Ted Lambert

Ted Lambert is regarded as one of the premier Alaska artists, a true pioneer. Born in 1905, and raised in the Chicago area, Lambert moved to Alaska in 1925 and went to work as a miner near McCarthy. He held several jobs, predominantly working at a copper mine and mushing dogs – first for adventure, and then as a mail carrier.

Lambert left Alaska in 1931 to study art for a year at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, then moved to Seattle, where he began a mentorship under Eustace Ziegler, with whom he traveled throughout Alaska and painted. Eventually Lambert settled down in Fairbanks, where he stayed for twenty years and solidified his reputation as a painter and an artist.

But in 1960 he disappeared from the remote cabin he was living in at Bristol Bay. No trace of his body was ever found, but among the effects rescued from his last home was a memoir of his early days in Alaska. Presented here and never before published, these memoirs reveal Lambert to be a keen and intelligent observer and relay the adventure story of a young man who would become one of Alaska's most important artists.


Content

Preface
Introduction

Welcome to Cordova
Hiking the Iron Trail
Recuperation
The Mine
Low Man on the Totem Pole
Bud Is Back
The Country
The Roadhouse
Forest Fire
Mining Something Else
Prohibition and No Inhibition
Finishing the Season
Off-Season
Dog-teaming – Origin of a Mistake
Adopt-a-Team
The Dogs Teach Us to Mush
Beefing Up the Kennel
The Education Continues
New Equipment
Early Winter
Kennecott
Learning Alaska History
Outfitting
The Trail
Taming Live Glaciers
Near Death on Skolai Pass
Strategic Withdrawal
Return to Skolai
Boyden's Saga
Over the Pass

Epilogue