The Cheechakoes

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.

Wayne Short was born seventy-two years ago on the Arizona desert. During the depression years, his family moved to Colorado, then Oregon. At seventeen he joined the navy and spent three years in the amphibious forces making invasions of Japanese held islands in the South Pacific.

After World War II he and his family moved to an isolated island in southeastern Alaska and lived off the land, hunting, trapping and commercial fishing.

During the winters Mr. Short began to write short stories and outdoor articles. In 1964 Random House published his first book,The Cheechakoes, and other Alaskan books followed. At seventy Wayne Short and his wife, Barbara, moved to Tombstone, Arizona, to research a book about his great-uncle, Luke Short, the famous frontier gambler.

Wayne and Barbara have five sons and six grandchildren.

When Wayne is not writing, he works with wood, carving Alaskan yellow cedar into Northwest Coast Indian artifacts.