The Cheechakoes - Softcover

Short, Wayne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0964498057 ISBN 13: 9780964498051

Publisher: Devils Thumb Pr, 1964

Synopsis

In 1946 Wayne Short, a young Navy veteran, returned from fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific. He was just in time to join his parents and two younger brothers in a momentous move to an isolated island in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeastern Alaska.

In The Cheechakoes, an Indian word meaning "newcomer" or "greenhorn", Wayne Short tells of the remarkable true adventures of this American family, who left everything-and lived like pioneers.

The Cheechakoes was first published by Random House in the early 1960's-and remains today a perennial favorite of readers who dream of getting away from it all.

About this title

From the Publisher

Like a latter-day Swiss Family Robinson, the Short family cast their fortunes ashore on a lonely Alaskan island just after World War II.

On the wild shores of Surprise Harbor at the tip of great Admiralty Island, the Shorts lived in a tent while they constructed a cabin. For the next year they discovered a life completely different from anything they had ever known before. They had to do everything themselves. The mother had to learn to keep a home and garden in a country which contributed nothing to domestic comfort.

For the boys, that first summer was a combination of work, play, and unexpected danger. Trying to fish for a living, for instance, proved to be a back-breaking task, especially for cheechakoes. There would have been plenty even without the unexpected menace of the great brown bear. Once Dutch was almost killed by one, but the boy luckily managed to stop the brownie's charge with only a .25-20 rifle. And when winter came they trapped, and stalked deer.

Here, too, are presented some of the unforgettable people encountered in this "Last Frontier," the fun of "going to town" once a year, the fantastic experience of working on an Alaskan mailboat in dead winter, and how a young bride came north to mark the beginning of a new generation.

In The Cheechakoes, Wayne Short tells not only the exciting story of how his family learned to cope with life in one of the wildest and most remote areas in America, but also how, working together, they came to love it and accept it as a home they would never leave.

From the Author

No one was more surprised than I, back in 1963, when my agent took two chapters and an outline to Random House and came away with advance money and a contract. I could not believe the reading public would be interested in the way the Short family lived in Alaska.

Now, thirty-five years later, The Cheechakoes has been sold in several foreign countries-and paperback editions are selling well in the United States. New generations of readers read The Cheechakoes and write to say they wished they could live such a life.

Pretty rewarding, don't you think?

About this edition

• Publisher: Devils Thumb Pr
• Publication date: 1964
• ISBN 10: 0964498057
• ISBN 13: 9780964498051
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 244