Harmon Helmericks

This is the best book ever written about Alaskan bush pilots. Helmericks has been a pilot in Alaska since 1946 and is a master guide with the Alaska Game Commission. A born storyteller, he describes flying blind through fogged-in mountain passes, landing by pontoon on remote glaciers, and setting down on lonely sandbars. This book is an important document of Alaskan history and a thrill for any hunter, fisherman, or pilot.
KIRKUS REVIEW: An early plane used in Alaska was held together with piano wire and when it got into trouble played ""Nearer My God to Thee."" Thus the flavor of this book which will take those bored with their daily lives, to the remoteness of Alaska earlier in this century. It is an anecdote-packed story by a veteran bush pilot--a seat-of-the-pants, single-engine, no blind-flying-instrumentation flier who looked fate in the eye almost daily and won by a gallant combination of guts, skill and luck. Heart-stopping incidents are routine but to be especially recommended is his dead-stick landing in Fairbanks in a plane containing his whole family but no gas. To get away from it all, you are referred to the dramatic accounts of polar bear and walrus hunting and trapping, and fishing, not to mention exploration from the air.… (more)