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Books from the north: well-written fiction by Alaskan authors, published by an Alaskan press.

Caught in the Sluice
by Neil Davis
illustrated by Alice Cook
Adult

$13.95, paper
ISBN 0-9632596-1-X

$19.95, cloth
ISBN 0-9632596-2-8

Moose John strides daydreaming through the first pages in this collection of mining tales, followed by Wilfred Winchester Wilkensfield III, who discovers an unexpected prehistoric hazard while mining for gold in permafrost. The Olgilvie Gold Fibulator creates bonanzas for miners and Shakespearean actors alike, Double-Dose Dobson demonstrates that he can teach his sons a thing or two even from the grave, and an implacable little lady has a showdown with a gigantic dredge. Davis, a miner and geophysicist, takes his lifetime of experience in mining and the North and spins a few lively yarns around the workings of the sluicebox and the human heart.

What reviewers have to say about Caught in the Sluice:

Caught in the Sluice [is] a collection of entertaining stories about Alaska characters... usually their hearts are in the right place--except when blackened by greed and treachery...The author's style reflects his sense of how these tales would be told by literate miners. He does not overdo the folksy touch, nor strain for vintage slang, yet still manages to convey a sense of a particular time, place and occupation."

--Bill Hunt, Alaska magazine

Most of the stories have the feel of a tall tale, but not all of them. Davis includes many authentic details about the old mining methods--sluice operations, milling quartz, the operation of the big dredges and the use of hydraulic giants.

--Debbie Carter, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

McRoy & Blackburn, Publishers
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Last modified 9 March 1999