Encounters in Avalanche Country
A History of Survival in the Mountain West, 1820-1920 (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)
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Narrated by:
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Lee Ann Howlett
About this listen
Every winter, settlers of the US and Canadian Mountain West could expect to lose dozens of lives to deadly avalanches. This constant threat to trappers, miners, railway workers and their families forced individuals and communities to develop knowledge, share strategies, and band together as they tried to survive the extreme conditions of "avalanche country". The result of this convergence, author Diana Di Stefano argues, was a complex network of formal and informal cooperation that used disaster preparedness to engage legal action and instill a sense of regional identity among the many lives affected by these natural disasters.
Encounters in Avalanche Country tells the story of mountain communities' responses to disaster over a century of social change and rapid industrialization. As mining and railway companies triggered new kinds of disasters, ideas about environmental risk and responsibility were increasingly negotiated by mountain laborers, at the elite levels among corporations, and in socially charged civil suits.
Written in a lively and engaging narrative style, Encounters in Avalanche Country uncovers authentic stories of survival struggles, frightening avalanches, and how local knowledge challenged legal traditions that defined avalanches as acts of God. Combining disaster, mining, railroad, and ski histories with the theme of severe winter weather, it provides a new and fascinating perspective on the settlement of the Mountain West.
The book is published by University of Washington Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
©2013 University of Washington Press (P)2022 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill on the American River, it completely transformed the territory of California. Hundreds of thousands of people sped to California by any means possible, and small cities sprung up to service their needs as they sought the precious metal. By 1850, California had become a state; it had also become a symbol of where the nation was going.
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Very Enjoyable
- By Claire on 01-15-04
By: H.W. Brands
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Fire and Brimstone
- The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
- By: Michael Punke
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history began a half hour before midnight on June 8, 1917, when fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company's Granite Mountain shaft. Sparked more than 2,000 feet below ground, the fire spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Within an hour more than 400 men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days 164 of them would be dead.
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Fairly Solid Book With Good History
- By Matthew on 08-18-16
By: Michael Punke
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The Cruelest Miles
- The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic
- By: Gay Salisbury, Laney Salisbury
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 1925. It is sixty degrees below zero. The wind sweeps tons of snow over the deep-frozen Alaskan landscape. The nearest railhead is seven hundred miles away. Airplanes cannot fly. The way to Nome is blocked by a treacherous frozen sound, an icebound port, and mountains to the west. But there is a diphtheria epidemic in Nome. The children need serum from the outside world if they are to survive. Their only hope is a few chosen Eskimo drivers and their teams of dogs.
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The Cruelest Miles Makes Exciting Reading
- By Susan Carter on 01-07-04
By: Gay Salisbury, and others
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Panama Fever
- By: Matthew Parker
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, William Dufris
- Length: 17 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The building of the Panama Canal was one of the greatest engineering feats in human history. A tale of exploration, conquest, money, politics, and medicine, Panama Fever charts the challenges that marked the long, labyrinthine road to the building of the canal. Drawing on a wealth of new materials and sources, Matthew Parker brings to life the men who recognized the impact a canal would have on global politics and economics.
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Good book, marginal narrator
- By CmH - HB, CA on 06-02-08
By: Matthew Parker
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Empire of Shadows
- The Epic Story of Yellowstone
- By: George Black
- Narrated by: Jack de Golia
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Empire of Shadows is the epic story of the conquest of Yellowstone, a landscape uninhabited, inaccessible, and shrouded in myth in the aftermath of the Civil War. In a radical reinterpretation of the 19th century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands of history.
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Paints a big picture
- By Gail Thomalla on 07-13-21
By: George Black
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Bold Spirit
- Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America
- By: Linda Lawrence Hunt
- Narrated by: Pat Stien
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1896, a Norwegian immigrant and mother of eight children named Helga Estby was behind on taxes and the mortgage when she learned that a mysterious sponsor would pay $10,000 to a woman who walked across America. Hoping to win the wager and save her family's farm, Helga and her teenaged daughter Clara, armed with little more than a compass, red-pepper spray, a revolver, and Clara's curling iron, set out on foot from Eastern Washington.
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Norwegian boldness!
- By MAF/BPF on 04-03-18
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Rangers, Trappers, and Trailblazers
- Early Adventures in Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness and Glacier National Park
- By: John Fraley
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The North, Middle, and South Forks of the Flathead River drain some of the wildest country in Montana, including Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. In Rangers, Trappers, and Trailblazers, John Fraley recounts the true adventures of people who earned their living among the mountains and along the cold, clear rivers in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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An adventurous listen
- By Hiba on 09-11-24
By: John Fraley
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Desperate Passage
- The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West
- By: Ethan Rarick
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year's westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival.
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I REALLY enjoyed this book
- By Roger on 02-09-10
By: Ethan Rarick
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The Promise of the Grand Canyon
- John Wesley Powell's Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West
- By: John F. Ross
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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John Wesley Powell’s first descent of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869 counts among the most dramatic chapters in American exploration history. When the Canyon spit out the surviving members of the expedition - starving, battered, and nearly naked - they had accomplished what others thought impossible and finished the exploration of continental America that Lewis and Clark had begun almost 70 years before.
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Parallels
- By Bruce McClenahan on 01-25-19
By: John F. Ross
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A Crack in the Edge of the World
- America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force. In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale.
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7 Hours and 45 minutes . . .
- By Tim on 12-09-05
By: Simon Winchester
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Nothing Like It in the World
- The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Jeffrey DeMunn
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing Like It in the World is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise comes to life. The U.S. government pitted two companies - the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads - against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. As its peak the work force approached the size of Civil War armies, with as many as 15,000 workers on each line. The surveyors, the men who picked the route, lived off buffalo, deer, and antelope.
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A tragic waste
- By Joshua Tretakoff on 04-11-03