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Empire's Edge: American Society in Nome, Alaska, 1898-1934 Preston Jones Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2007. 158 pp. Illus. US$19.95 paper.
HOW MANY CANADIANS know exactly where Nome is? Yes, we know it's in Alaska, though the author of this book may not be confident that all readers will know, since he names the state as well as the town in his title. Yes, there was a gold rush there, and it must be on the ocean somewhere since the books all refer to gold being found "on the beaches of Nome." But how many could locate it on a map? In fact, Nome is on the south shore of the Seward Peninsula, on Norton Sound, an inlet of Bering Strait, 240 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle, about the same latitude as Fairbanks. It's about three hundred kilometers east of the nearest point of Siberia, and, surprisingly, more than eight hundred kilometers in longitude west of Hawaii, making it the most westerly as well as one of the most isolated towns for...