Was it Jack London’s classic short story “To Build a Fire” that beckoned me more than half a century into my life to Alaska? Into the stark Denali wilderness?  Drew me to a rancid-smelling dog musher, and a howling run through blue tundra forests? And, in the wildness, to discover Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino’s coffee table books chronicling his love affair with the great Arctic bears, one which embraced him in a death waltz?
–Excerpt from 2011 non-fiction article, Books, Please. Not e. by N. Hartney (Alaska photos 2010)