Frontier Romance: Environment, Culture, and Alaska

Anyone curious about what drew people like Christopher McCandless (the subject of Into the Wild) and John Muir to Alaska will find nuanced answers in Frontier Romance, Judith Kleinfeld’s thoughtful study of the iconic American love of the frontier and its cultural influence. Kleinfeld considers the subject through three categories: rebellion, redemption, and rebirth; escape and healing; and utopian community. Within these categories she explores the power of narrative to shape lives through concrete, compelling examples—both heart-warming and horrifying. Ultimately, Kleinfeld argues that the frontier narrative enables Americans—born or immigrant—to live deliberately, to gather courage, and to take risks, face danger, and seize freedom rather than fear it. Judith Kleinfeld founded and directed the Northern Studies Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which examines psychological, social, cultural, and environmental issues across the circumpolar North. During her more than forty years in Alaska, she has published widely on Northern issues. The author’s perspective as a Native person affords her unique insight into the relationship with place and self, which she applies in her consideration of the arctic landscape and to questions of adaptation and resilience. Kane’s work refers to the Iñupiaq oral tradition, and while in some poems she continues to revisit, rewrite, and revise traditional narratives that are suited to the lyric form, she moves beyond narrative retelling, honoring the legacy of imagination that has sustained Iñupiaq people for millennia.