This Much Country
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4.7 • 23 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A memoir of heartbreak, thousand-mile races, the endless Alaskan wilderness and many, many dogs from one of only a handful of women to have completed both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod.
In 2009, after a crippling divorce that left her heartbroken and directionless, Kristin decided to accept an offer to live at a friend's cabin outside of Denali National Park in Alaska for a few months. In exchange for housing, she would take care of her friend's eight sled dogs.
That winter, she learned that she was tougher than she ever knew. She learned how to survive in one of the most remote places on earth and she learned she was strong enough to be alone. She fell in love twice: first with running sled dogs, and then with Andy, a gentle man who had himself moved to Alaska to heal a broken heart.
Kristin and Andy married and started a sled dog kennel. While this work was enormously satisfying, Kristin became determined to complete the Iditarod -- the 1,000-mile dogsled race from Anchorage, in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast.
THIS MUCH COUNTRY is the story of renewal and transformation. It's about journeying across a wild and unpredictable landscape and finding inner peace, courage and a true home. It's about pushing boundaries and overcoming paralyzing fears.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sled dog racer Pace debuts with an earnest chronicle of the ups and downs of a life spent living in the wilds of Alaska. After graduating from high school in Texas, Pace passed on a college scholarship and instead moved to Montana to live with Alfred, a guy she'd met online, then spent the summer of 2009 at the Denali National Park Sled Dog Kennels in Alaska. When Alfred left her for a co-worker, a devastated Pace moved to Alaska for good with a "head full of possibilities" and a "heart ready to accept them." Living in a cabin and caring for a team of sled dogs, she writes of "figuring out who I was while being alone." What she discovered was an inner strength to match her physical toughness and a love for dog sledding that led her on her "greatest" journey the Yukon Quest and the grueling Iditarod sled dog races. Pace wonderfully captures the adrenaline rush of flying across a snow-covered landscape in 40-below temperatures, as well as the despair of later burying two of her beloved dogs in the frozen tundra ("I stroked Moose's fur.... The last of his living warmth was still there, but he didn't respond to my touch"). Pace is candid about life in the frozen north, and her self-awareness makes this a worthy addition to the outdoor adventure genre.
