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Mr. Whitekeys' New Book

The Voyage of The Alaska Union

PLEASE NOTE:  This book is now  available as an electronic ebook and as a  PRINTED VERSION on REAL PAPER.

Mr. Whitekeys' New Book is

NOW AVAILABLE!

     Eighty Greenhorns from Chicago set out to strike it rich in Alaska in 1898.   It was the largest Gold Rush expedition ever launched, and they had no idea what they were in for.

     One of the prospectors, Charles Harris, toted a 40-pound camera with him during the entire odyssey, but his images have remained unseen for 120 years.

     One night, over  Barbecue Ribs, Whitekeys' buddy Randy Jacobs happened to say, "Yeah, my Grandpa was up here in the Gold Rush and he took all these photos--I've got 'em in the basement."

     Whitekeys eloquently said "WHAT?!?!?!?" , and after two years of research, a true tale of Alaska history has been revealed.

         The expedition chartered a schooner in Seattle and loaded it with 2 years' provisions plus all the materials needed to build a 110-foot sternwheel riverboat.  The Bering Sea was clogged with ice so they were forced to unload on desolate Nunivak Island where they  built The Alaska Union even though none of the Argonauts had ever constructed a boat in their lives.  

     They survived an open-ocean crossing in a flat-bottomed riverboat, sailed 700 miles up the Yukon River, were flim-flammed into diverting up the Koyukuk River by local con men, built a thrown-together group of cabins called Union City, and were plunged into a brutal Arctic Winter.  And that's where the fun began!

     In The Voyage of The Alaska Union, Mr. Whitekeys reveals a true tale of Alaska History that has never been told.   Lavishly illustrated with 100 of Charles Harris's photographs, the book relies on century-old diaries, letters, manuscripts, and newspaper accounts that tell the story in the words of the men who were there on the Koyukuk in 1898.  

     It's the story of tough men who survived with what they had.    It may be 70 below, you may have forgotten to pack your tent on a hundred-mile trek, but if you had doughnuts, everything was just fine.