A photographic exploration of Alaska's Matanuska Valley. The founding, settling, and development, details about the Valley's geography, geology, transportation, agriculture, mining, recreation, tourism, and history. Highlighted by hundreds of full-color photographs, this book showcases the many wonders of the beautiful Matanuska Valley.

Long Hard Trails and Sled Dog Tales is a memoir of sorts, an adventure story to be sure, and a look at what it's like to follow a winning sled dog team across thousands of miles of Arctic wilderness. Award-winning author Helen Hegener hitched her wagon to a star: The legendary four-time Iditarod and Yukon Quest champion Lance Mackey, beginning with his bid for a fourth Yukon Quest title in 2008. For the next several years she followed Lance and dozens of other mushers, many of whom became close friends, across Alaska and the Yukon Territory. She founded Northern Light Media, which produced...

The Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race spans some of the harshest and most beautiful winter territory anywhere: 1,000 miles between Fairbanks, Alaska and the city of Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon Territory. Known as 'The World's Toughest Sled Dog Race, ' it's an event like no other. Run every February, the race is phenomenally challenging, crossing four mountain ranges, including the dangerous and intimidating 3,685-foot Eagle Summit, as it loosely follows the course of the mighty Yukon River. This book by Alaskan author Helen Hegener takes readers checkpoint by checkpoint from Fairbanks...

The historic All Alaska Sweepstakes sled dog race is the subject of The All Alaska Sweepstakes: History of the Great Sled Dog Race 1908-2008, by Helen Hegener. Dozens of beautiful photos by Jan DeNapoli, Joe May, Donna Quante and others tell the story of the sixteen Alaskan mushers who entered their teams, each hoping to have their name engraved on the Sweepstakes trophy beside the great mushing legends "Scotty" Allan and Leonhard Seppala; and, of course, they were racing for the richest purse ever offered for a sled dog race: $100,000.00 winner-take-all The All Alaska Sweepstakes is the...

The history of Alaska would be very different without the criss-crossing trails of thousands of dog teams, for the story of the Last Frontier was in large part written behind a team of sled dogs. 'Alaskan Sled Dog Tales' shares the important history of sled dogs in the Territory of Alaska, and how dogteams were an integral part of events such as the 1925 Serum Run to Nome, explorations of the land before there were roads or railroads, and the thrilling adventures of legendary mushers such as Leonhard Seppala, Harry Karstens, Jujiro Wada, 'Iron Man" Johnson, Arthur Treadwell Walden, the...