JIM REARDEN arrived in Alaska in 1947 to work as a summer Fishery Patrol Agent at Chignik for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1950 he organized the Wildlife Department at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where he taught as head of that department for four years. He resigned to become a free-lance outdoor writer and photographer. To accompany that profession he became a registered big game guide.
To support his writing, he also worked as a carpenter, an office manager for a construction company, a clerk in a trading post, and as a commercial salmon fisherman. From 1959 through 1969 he was Area Biologist for Commercial Fisheries for Cook Inlet for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. In 1970 he became the Outdoors Editor for Alaska Magazine, as well as a Field Editor for Outdoor Life magazine, and held both positions simultaneously for twenty years. He served twelve years on the Alaska Board of Fish and Game, and was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, where he served eighteen months. In 1999 Rearden was named Historian of the Year by the Alaska Historical Society. In 2005, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
In 2011 Alaska Humanities Forum and Governor Sean Parnell honored Alaska historian Jim Rearden with a Governor's Award for distinguished service to the Humanities.
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Alaska’s First Bush Pilots, 1923–30
And the Winter Search in Siberia for Eielson and Borland
by Jim Rearden
foreword by Richard Wein
This story follows the careers of Alaska’s pioneering pilots, who, with cranky open-cockpit biplanes, started the great changes in Alaska’s way of travel.
During the summer of 1923 Ben Eielson was the first to fly commercially from Fairbanks, ferrying passengers and light freight with an open cockpit
Jenny (JN4) biplane. It was the beginning of the leap from ground travel to air.
By the 1930s, Alaska’s growing aviation industry had revolutionized transportation in the Territory. This volume is a fond look back at the triumphs and tragedies of the pioneering Ben Eielson, Noel Wien, Harold Gillam, Joe Crosson, Ed Young, and others, the great pilots who were the first bush pilots of Alaska.
6"x9", black and white photos and maps, 296 pages, paperback, $19.95.
ISBN 978-1-57510-147-7
Alaska’s Wolf Man
The 1915–55 Wilderness Adventures of Frank Glaser
by Jim Rearden
Introduction by former Alaska Governor Jay Hammond
Between 1915 and 1955 adventure-seeking Frank Glaser, a latter-day Far North Mountain Man, trekked across wilderness Alaska on foot, by wolf-dog team, and eventually, by airplane. In his career he was a market hunter, trapper, roadhouse owner, professional dog team musher, and federal predator agent. A naturalist at heart, he learned from personal observation the life secrets of moose, caribou, foxes, wolverines, mountain sheep, grizzly bears, and wolves—especially wolves.
6"x9", black and white photos and maps, 352 pages, paperback, $17.95.
ISBN 978-1-57510-147-7
In its sixteenth printing
Castner’s Cutthroats
Saga of the Alaska Scouts
by Jim Rearden
Innokenty McBratney, the half-Aleut son of a Scot trader from the Aleutian island of Attu; Talky Lloyd, a renegade Colorado cowboy turned Alaska guide/trapper; Johnny Blackwolf, an Athapaskan from the arctic Koyukuk valley; Shorty the Bear, a trapper from deep in the Wrangell Mountains; Silver Fox Will Rooney, a trapper/commercial fisherman from Bristol Bay. These are the heroes of this exciting tale of the Alaska Scouts who play a key role in the Aleutian Campaign for World War II.
6"x9", black and white photos and maps, 384 pages, paperback, $23.95. ISBN 978-1-57510-084-5
Forgotten Warriors of the Aleutian Campaign
by Jim Rearden
On June 3 and 4, 1942, Japanese carrier planes bombed, and Zero fighters machine-gunned, the U.S. military base at Dutch Harbor, Alaska. On June 7, Japanese troops seized two Aleutian islands—Attu and Kiska. Read the details of the 15-month Aleutian Campaign in which 144,000 American servicemen fought two enemies—the Japanese and the savage weather.
8.5"x11", black and white photos, 208 pages, paperback, $18.95.
ISBN 1-57510-120-3
Sorry, this title is out of print
Hunting Alaska’s Far Places
Half a Century with Rifle and Shotgun
by Jim Rearden
Join life-long hunter and one-time Alaska registered big game guide Jim Rearden as he roams the Alaska wilds with rifle and shotgun in this collection of Alaska hunting yarns he has written over the past half century. Many detail his hunting experiences; others tell of other hunter's adventures.
6"x9", black and white photos, 256 pages, paperback, $23.95.
ISBN 978-1-57510-140-8
In The Shadow of Eagles
From Barnstormer to Alaska Bush Pilot, a Flyer’s Story
by Rudy Billberg as told to Jim Rearden
Rudy Billberg's story takes readers through the great age of aviation, from his first airplane ride in Minnesota in 1927 to his bush flying career in Alaska beginning in 1941. One of the authentic aviation pioneers, Billberg writes of his countless adventures and close calls through the decades; stunt flying at Midwestern air shows, flying out of Nome into the frozen Arctic, and more.
6"x9", black and white photos, 348 pages, paperback, $19.95.
ISBN 978-1-57510-154-5
Jim Rearden’s Alaska
Fifty Years of Frontier Adventure
by Jim Rearden
Jim Rearden, Alaska's most popular outdoor journalist, recounts his search throughout the Far North for interesting people, places and events. Did he ever find them? Rearden combines twenty previously published articles into a “best of collection,” interspersed with fresh insights into a changing Alaska. He shares his favorite stories about:
· Hilarious and hair raising episodes of early day bush pilots
· A narrow escape from death on Mount McKinley
· Hollywood's humorous attempt to make a "genuine" Alaska Film
· A Swedish trapper who spent 57 years alone in the wilderness
· Why the Wolverine has such a quirky reputation
· The secret recovery of a Japanese Zero fighter during WWII
· Guarding Alaska's streams from salmon poachers
6"x9", black and white photos and maps, 288 pages, paperback, $17.95. ISBN 1-57510-121-1
Koga’s Zero
The Fighter that Changed World War II
by Jim Rearden
Found upside down in an Alaskan bog in the eighth month of our war with Japan, a Japanese fighter plane was retrieved and soon test flown by U.S. pilots. Knowledge gained from those flights ended the dominance of the Zero in the Pacific.
7"x10", black and white photos, 128 pages, paperback, $12.95.
ISBN 0-929521-56-0
Sam O. White, Alaskan
Tales of a Legendary Wildlife Agent and Bush Pilot
by Jim Rearden
foreword by Richard Wien
Sam O. White was a tough, deep-voiced, six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound former Maine lumberjack and guide. From 1922, for half a century he criss-crossed wild Alaska by foot, with packhorses, dog teams, canoe, riverboat, and airplane. He helped map the Territory. He trapped fur. He became the world’s first flying game warden. White wrote exciting tales about his Alaska adventures. Those writings make up the bulk of this volume.
6"x9", black and white photos, 442 pages, paperback, $23.95.
ISBN 978-1-57510-130-9
Shadows on the Koyukuk
An Alaskan Native’s Life Along the River
by Sidney Huntington as told to Jim Rearden
This is more than one man's incredible tale of hardship and success in Alaska. It is also a tribute to the Athapaskan traditions and spiritual beliefs that enabled him and his ancestors to survive. His story, simply told, is a testament to the durability of Alaska's wildlands and to the strength of the people who inhabit them.
6"x9", black and white photos, 240 pages, paperback, $16.95.
ISBN 978-1-57510-153-8
Slim Moore, Alaska Master Guide
A Sourdough’s Hunting Adventures and Wisdom
by Jim Rearden
foreword by Sarah Palin
The stories of Alaska Master Guide Slim Moore found in this volume were tape-recorded by the author in 1956. Told with humor, and in exciting detail, they recall a sparsely inhabited Alaska, with old-fashioned month-or-more mixed-game guided hunts—a far cry from most of today’s hurry-up guided hunts.
6"x9", black and white photos, 160 pages, paperback, $14.95.
ISBN 978-1-57510-139-2
Travel Air NC9084
The History of a 75-year-old Working Airplane
by Jim Rearden
Documented with copies of old log books and dozens of photos, this is the surprising history of a 75-year-old airplane built in a factory owned by airplanes giants Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman.
6.5"x9.5", black and white photos, 126 pages, paperback, $14.95.
ISBN 1-57510-105-X
The Wolves of Alaska
A Fact-based Saga
by Jim Rearden
Alaska has announced that wolves are to be killed on the Tanana Flats near Fairbanks to allow a moose population to rebuild. A pretty Boston school teacher, representing an animal rights organization, arrives to “save” Alaska's wolves. As she becomes involved, her initial antagonistic relationship with a wolf biologist slowly changes as she learns about wolves and Alaska.
6"x9", 352 pages, paperback, $18.95. ISBN 978-1-57510-099-9