The Beautiful Matanuska Valley is a tribute to a very special part of the Last Frontier, a unique valley surrounded by towering mountains, bordered on its southern edge by the tidewaters of Knik Arm, a branch of Cook Inlet, crossed by sparkling streams and great rivers and dotted with thousands of crystal clear lakes.
This valley is also the home of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, one of Alaska’s fastest-growing towns, and some of the richest historical sites in the state. The book includes chapters on Palmer, Wasilla, and other communities within the Valley, both still-existing and long-gone.
Stories and photos of Knik, Sutton, Matanuska, Big Lake, Chickaloon and others tell the story of the founding, settling, and development of the area, while details about the Valley’s geography, geology, transportation, agriculture, mining, recreation, tourism, and history – highlighted by hundreds of full-color photographs – showcase the many wonders of the beautiful Matanuska Valley.
Shown in all four seasons, with significant landmarks, attractions, historic sites and other points of interest, this book is a terrific gift and a delightful keepsake for anyone who lives in, travels through, or loves southcentral Alaska’s beautiful Matanuska Valley!
The Beautiful Matanuska Valley
140 pages, full color, 8.5″ x 11″ paperback, published in 2013, maps, resources, index and photo index. $24.95 plus $5.00 shipping.
$29.95
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In 1898 Englishman Arthur Dallimore joined the Klondike Gold Rush. He tried his hand at a claim near Dawson City, then in 1902, hearing of a new strike, he traveled down the Yukon River to Alaska. Dallimore prospected on Preacher Creek in the Birch Creek Mining District northeast of Fairbanks, spent several winters cutting firewood for the many steamships which traveled the Tanana River in the summer months, and he built a popular roadhouse when a new trail was put in northwest of Fairbanks.
100 years later Arthur’s great-granddaughter Anne journeyed to the far North three times, beginning in 2008, to retrace his steps with his journal writings in hand. By foot, by dogteam, by canoe and by airplane, she followed his trails across the northland. “I had read and re-read Arthur’s stories and was excited. I wanted to go to those places he had described and have adventures like he did.”
In his Foreword to the book, Professor Emeritus William Schneider of the University of Alaska Fairbanks writes,
“Pursuing Arthur’s story became her passion. She studied the entries and planned trips to the Klondike and Alaska to retrace his travel, documented the location of places where he lived, and recorded the memories of those who could help reconstruct the story. She reviewed old mining records, maps and ledgers, and traveled part of the old trail by dog team to relive and relocate the roadhouse he built.”
True to the Trail was written to preserve the history of Arthur Dallimore’s travels, and his great-granddaughter writes, “I hope that Arthur’s experiences shed new light on the experiences of those who came to Alaska at the time of the gold rush.”
To that end, a website for the book shares the front matter, the Epilogue, maps, charts, and many historic photos from Arthur’s trail across the North.
True to the Trail, A Great-Granddaughter’s Alaskan Quest a Century On, by Anne Verdonk
468 pages, 6″x 9″ b/w format, with dozens of photographs, images, maps and charts. Published in July, 2025 by Northern Light Media. $29.95 plus $6.00 shipping.
$34.95
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With a name inspired by the peaceful refuge in the song by the great Andy Williams, Summer Place Kennel provided a safe haven for retired sled dogs from some of the premier racers in the world, such as four-time Iditarod Champion Susan Butcher and Yukon Quest Champion Aliy Zirkle. They entrusted their beloved teammates to the care of Julie Verrette, the owner and founder of Summer Place Kennel in Florence, Wisconsin.
“If I can be presumptuous enough to give advice, it would be to make your own passion come true. If my story can inspire even one person to realize their vision, whatever it is, and think ‘Julie saw what she wanted to do and she did it, and so can I,’ I would be thrilled!” ~Julie Verrette
Julie’s initial goal was to simply live in the wilderness with dogs, but the retirees showed her another world, filled with fun and excitement and unexpected possibilities and limitless surprises: A life with sled dogs and all they bring to the table! There were hard times and difficulties, to be sure, but Julie had plenty of capable assistants who were willing to work and learn right along with her, and together they created a special place for the sled dogs and made Julie’s dreams come true.
Scheduled to be published in August, 2025 by Northern Light Media.
In Gentler Valleys Roaming: A Memoir of Sled Dogs
By Julie Verrette. Estimated 200 pages, 6″ x 9″ format, b/w interior, dozens of photos. Available in August, 2025. $24.95 postage paid.
$24.95
An excerpt from the book:
I had already been in touch with Susan Butcher about another retiree. I needed a leader and told her of my plan to visit Aliy’s kennel in Two Rivers. Susan called me at Aliy’s kennel on the day of our planned camping trip. Aliy handed the phone to me with a big smile, saying “It’s Susan Butcher calling you,” a bit of a question in her eyes. I hadn’t mentioned to Aily that I was also going to visit Susan.
Susan said “Come early before your plane leaves and we’ll take a couple of leaders out that I think will work for you.” I told her “We have a planned camping trip today but it’s to be thirty below so I don’t think we’ll go.” Susan replied, “If I know Aliy, you’ll go!” We finalized our plans, Aliy would drive us to Fairbanks and we’d stop at Susan’s kennel enroute.
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With the help and advice of my 13-year-old grandson Collin, I created a new logo for this website, something I’ve been planning to do for some time. Those who’ve been with me for many years will know I’ve changed my logo and header for this site many times, and it’s fun to look back over some of the old designs:
One of my first logos was based on this Inuksuk on the Yukon River at Dawson City, taken during the 2008 Yukon Quest. The sun behind the ice was part of the reason for using this photograph, and I wrote quite a bit at the time about why I chose to call my company Northern Light, as opposed to Northern Lights, and also why I avoided using the aurora in my logo, headers, etc. to avoid confusion. [Photo by Helen Hegener/Northern Light Media]
One of my first headers featuring the stained glass dog team. I have loved this 1910-era panel since finding it in 2007 while searching for something else, and I not only visited it in the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) in Seattle a couple of times, but I wrote a book about the search for its story and the history of Seattle, Alaska, the Arctic Club, and much more.
In 2014 I changed to this header. The blue font is called Beauty School Dropout, in part a reference to a song from the musical “Grease.”
I changed to this header in 2015, all my photos from my book, ‘The Beautiful Matanuska Valley.’
2016 was the first time I featured books on my website header.
In 2019 I kept it simple, but my business logo at the time was a compass rose.
In 2023 I went back to book covers again.Changed it in 2024, and now I’ve changed it again.
The new logo features those northern lights I’ve been avoiding for 18 years. I’m sure it will lead to misinterpretations of my company name, but doggoneit, I’m an Alaskan, my whole family is Alaskan, and the aurora is a large part of our lives, especially in winter.
My original thinking, and why I dropped the ‘s,’ was explained many years ago: “I chose the name ‘Northern Light’ for my company because, as a photographer and a sometimes-artist, I’m familiar with the properties of light, and I understand the innate beauty and preference for northern light.”
“Artists and photographers have recognized and understood the beauty and the benefits of light from a northern source for centuries. Northern light, also known as indirect or reflected light, produces cool tones and controlled shifts in light levels or values. These are important to artists and photographers, who work with colors, tones, contrasts, shadows, and other variables. With control over the light source which could otherwise produce washed out colors and stark shadowed areas, the subtle changes in colors, tones, and values have produced some of the greatest paintings, photographs, and artwork in history.”
“Artists such as the great seventeenth-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, who was particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work, and was the original ‘painter of light,’ well known for the northern light illuminating his studio.
Photographers such as Ansel Adams, Alfred Steiglitz, and Edward Weston also recognized the qualities of indirect northern light, and many architectural elements, such as clerestory windows, are designed to take advantage of its diffuse nature. Northern Light is different, beautiful, sublime…”
But our beautiful northern lights (with the ‘s’) are perhaps the most sublime of all.
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The Sunday, May 18, 2025 editions of the Anchorage Daily News and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner include another terrific review of one of our books, by David A. James, the Fairbanks-based editor of the literary collection Alaska on the Edge. The Tender Life, by Anne Winters, is the subject of this week’s book review.
The entire review can be read under the PayPal link below.
From David’s review: “Tenders, for the uninitiated, aren’t fishing vessels. They’re used for transport, both for hauling caught fish from ships to processing facilities, and for bringing needed items from shore to the boats. This relieves crews of the need to waste precious time going back and forth and focus instead on their jobs.
“Winters and her husband spent two decades working Alaska’s assorted fisheries. These ranged from the always popular salmon, to cod, to herring, and more, herring being the fish that brought them to the Bering Sea. And while most of the work took place in summer months, it wasn’t unheard of for them to venture out even in the dead of winter. Seas, of course, ran the gamut from placid to raging.”
The Tender Life: 20 Years of Commercial Fish Tendering in Alaska
The Tender Life: 20 Years of Commercial Fish Tendering in Alaska, by Anne Winters, illustrations and maps by Jon Van Zyle, with over two dozen full color photos. 6” x 9” format, 218 pages, glossary, index, ISBN 9798339373292. $24.95 plus $5.00 shipping from Northern Light Media.
$29.95
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The next book scheduled for publication by Northern Light Media is True to the Trail: A Great-Granddaughter’s Alaskan Quest a Century On, a compilation of the journals and photographs of Englishman Arthur Dallimore, who joined the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898, then traveled down the Yukon River to try his hand at prospects in Alaska, staying in the North for a dozen years, finally building a roadhouse northwest of Fairbanks. Dallimore was an astute observer and an excellent journaler, detailing his travels in handwritten notes, postcards and letters which he sent to his father in England, who meticulously transcribed them into journals. These troves of history, carefully preserved in an old leather suitcase, were given to Dallimore’s great-granddaughter, Anne Verdonk of New Zealand, in 2005.
Arthur Dallimore
Anne, a farmer and a retired maths teacher with a degree in music, inherited her great-grandfather’s taste for adventure, and with his writings in hand, she journeyed to the far North multiple times, beginning in 2008, to retrace his steps. In his Foreword to the book, Professor Emeritus William (Bill) Schneider, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, writes, “Pursuing Arthur’s story became her passion. She studied the entries and planned trips to the Klondike and Alaska to retrace his travel, documented the location of places where he lived, and recorded the memories of those who could help reconstruct the story. She reviewed old mining records, maps and ledgers, and traveled part of the old trail by dog team to relive and re-locate the roadhouse he built.”
Anne at Lake Bennett, 2008
In 2023 Anne was diagnosed with a rare, progressive, terminal neurological disease, and she worked diligently to produce a book about her great-grandfather’s life in the North. She published the book in New Zealand in June, 2024, but felt it really belonged in Alaska, and there were changes to be made. And so Northern Light Media is re-publishing Anne’s book—Arthur’s story—in July, 2025.
True to the Trail details life in Dawson City at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush, then shares the daily life of an Alaskan prospector and woodcutter, as explained by Professor Schneider: “Arthur’s story bridges the well-trod gold-rush accounts with the less well-known stories of those who stayed, the ‘settlers’ who made a living in the country. Arthur’s letters and Anne’s research are a significant contribution to our understanding of the connections between people and places that were important to Arthur during his time in the country. For most of his time in the North, he was on the lower Tanana River, where he had frequent contact with folks in Manley Hot Springs, his Native neighbors, the trail travelers, telegraph personnel, and steamboat personnel. From his wood camp on the Tanana River, Arthur often made 100-mile trips to socialize, acquire supplies, and make business contacts. His trips to the settlement at Fairbanks put him in touch with commercial interests and extended his possibilities for wood sales. In Arthur’s accounts, we come to recognize the significance of literacy and the role of mail carriers whose work made mail delivery possible. Arthur’s letters tell us a lot about his contacts and business dealings. The letters also contrast his business and social ties with settlers and his relationships with Native neighbors who visited, sold him meat, and shared their lives with him.”
True to the Trail: A Great-Granddaughter’s Alaskan Quest a Century On
by Anne Verdonk, with the journals of Arthur Dallimore, foreword by Professor Emeritus William (Bill) Schneider, University of Alaska Fairbanks. To be published in July, 2025, 468 pages, 6″x9″ b/w format, with dozens of maps, charts, photographs and images. $29.95, plus $5.00 shipping from Northern Light Media.
$34.95
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In an article at the Smithsonian Magazine website titled “How Alaska’s Historic Roadhouses are Standing the Test of Time,” travel correspondent Laura Kiniry writes, “These sometimes temporary—often permanent—lodgings played a huge role in the history of the Alaskan frontier, serving as one-stop shops for travelers arriving by dog team or stagecoach, or even on foot, through intense cold and snow.”
Haly’s Roadhouse at Fort Yukon
With several color photos and a good emphasis on why the old roadhouses are worth preserving, Kiniry described half a dozen roadhouses and interviewed Alaskan roadhouse owners Mary Knight, of Tolovana Roadhouse; Annie Hopper, of the Rapids Roadhouse; and me–Helen Hegener-author of the book, Alaskan Roadhouses. Having written the book, I’ve written quite a lot about the old roadhouses on this site, you can do a search to find some of the articles such as Roadhouse Registers, Roadhouse Videos, and look up many specific roadhouses by name. I also have a website dedicated to preserving the history of the roadhouses, which you can find here.
Alaskan Roadhouses
“Alaskan Roadhouses, Shelter, Food, and Lodging Along Alaska’s Roads and Trails,” by Helen Hegener, published by Northern Light Media in 2016. 6″ x 9″, over 100 black/white photographs, 284 pages. $24.95 plus $5.00 for First Class shipping.
$29.95
“In Alaskan Roadhouses, Helen Hegener reconstructs the scant history of these establishments and the people and dogs who made their existence possible. She tells us as much about the travelers who foraged from one roadhouse to the next as the roadhouses themselves. These pioneers were beyond hearty. Braving sub-arctic temps and trails that defied logic, they walked along with, or ahead of their dog teams, 20 to 30 miles per day, without surcease. They pushed past blistered feet (treated with coal oil) twisted ankles and fingers and toes frosted just this side of hypothermia. What shines through-one indelible portrait after another-is their sheer exuberance for life. Their words leap from the page, so vibrant their zeal for life you can hear them as you read their words.” –David Fox, Alaska Press, January 14, 2016
This long-anticipated 284-page book recounts the detailed histories of twenty-four roadhouses, and presents historic photos of two dozen more. Along with the colorful histories are first-hand accounts of those who stayed at the roadhouses while traveling the early trails and roads of Alaska, including the Reverend Samuel Hall Young, Frank G.. Carpenter, Judge James Wickersham, Leonhard Seppala, Col. Walter L. Goodwin, and Matilda Clark Butler, who opened a roadhouse near Nome in 1901, at the height of the Nome Gold Rush. -Make-a-Scene magazine, July, 2015
Glacier Creek, Nome, Alaska July 13, 1906
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The first new issue of the revised Alaskan History Magazine will offer an assortment of articles on the history of the state, from the history of Tanana to The Knik News and pioneer photographer P. S. Hunt, to an article about a woman who came to Alaska seeking information about her great-grandfather and wrote a book about it, some of which is excerpted in Searching for the Ohio Roadhouse. Other articles include an in-depth looks at the final days of Will Rogers and Wiley Post as they left Seattle and toured Alaska, and the history of the 72-mile Alaska Central Railroad, which was a forerunner of the current Alaska Railroad from Seward to Fairbanks. 64 pages, 6” x 9” format, B/W interior, postage paid.
Alaskan History Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 1
In this issue: The History of Tanana • The Knik News • Pioneer Photographer P. S. Hunt • Searching for the Ohio Roadhouse • Will Rogers and Wiley Post: The Final Farewell • The Alaska Central Railroad. 64 pages, 6” x 9” format, B/W interior, postage paid.
$12.00
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Longtime readers and followers of my work may remember my Alaskan History Magazine, a full color bimonthly publication which featured stories of the history of Alaska. Between 2019 and 2021 I published 14 issues, but when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, sales abruptly ceased, and there seemed to be no recourse but to stop producing the magazine.
I have thought about that decision a lot in the past few years, wondering what I might have done differently, and questioning the idea of re-starting the magazine which I loved producing.
The answers to my questions, carefully considered over the past few weeks and months, have slowly convinced me to pick up the mantle and continue the magazine, albeit with some significant changes.
Among those changes will be single issue only sales, no subscriptions, but every issue will remain available, and the first new issue will be available in mid-January.
Changes from the original magazine include a b/w interior instead of color, 6” x 9” format instead of 8.5” x 11,” and the page count may vary between 48 and 64, depending on content. Issues will be identified by volume and number, but not dated, as history is timeless. I’ve built a new website for Alaskan History Magazine, where all of the original issues are still available in both print and digital editions, and new issues will be added as they are published.
I will be honoring all of the subscriptions which were left hanging when I stopped publication, and if you were a subscriber I will be contacting you when I publish the first new issue in a few days. If you don’t hear from me, or if your email address has changed in the interim, or if you have questions or comments, please contact me at helenhegener@helenehegener
Volume 4, Number 1
In this issue: The History of Tanana • The Knik News • Pioneer Photographer P. S. Hunt • Searching for the Ohio Roadhouse • The Last Visit of Will Rogers and Wiley Post • The Alaska Central Railroad
$12.00
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Most of the books published by Northern Light Media are now available as Kindle Print Replica eBooks, which maintain the formatting and layout of the print edition. They can be read on most devices, whether Apple, PC, or Android, with the free Kindle Reader app. Most are available for $5.99.
Titles currently available include Alaskan Roadhouses, The First Iditarod, The Alaska Railroad 1902-1923, The Hope ‘91 Sled Dog Race, The History of Sled Dogs in North America, The Alaska Diaries of Dr. James Taylor White: 1889-1901, The First Newspapers of Knik and Anchorage, The Stained Glass Dog Team, Alaskan Sled Dog Tales, Alaska and The Klondike, and “A Mighty Nice Place:” The 1935 Matanuska Colony Project.
Also available are the new release by Anne Winters, The Tender Life: 20 Years of Commercial Fish Tendering in Alaska, and four of Lew Freedman’s books: Adventures on the Iditarod Trail: Fast Dogs, Freezing Mushers and the Alaska Wild, Northern Journey: A Report from the Frontier, The Greatest Fish Ever Caught: Alaska Fishing Tales, and The World’s Most Interesting Man, Alaska Big Game, and the World’s Largest Eskimo: Alaska Hunting Tales.
The Kindle ebooks can be found in the Kindle Store on Amazon by searching for either the title or the author. They can also be found by searching for a title on Amazon and clicking on “See all formats and editions,” which will show both the print and Kindle formats.
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