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A native of New York, Hammond moved to Alaska in 1946, where he was a bush pilot, trapper, wildlife biologist, hunting guide, commercial fisherman and, he later said, "a reluctant politician." He served 12 years in the state legislature and two terms as governor of the state, where he made his decisions based on three main criteria: the proposal must be environmentally sound, pay its own way, and be wanted by the people. As the governor when the trans-Alaskan oil pipeline was opened in 1977, Hammond did the unthinkable: he decreed that a portion of the state's revenues from the pipeline be shared with the citizens of the state -- in cash. The resulting "permanent fund" pays each Alaskan citizen about $1,000 per year. Hammond also helped expand the state's tourism industry, but demanded that development be balanced with conservation efforts. A Republican, Hammond surrounded himself with the best no matter what their party. Hammond was "an incredibly good governor because he was a good listener and he wanted to do what was right, and not the first thing that came to his head," says Former Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer, a Democrat. Hammond died in his sleep at his Alaska home on August 2. He was 83. From This is True for 31 July 2005 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Seth Kantner List Price: $28.00 Amazon Price: $18.48 Editorial Review: His story begins with the arrival of his father, Howard Kantner, to the remote Arctic of the 1950s and ends with him as a grown man settled in the same landscape. Through a series of moving essays and vivid photographs, ranging in subject from family histories to hunting stories, celebrations of people and places to a lament over a majestic wilderness rapidly disappearing, Shopping for Porcupine provides a compelling, intimate view of America’s last frontier — the same place that captivated so many readers of Ordinary Wolves.  By: Nick Jans List Price: $15.00 Amazon Price: $10.20 Editorial Review: With a new introduction on Werner Herzog’s film entitled The Grizzly Man Timothy Treadwell, self-styled “bear whisperer” dared to live among the grizzlies, seeking to overturn the perception of them as dangerously aggressive animals. When he and his girlfriend were mauled in October 2003, it created a media sensation. In The Grizzly Maze, Nick Jans, a seasoned outdoor writer with a quarter century of experience writing about Alaska and bears, traces Treadwell’s rise from unknown waiter in California to celebrity, providing a moving portrait of the man whose controversial ideas and behavior earned him the scorn of hunters, the adoration of animal lovers and the skepticism of naturalists. BACKCOVER: “Intensely imagistic, artfully controlled prose . . . behind the building tension of Treadwell’s path to oblivion, a stunning landscape looms.”  By: Kim Heacox List Price: $16.95 Amazon Price: $11.53 Editorial Review: Finalist for the 2006 Pen Center USA Western award in creative nonfiction.  By: Lucinda Delaney Schroeder List Price: $21.95 Amazon Price: $14.93 Editorial Review: Selected for the 2007 Amelia Bloomer Project list of recommended feminist literature for young readers For thirty years, Lucinda Delaney Schroeder held an unusual government position: she was one of the handful of women special agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In August 1992, she accepted an assignment that forever changed--and endangered--her life. She posed as a big-game hunter in Alaska in order to infiltrate an international ring of poachers out to kill the biggest and best of that state's wildlife. A Hunt for Justice recounts her dramatic story--a story she was not legally permitted to write about until her retirement in 2004.  By: Richard Nelson List Price: $15.00 Amazon Price: $11.25 Editorial Review: Here is Nelson's luminously wise account of his exploration of an unnamed island in the Pacific Northwest. This book revises our own relationship with nature, allowing us to observe it and also to participate in it with reverence and a sense of wonder. |
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