ALASKA SOURDOUGH:

The Story of SlimWilliams. By Richard Morenus '17. NewYork: Rand McNally & Company, 1956. 278PP. $3.75.

Most Washington observers believe that the territory of Alaska may become the 49th state during this current session of Congress. If so, it will be fitting recognition for that hardy group of men (and a few women) who labored mightily during the first half of the 20th century to open up and develop Alaska. Americans all, they saw in Alaska a last frontier and sought there gold, adventure, a way of life, and even a testing ground for manhood.

One of those who sought and found adventure and a new life in Alaska was Slim Williams, a gangling 18-year-old cowhand, who, in 1900, paid his last $31 for boat passage from Seattle to Valdez, Alaska, and stayed on in the territory for 32 years to become a pioneer Alaska sourdough and one of the territory's most famous citizens.

In his latest book, Alaska Sourdough, Richard Morerius recounts the highlights of Slim Williams' life in Alaska, from that first cold day when he waded ashore from the grounded ship at Valdez as a green "cheechako" (tenderfoot) to the time 32 years later when he drove a dog sled some 5,000 miles to represent Alaska at the Century of Progress Fair in Chicago as a real Alaskan "sourdough" (veteran).

It would be unfair to categorize this book as a biography, although it has many elements of a biography and the entire story was recounted to Richard Morenus by Slim Williams. A downright good adventure yarn, it proves again that truth is more exciting than fiction.

Richard Morenus, who has lived for long periods in the Canadian bush with Indians and Eskimos, exhibits in this volume a real knack for describing the feel and color of Alaska. His detailed dramatization of Slim Williams' adventures on the trail and in the Alaskan frontier towns and of his relationships with the other hardy pioneers who often sacrificed their lives along this bleak northland outpost is both vivid and accurate.

Slim Williams (who is still alive and lecturing today) and his kind are perhaps the last of the American pioneers who pushed westward, the cowboys who fought for tjie West and the trappers and traders who sought lonely trails that later became highways. Over the Alaskan Highway hundreds of new citizens stream into Alaska today and this last frontier is vanishing. Alaska Sourdough will help to preserve a proud part of Alaskan history.