A new book chronicling the history and culture of the Bering Strait region is set to hit shelves later this summer. The book’s author, Michael Engelhard, is originally from Munich, Germany but moved to Fairbanks in 1989. He’s a former anthropologist, wilderness guide and recently won a National Outdoor Book Award for his memoir, "Arctic Traverse" that he wrote while living in Nome.
Engelhard said he’s lived in a lot of places, but Nome’s stories resonated with him the most.
“I've written on various subjects from the Nome perspective because I lived there between 2011 and 2014 and it's a gift that's been given,” Engelhard said.
His new book, “No Place Like Nome: The Bering Street Seen Through Its Most Storied City” is a collection of essays on topics that interested him as a cultural anthropologist.
“I was thinking that it might be nice to flesh them out a little more and write a few more additional ones - and that was basically the origin of the book,” Engelhard said.
Engelhard said he used Nome as a lens to look through to contextualize the history of the region. In the book he covers the Gold-Rush era and goes even further back in prehistory to write about the Bering Land Bridge that once connected Asia to North America during the Ice Age.
“I say that the stories in Nome, they’re like Russian dolls, one within the other, within the next, within the next, and it never seems to end,” Engelhard said.
Nome residents will recognize many of the locations Engelhard included in the book, with chapters on Sledge Island and the Pilgrim and Serpentine Hot Springs. He said some familiar names might pop out, too.
“And then the personalities, I talk about some of the famous and not-so-famous characters that have either visited Nome or lived in Nome,” Engelhard said.
The book features characters like Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian who first arrived in Nome in 1906 as part of an expedition of the Northwest Passage.
The book also includes insights into the industries and activities that made Nome what it is today.
“You can't do a book about Nome without a chapter on the reindeer industry in Nome that was big, on qiviut, on muskox wool, on Native drumming and dancing, Native dresses and ivory carving,” Engelhard said.
The book is set to be published on September 1, but Engelhard has already sent copies to museums in Anchorage and Fairbanks for a soft-launch. “No Place Like Nome” is also available at Maruskiya’s on Front Street and at the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum.
