The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska's Arctic Wilderness

Hundreds of hardy people have tried to carve a living in the Alaskan bush, but few have succeeded as consistently as Heimo Korth. Originally from Wisconsin, Heimo traveled to the Arctic wilderness in his feverous twenties. Now, more than three decades later, Heimo lives with his wife and two daughters approximately 200 miles from civilization — a sustainable, nomadic life bounded by the migrating caribou, the dangers of swollen rivers, and by the very exigencies of daily existence.

In "The Final Frontiersman," Heimo's cousin James Campbell chronicles the Korth family's amazing experience, their adventures, and the tragedy that continues to shape their lives. With a deft voice and in spectacular, at times unimaginable detail, Campbell invites us into Heimo's heartland and home. The Korths wait patiently for a small plane to deliver their provisions, listen to distant chatter on the radio, and go sledding at 44 below zero — all the while cultivating their hard-learned survival skills that stand between them and a terrible fate.

Awe-inspiring and memorable, "The Final Frontiersman" reads like a rustic version of the American Dream and reveals for the first time a life undreamed by most of us: amid encroaching environmental pressures, apart from the herd, and alone in a stunning wilderness that for now, at least, remains the final frontier.

Commended for Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award (Nonfiction) 2006

“"What makes this more than just a profile of a fascinating personality is Campbell's deft weaving of Alaskan history into Korth's tale."-- Publishers Weekly”

"Heimo Korth and his family face down more adventures in a typical week than most of us experience in a lifetime. A terrific first book -- by turns inspiring and unnerving and never less than wholly absorbing." -- Bill Bryson, BOMC judge, writing in the Book-of-the-Month Club News "The Final Frontiersman is an icily gripping, intimate profile that stands up well beside Krakauer's classic, and it stands too, as a kind of testament to the rough beauty of improbably wild dreams." -- Men's Journal "Campbell makes the case that an increasingly urban America -- and its desires for oil, for timber, for neat and packaged wilderness -- is killing and, worse, forgetting the frontier we once worshiped." -- The New York Times "[One of] the greatest life-or-death tales ever told." -- Esquire "What makes this more than just a profile of a fascinating personality is Campbell's deft weaving of Alaskan history into Korth's tale." -- Publishers Weekly

James Campbell is the author of "This Is the Beat Generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris "(California, 2001), "Exiled in Paris: Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Samuel Beckett and Others on the Left Bank "(1995), and "Invisible Country: A Journey through Scotland "(1990). He works for the "Times Literary Supplement."

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