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Title details for Pilgrim's Wilderness by Tom Kizzia - Available

Pilgrim's Wilderness

A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier

by Tom Kizzia
Fred Sanders
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
Into the Wild meets Helter Skelter in this riveting true story of a modern-day homesteading family in the deepest reaches of the Alaskan wilderness – and of the chilling secrets of its maniacal, spellbinding patriarch.
 
When Papa Pilgrim appeared in the Alaska frontier outpost of McCarthy with his wife and fifteen children in tow, his new neighbors had little idea of the trouble to come.  The Pilgrim Family presented themselves as a shining example of the homespun Christian ideal, with their proud piety and beautiful old-timey music, but their true story ran dark and deep.  Within weeks, Papa had bulldozed a road through the mountains to the new family home at an abandoned copper mine, sparking a tense confrontation with the National Park Service and forcing his ghost town neighbors to take sides in an ever-more volatile battle over where a citizen’s rights end and the government’s power begins.
   In Pilgrim’s Wilderness, veteran Alaska journalist Tom Kizzia unfolds the remarkable, at times harrowing, story of a charismatic spinner of American myths who was not what he seemed, the townspeople caught in his thrall, and the family he brought to the brink of ruin.  As Kizzia discovered, Papa Pilgrim was in fact the son of a rich Texas family with ties to Hoover’s FBI and strange, oblique connections to the Kennedy assassination and the movie stars of Easy Rider.  And as his fight with the government in Alaska grew more intense, the turmoil in his brood made it increasingly difficult to tell whether his children were messianic followers or hostages in desperate need of rescue.  In this powerful piece of Americana, written with uncommon grace and high drama, Kizzia uses his unparalleled access to capture an era-defining clash between environmentalists and pioneers ignited by a mesmerizing sociopath who held a town and a family captive.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 16, 2013

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780385393676
      • File size: 295038 KB
      • Duration: 10:14:39

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Fred Sanders presents Alaska journalist Tom Kizzia's compelling story in a thought-provoking style. Listeners are introduced to Papa Pilgrim, his wife, and their 14 children, who live off their land in Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Sanders injects bits of characterization into the story when recounting interactions between the family members and Pilgrim's conflicts with his neighbors and the National Park Service. These anecdotes add authenticity without over-dramatizing the story as listeners learn how Pilgrim hides behind Christian values and anti-government individualism while manipulating and abusing those around him. The depth of this true story of one man's brutality and his family's resilience is best experienced in the documentary style offered by Sanders. K.C.R. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 1, 2013
      In 2002, when the Pilgrim family, a curious group that included a husband and wife and 14 children, showed up in remote McCarthy, Ala., and homesteaded in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, their pioneer spirit, independent nature, religious piety, and throwback ideals were embraced by the frontier community. When the family got into a legal battle with the National Park Service, many Alaskans who bristled at the government’s perceived infringement on landowners’ rights came to the family’s aid. But when journalist Kizzia (The Wake of the Unseen Object) started digging into the Pilgrims’’ past—especially that of the father, Papa Pilgrim (aka Bobby Hale)—for the Anchorage Daily News, he uncovered a bizarre saga. Following Hale’s journey from Texas to Alaska, which included stops in Florida, California, Oregon, and New Mexico—and names like John F. Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, J. Edgar Hoover, and Texas Governor John Connally—Kizzia discovers cracks in the paradisiac image the Pilgrim’s presented to the public. Though it takes a little while for him to set up the story, once Papa Pilgrim’s dark secrets start to become exposed (there are battles between the National Park Service, the government and various small towns), the author sends readers on a roller-coaster ride that is as thrilling as it is shocking. Kizzia’s work is a testament to both the cruelty and resiliency of the human spirit, capturing the sort of life-and-death struggle that can only occur on the fringes of modern-day civilization. Agent: Alice Martell, the Martell Agency. B&w photos.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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