Lost and Found in Alaska: Memoirs

by Joel D. Rudinger

Lost and Found in Alaska is packed as full as a camp duffel bag on a forty-day hunting trek through the Alaskan Range, as challenging, yet satisfying, as a graduate instructor's first day of class. The real-life characters in this tale could have sprung from the imagination of Jack London: Fairbanks Annie, Hal (who wept when he heard Danny Boy), the beautiful half-native Bobbi, who stole this young man's heart, or the odd women who would lock a fellow in their basement. Even an appearance by a ghostly canine.
And what North wilderness saga would be complete without hot apple pie and coffee, disorienting twenty-four-hour nights, minus 80 degree winds, gigantic mosquitoes attacking hardy gandy dancers, and a disastrous earthquake? Like most of life's difficult times, however, the author learns that even the most mundane acts, such as sorting mail or shoveling manure at a dairy farm can present a worthwhile lecture. If a college degree takes four years, Joel Rudinger's four years in Alaska advanced his education exponentially in hard-knock lessons and moments of spirituality: What was that brilliant micro-second visible flicker of light? I was never religious, but I felt that this was a profound spiritual moment. I now and forever would be a part of this wild land.
~Christina Lovin

254 pages, Paperback

Published October 30, 2020

Reviews

[Larry Smith]

It was a photograph in a Time magazine article about The University of Alaska that sparked the imagination of a young Joel Rudinger and led to a life-changing, four-year adventure in the newly-added 49th state.
Lost and Found in Alaska is packed as full as a camp duffel bag on a forty-day hunting trek through the Alaskan Range, as challenging, yet satisfying, as a graduate instructor’s first day of class. The real-life characters in this tale could have sprung from the imagination of Jack London: Fairbanks Annie, Hal (who wept when he heard “Danny Boy”), the beautiful half–native Bobbi, who stole this young man’s heart, or the odd women who would lock a fellow in their basement. Even an appearance by a ghostly canine

[rick white]

A great book

This book was a great story for anyone in

terested in Alaska from a new perspective. The writer shows Alaska from a educational person perspective rather than a substance living or home steaders perspective. A bit different than the usual Alaska books I have read.

[Larry Smith]

Here is a lively and poignant memoir of a young man's early days in 1960s Alaska.
"Lost and Found in Alaska is packed as full as a camp duffel bag on a forty-day hunting trek through the Alaskan Range, as challenging, yet satisfying, as a graduate instructor's first day of class. The real-life characters in this tale could have sprung from the imagination of Jack London: Fairbanks Annie, Hal (who wept when he heard Danny Boy), the beautiful half-native Bobbi, who stole this young man's heart, or the odd women who would lock a fellow in their basement. Even an appearance by a ghostly canine.
"And what North wilderness saga would be complete without hot apple pie and coffee, disorienting twenty-four-hour nights, minus 80 degree winds, gigantic mosquitoes attacking hardy gandy dancers, and a disastrous earthquake? Like most of life's difficult times, however, the author learns that even the most mundane acts, such as sorting mail or shoveling manure at a dairy farm can present a worthwhile lecture. If a college degree takes four years, Joel Rudinger's four years in Alaska advanced his education exponentially in hard-knock lessons and moments of spirituality: What was that brilliant micro-second visible flicker of light? I was never religious, but I felt that this was a profound spiritual moment. I now and forever would be a part of this wild land."
~Christina Lovin