Atlin Where Everyone Knows Your Dog's Name
by Bradford Smith

#14931

VIEW DETAILS
Front Cover

Atlin Where Everyone Knows Your Dog's Name is a memoir of growing up in an isolated, northern, gold rush town. It tells of an innocent time when imagination was king and the surrounding wilderness a playground.

This story is as much about the town that molded and raised the author to be the person he is today as it is about his childhood. A town that survived and thrived on inclusion, acceptance and volunteerism. Where civic duty was learned from early childhood and performed with pride.

In 1967, the Smith family moved from Juneau, Alaska, to the sleepy town of Atlin, British Columbia, Canada. Atlin was scratching its way back from becoming a footnote in a history book, only recently escaping its ghost town status. Amid the influx of new families and money, it was experiencing a rebirth, a modern-day rush.
Growing up in Atlin

This story follows the author through his early youth, his daily adventures surrounded by his family's many huskies and Malamutes. With his buddies in tow, he enjoyed carefree days of swimming, fishing, hunting, and random adventures unknown to their city dwelling counterparts of the time.

He was raised in a place without running water or sewer, without TV or radio. Where people burned wood for heat, and ate moose meat and lake trout most meals. Where the water was delivered once a week, and stored in the kitchen in a big barrel.

The author has combined his own memories with the tongue-in-cheek writings of Diane Solie Smith. In the early seventies, she wrote humorous human-interest articles depicting northern living for the local newspaper.
Unusual Daily Lives

This book follows the author and his friends through their daily lives. Trapping with Dad, grouse hunting with Mom, fishing and fort building with friends. All stories are told with self-deprecating humor in a familiar style, like he's telling stories to an old friend.

Atlin The Town Where Everyone Knows Your Dog's Name tells of average life and average people, who in their daily lives did extraordinary things that pushed their boundaries and took them out of their comfort zones. In doing so, it made them anything but average.

A forest fire erupting close to town, the family truck dropping through the lake ice, a vicious dog team fight on the trap line, the beauty of the northern lights on a thirty below night, seen while skating on a local pond, an impromptu chopper ride to the top of a nearby mountain, and close calls with bears are all average experiences of a not so average upbringing.
Dogs and Mushing

Dogs, and their often-comedic antics, are threaded throughout this story, as they were threaded throughout the life of the author, his family and the community they lived in. It was a time not far removed from when dogs were central to the northern existence. Having lost popularity to the gasoline engine only a short time before, they were making a comeback, much like the community itself. Newcomers were keen to experience the joys and freedoms of travel by dog team, and dog racing was exploding across the northland. The author's family was in the middle of the sled dog world. They ran dogs on their trap line and they raised and sold beautiful Malamutes. As a youngster, the author thought himself one of the pack, rather than an only child.
Adventurous Romp

This story will take the reader on an adventurous romp through a unique childhood, in a place like no other, at a time when kids were allowed to be kids. It will kindle nostalgic feelings for some, a yearning for adventure in others.

Bradford Smith grew up an only child amongst a household of huskies and Malamutes, and at times he thought they were his siblings. He trapped by dog team with his dad, and hunted grouse and picked berries with his mom. He fished and snared rabbits and searched abandoned gold mines with his friends. He could run a small team of dogs at nine, and he fought his first forest fire at sixteen. He worked in construction in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada, on the shore of the Beaufort Sea, as a teenager. He long lined for halibut and cod in the Gulf of Alaska as a young man, and he worked seismograph exploration at temperatures below minus sixty degrees on the Arctic Ocean.Brad lived in Atlin, British Columbia, Canada, a historic gold mining town nestled deep in the wilderness. Isolated and forgotten, in 1967 the population was estimated at two hundred. It was a town without a sewer or water system, and most households burned wood for heat. People ate moose meat and lake trout and grew their own vegetables. He led life with an independent and creative spirit. Without T.V., radio or video games his imagination was fertile and his curiosity intense.He came to writing later in life, concentrating on career and raising two sons early on. When more free time became available, he turned to writing in earnest, completing books and a full feature movie script that he and his film partner hope to make in the future under the name of their company, MerrySmith Film Works.Brad splits his time between working in Arctic Alaska and his home in Northern British Columbia, Canada, where he lives with his wife and their dogs.

Diane Solie was born in Washington State, December 7, 1930. She led an independent childhood, and with her first dog, she explored the shores of Puget Sound, learning to fish, hunt, sail and ski. A consummate adventurer, she moved to Alaska in her mid-thirties where she married Ed Smith. In the summer of 1967, Diane and Ed and their two-year-old son, Brad, moved to Atlin, British Columbia, an isolated, gold rush era, semi-ghost town in the Northern Canadian wilderness.Diane fell immediately in love with the history, the people and the stark beauty of the land. With her husband, she started the Atlin Museum. She was a founding member of the Atlin Historical Society and intimately involved with the preservation of many of Atlin's historic buildings. She founded and owned the Discovery Shop, a craft store that sold many of her own creations as well as providing an outlet for Atlin's artists and crafters. She was an artist proficient in several mediums, selling hundreds of watercolor paintings and carvings.She was a dog owner and lover her entire life, and became a proficient musher and dog breeder. She owned over thirty dogs at one time. Diane became a part of the Northern history she adored and valued. She was indelible part of Atlin's fabric, a corner stone of Atlin's second boom, and an integral cog in the works that shaped today's Atlin. She was an esteemed historian and archivist, a published author, a journalist, teacher, mentor, single mother and champion of everything Atlin, B.C.

Details

Quantity:	1000 item(s) available
Weight:	0.50 kg
Price:	CDN$ 35.99 (US$ 35.02)

ISBN-10:	1888215461
ISBN-13/EAN:	9781888215465
Author:	Bradford Smith
Publisher:	Fathom Pub. Co.
Publication Date:	12/2021
Pages:	382 pp
Size/Dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.79(d)
Binding:	Paperback

Options

Quantity

Customers' rating

Customers' rating

Customer's voting:

Cart | Wishlist | Catalog Home | OP Text Listing | Special Orders

Contact Yukonbooks.com
Toll Free: 1-800-661-0508 International: 1-867-668-6104

We accept Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and PayPal.

Atlin Where Everyone Knows Your Dog's Nameby Bradford Smith

Atlin Where Everyone Knows Your Dog's Name
by Bradford Smith