Nome, on the western tip of the Seward Peninsula, does not have any nearby forests. Everything you need to survive in Nome, including burnables, had to be shipped in. During the Alaska Gold Rush, coal had to be barged in by the ton for the long winter – mid-September to mid-June. This is a pile of 10,000 tons of coal, typical for a winter in Nome in the early years of the 1900s.
[From THE HUMAN FACE OF THE ALASKA GOLD RUSH.]
Steve Levi is an Alaskan writer who specializes in the Alaska Gold Rush (nonfiction) and the ‘impossible crime,’ (fiction.) An ‘impossible crime’ is one where the detective must figure out HOW the crime was committed before going after the perpetrators – like a Greyhound bus with bank robbers and hostages disappearing off the Golden Gate Bridge –THE MATTER OF THE VANISHING GREYHOUND. Steve’s books can be found at www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi
