Bridges to Statehood, the Alaska-Yugoslav Connection

by Judy Ferguson

Overview

Celebrating Alaska’s 50-year statehood anniversary, Bridges to Statehood features the last territorial governor, Mike Stepovich.
Over the Chilkoot Trail’s icy steps, these immigrants came—Stepovich, Butrovich, Dapcevich, Begich, Paskvan, and Peratrovich—to guide Alaska from a raw land to statehood, from southeast to the arctic, from gold camps to the forty-ninth star! Names so Alaskan that their Slavic stories went untold, they represented the world’s former empires and today’s Balkan states and shaped all of Alaska. 395 pages with maps, timeline, and historic photos on every page. Bridges to Statehood features not only the last territorial governor Mike Stepovich but also the longest serving territorial and state senator John Butrovich, including as well, Balkan pioneers and European Jews throughout all of Alaska. Bridges to Statehood is Alaska, from mining to fishing, from fur to bars, from retail to sports, from aviation to politics. Bridges includes the building of the Alaska Highway, bringing communication to the Great Land, and the Alaska state constitutional convention.
This is the Great Land, told by the talented immigrants who shaped Alaska. Two books in one, Bridges concludes with a short international story of former Yugoslavia through the Hajdukovichs, Stepovichs, Mellicks as well as Ferguson's friends, portraiting the evolution of "the Balkan powder keg," told firsthand by those who lived it. Finally Ferguson brings the story back to Alaska with Nedjo Spaic of Palmer, Alaska; Bridges is a global personal story of Alaska and the Balkans.

Google Judy’s Outpost.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940150719354
Publisher:	Voice of Alaska Press
Publication date:	10/16/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	407
File size:	19 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Author, Fairbanks Daily-News Miner and Anchorage Daily News freelance columnist, and publisher Judy Ferguson first came to Alaska in 1965, five years after statehood. Educated at the University of Oklahoma and the University of California Los Angeles, she moved to Big Delta in 1968 where she met and married her woodsman and state fire warden husband, Reb Ferguson. They moved up the Tanana River where they raised their three children with boat and dog sled access only.
In 1975 during the building of the Trans-Alaska pipeline, before the construction of high schools in the Bush, the Fergusons canoed the Yukon River.
Three years later, the Fergusons kayaked the Kobuk River before the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
During 1996 to 2004 when Judy began writing and traveling the state, she met elders whom she interviewed for the Anchorage Daily News: Tlingit, Tsimshian, Haida, Aleut/Unangan, Alutiiq, Yup’ik, Iñupiaq, and Athabascan, Windows of the Land.
Judy has published seven books. In late 2015-16, expect Windows to the Land, An Alaska Native Story, Vol. II: the Iditarod and Alaska River Trails, ISBN: 9780971604452.
Judy is the author of Windows to the Land, An Alaska Native Story, Volume I: Alaska Native Land Claims Trailblazers, ISBN: 9780971604483; Bridges to Statehood, ISBN 978-0-9716044-9-0; Parallel Destinies, ISBN: 0-9716044-0-1 and Blue Hills, ISBN: 0-9716044-1-X and children’s books, Alaska’s Secret Door, ISBN: 978-0-9716044-2-1; Alaska’s Little Chief, ISBN: 978-0-9716044-3-8; Alaska’s First People, ISBN 978-0-9716044-4-5, and Windows to the Land, An Alaska Native Story Vol. II: the Iditarod and Alaska River Trails, ISBN: 978-0-9716044-5-2.

Google Judy’s Outpost.