Alexander Archipelago

This eclectic series of twelve stories based on some of the life experiences of Gustav Tjgaard runs the gamut.


The nonfiction narrative presents dramatizations set in the lush ambiance and grandeur of earth’s largest temperate rain forest. The book is a picture album of life in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.


These adventures and perilous undertakings occur in a forest of big trees, big birds, big fish, and big bears, where immense peaks are wrapped in great glaciers that break off into bays and fjords where big whales spout. The peaks are capped by perennial snows that form the highest coastal mountain range in the world, rising abruptly from salty coves to blue ice and black crags. Surely this is landscape to swell the soul and humble the ego.


From Chapter 4: This was a phenomenon experienced in the dead of winter while at the author’s dacha on Baranof Island. The weather outside was malevolent with a wind factor that brought the temperature down to well below zero. Comforted by the warmth of the stove and a glass of Tennessee whiskey, while listening to Schumann’s “Waldszenen,” the author dozed off. It was in this state of mind that he recognized their midnight visitor was Percy, a former fiancé of his wife, Sophie. It wasn’t until the following spring that they learned Percy died two weeks before his visit.