History often seems like dry facts, or ancient events that no longer relate to modern life. But Slick As a Mitten: Ezra Meeker's Klondike Enterprise
puts a human face on the Klondike Gold Rush, telling the tale of one man's journey through his personal letters and via historic photos. I love history so this was an interesting read on an interesting topic.I've included the review here as part of 200 bloggers posting today for the 2010 Eco-Libris Green Books campaign
About the book from Midwest Book Review: Traveling the Oregon trail in 1852, Ezra Meeker built his fortune in hop farming and brokering in Puget Sound country.
Platting Puyallup, Meeker served as the town's first mayor and was a key businessman. A scourge of hop aphids hit in the 1890s, followed by a national economic depression which wiped out Meeker's assets. When the Puyallup bank was on the verge of failure, Meeker came to the aid of his friends and neighbors by using his own greatly diminished finances to return funds to the depositors.
During the 1898 Alaskan Klondike gold rush, though he was now in his 60s, Meeker went north four times transporting and selling 100 tons of vegetables, dried foods and canned goods in mining camps, primitive inns and restaurants while his wife Eliza Jane stayed behind to manage the family business. To put it mildly, Ezra Meeker led an interesting life and "Slick As A Mitten: Ezra Meeker's Klondike Enterprise" is his fascinating story superbly compiled with historic black-and-white photos by Dennis M. Larsen. An engaging and entertaining read from beginning to end, "Slick As A Mitten" is a splendid and enthusiastically recommended addition to academic library American History and American Biography collections.
About the Green Books Campaign:
Founded in 2007, Eco-Libris is a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices in the industry, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. To achieve these goals Eco-Libris is working with book readers, publishers, authors, bookstores and others in the book industry worldwide. So far Eco-Libris balanced out over 155,000 books, which results in more than 169,000 new trees planted with its planting partners in developing countries.
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1 comment:
this doesn't sound like a book for me, but thanks for participating in the green books campaign. I've enjoyed the variety of books reviewed
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