I just finished reading Ordinary Wolves by Alaskan Seth Kantner and I'm very conflicted about it. I think it's impossible for me to say that this is a great book (or conversely, a horrible book), because I'm a bit too close to the subject. I lived in Fairbanks for ten years, which is not at all the Alaska that Kantner or his narrator, Cutuk, lived in, but still, I recognize way too much that this story is about. I worked for a Bush commuter and we flew folks in and out of Northwestern AK (where Seth's book is primarily set) as well as villages all over the Interior and Southwestern coast. We dealt with a lot of drunks, a lot of dead people, a lot of rude hunters from the Lower 48, a lot of tree huggers in search of a perfect Alaskan experience, a lot of rude tourists from the Lower 48 ("I want a Native pilot, do you have one of those we can get?") and on and on. The worst thing for me though was the sled dogs - I hated dealing with the sled dogs. It was hard to read about them in Kantner's book, very hard. I think if you are a very bad person then you come back in your next life as an Alaskan sled dog. And I say that having good friends who ran dogs and kept them outside in the dead of winter and shot them when they slowed down and no longer pulled. It might not make me a good Alaskan (which I know I'm not since I only lived there 10 years), but I think sled dog races should be illegal. If you want dogs to run then let them out in a yard.

Just let them have a decent life, period.

We used to argue with people who wanted to tip dog kennels up on their side and dump three dogs in them so they could pay less for the freight - three dogs trapped on top of each other for a two hour flight that could not move and could barely breathe. The airline I worked for used to do it - they were only sled dogs after all - but after awhile, all the pilots and Ops personnel just said no more. It made us sick. The whole thing made us sick.

Ordinay Wolves is one of those books that will blow your misconceptions wide open, it will make you think, it will make you reach beyond what you want to believe. I don't know where the "real" Alaska is, or who it belongs to, or what should be done to save it. It was hard enough for me to read Smithsonian Magazine this month without shaking my head. Hopefully I will be talking to Seth for Bookslut next month, so I can ask him what it has been like being an Alaskan writer who tells such a radically different story about the state. I know it had to be pretty much all true though, because I have seen enough of it to recognize the words. I wonder also where Seth will go from here, and what he wants to reveal next.