or veterinary care, the Quest has but six checkpoints. On the Iditarod, a team travels an average of 45 miles and a maximum of 93 miles between checkpoints, while on the Yukon Quest, the checkpoints are 75 to 290 miles apart. When George Cook entered the Yukon Quest in 1992, no person from the lower forty-eight had finished the race. He hoped to earn this honor.

When the Cooks arrived in Twin Rivers, they adapted to its sparse lifestyle. There, material possessions are not that important, and as Ann describes, "Our lives moved at a gentle pace. There was plenty of time for me to neaten our house because it was so much smaller than our place in New Hampshire. Laundry was a snap because we each had brought only the basics of our wardrobes. We had no complicated pots, pans, or kitchen appliances, so fancy cooking was nearly impossible... There was time for everything... In this atmosphere, I began to wonder why I'd ever wanted a big house, or a large wardrobe, or a battery of cookware. It all just generated more work and more tension. I wondered if I'd been mistaken about what I wanted out of life."

While the newcomers developed relationships with the locals of Twin Rivers, they also feverishly prepared for the race. George, who would be the musher, trained the dogs in this new environment. Before the race, he and the dogs logged 1,650 miles on the trails. Ann, who along with her niece Sandy would be the handler for the race, was in charge of the myriad of tasks needed to support 12 dogs and one man for perhaps 18 days in the Alaskan wilderness. More than 2000 pounds of food and equipment were prepared, packed, labeled, and delivered to race officials.

As she writes of their preparation for the race, Ann introduces the reader to the other main characters in the book—the dogs. The popular press has often criticized and questioned the way some mushers treat their dogs; however, Ann makes it very clear that these dogs are part of the family. We come to know the distinct personalities of each of the dogs: the orderly, steady Minnie; Minnie's archrival, the fun-loving Lightening; Taro, "the crazy Frenchman"; and one-eyed Shasta, to mention a few. Anyone who's watched a sled dog race knows, from the look of the dogs, how much they love to pull. This book confirms over and over again the passion that the musher and dogs share for racing, and the respect they have for one another.

The book's excitement starts in earnest as George and the team launch in Fairbanks, and Ann, Sandy, and daughter Kathleen jump in the (temperamental) truck and track, as closely as possible, the route. Ann describes in vivid detail the conditions and challenges George and the dogs face. Traveling in temperatures that dipped to 90 below with the wind-chill factor and in blinding blizzards was not uncommon; George encouraged the dogs across barren, and often-treacherous terrain. Perhaps the most dangerous day came when crossing American Peak. George, unable to see the front of the pack in whiteout conditions, nearly drove the team off a ridge.

Whether describing the exhaustion of the mushers, who average two to three hours of sleep each day; the anxiety of the handlers who are driving over snow-laden passes and worrying about their team; the intensity of the weather; or the quirkiness of the towns, Ann Cook paints a compelling picture. She takes you to the small outposts, to the challenging sections of the trail, and illuminates the beauty and danger of this desolate country.

Throughout the book, Ann stresses the values of partnership—as a couple, with the dogs, with the community, with the other mushers and handlers. In such daunting, fierce conditions, the competitors become comrades; the handlers support each other; and the sledding community mourns the withdrawal of any racer. Nobody can survive alone on the Quest, and Running North captures the energy of the race, the extreme conditions on the trail, and the relationships that allow the teams to prevail.

—Mary B. Gorman

Mary B. Gorman is director of Financial Planning and advisor to the Outing Club at PEA.