In a Far Country: The True Story of a Mission a Marriage and the Remarkable Reindeer Rescue of 1898

About this book

In the fall of 1897 eight whaling ships became trapped in the ice on Alaskas northern coast. Without relief two hundred whalers would starve to death by winters end. Mercifully an extraordinary missionary Tom Lopp and seven Eskimo herders embarked on a harrowing journey to save the whalers driving four hundred reindeer more than seven hundred untracked miles. At the heart of the rescue expedition lies another in some ways more compelling journey. In a Far Country is the personal odyssey of Tom and his wife Ellen Lopp their commitment to the natives and the rugged but happy life they built for themselves amid a treeless tundra at the top of the world. The Lopps pulled through on grit and wits on humility and humor on trust and love and by the grace of God. Their accomplishment would surely have received broader acclaim had it not been eclipsed by two simultaneous events: the Spanish- American War and the Alaska gold rush. The United States and its territories were transformed abruptly and irrevocably by these fits of expansionist fever and despite the thoughtful determined guidance of the Lopps the natives of the North were soon overwhelmed by a force mightier than the fiercest Arctic winter: the twentieth century.