Imagine a place where people know each other by the color of their parkas, where dogs are citizens, and where a handshake is as good as currency. Imagine a time when the wild went on forever, and the only link to the outside was a brave pilot with a shy smile. Imagine a world blanketed in snow and warmed by people… In the season of the long dark, fending off the isolation and cold of winter near the top of the world, it is the small town that can save Alaskans from themselves. The romantic image of the hardy loner braving the wilderness dominates popular thinking about life in the north, but the little towns of Alaska ar the last great secret of the Last Frontier. True Alaska living is found in small villages of scruffy cabins and odd characters, presented here as the ficitional town of Kahiltna. In this classic of Alaska fiction, the array of mushers and pilots, cheechakos and sourdougs who call Kahiltna home are exuberantly true to life, from the hilarious to the horrible.