Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier
    Unavailable
    Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier
    Unavailable
    Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier
    Audiobook10 hours

    Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier

    Written by Tom Kizzia

    Narrated by Fred Sanders

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Into the Wild meets Helter Skelter in this riveting true story of a modern-day homesteading family in the deepest reaches of the Alaskan wilderness - and of the chilling secrets of its maniacal, spellbinding patriarch.

    When Papa Pilgrim appeared in the Alaska frontier outpost of McCarthy with his wife and fifteen children in tow, his new neighbors had little idea of the trouble to come.  The Pilgrim Family presented themselves as a shining example of the homespun Christian ideal, with their proud piety and beautiful old-timey music, but their true story ran dark and deep.  Within weeks, Papa had bulldozed a road through the mountains to the new family home at an abandoned copper mine, sparking a tense confrontation with the National Park Service and forcing his ghost town neighbors to take sides in an ever-more volatile battle over where a citizen's rights end and the government's power begins.

    In Pilgrim's Wilderness, veteran Alaska journalist Tom Kizzia unfolds the remarkable, at times harrowing, story of a charismatic spinner of American myths who was not what he seemed, the townspeople caught in his thrall, and the family he brought to the brink of ruin.  As Kizzia discovered, Papa Pilgrim was in fact the son of a rich Texas family with ties to Hoover's FBI and strange, oblique connections to the Kennedy assassination and the movie stars of Easy Rider.  And as his fight with the government in Alaska grew more intense, the turmoil in his brood made it increasingly difficult to tell whether his children were messianic followers or hostages in desperate need of rescue.  In this powerful piece of Americana, written with uncommon grace and high drama, Kizzia uses his unparalleled access to capture an era-defining clash between environmentalists and pioneers ignited by a mesmerizing sociopath who held a town and a family captive.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 16, 2013
    ISBN9780385393652
    Unavailable
    Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier
    Author

    Tom Kizzia

    Tom Kizzia traveled widely in rural Alaska during a 25-year career as a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He is the author of the bestseller Pilgrim's Wilderness, chosen by the New York Times as the best true crime book set in Alaska, and the Native village travel narrative, The Wake of the Unseen Object, re-issued in the Alaska classics series of the University of Alaska Press. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, the Columbia Journalism Review, and in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017. He received an Artist Fellowship from Rasmuson Foundation and was a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. A graduate of Hampshire College, he lives in Homer, Alaska.

    Related to Pilgrim's Wilderness

    Related audiobooks

    United States History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring McCarthy, Chen, Samatar, and More

      Oct 25, 2022

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Cormac McCarthy, Kevin Chen, Sofia Samatar, and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Millio

      4 min read

    • Article

      Suspicions Of Sorcery

      Jan 19, 2023

      In the winter of 1581, Davy Thurlowe was “strangely taken” with fits. His parents, Grace and John, hired Ursley Kempe, a woman of poor reputation yet renowned as a healer. Ursley helped Davy, but took offence when the pregnant Grace Thurlowe refused

      2 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Nov 20, 2023

      How To Say Babylon: A Jamaican Memoir by Safiya Sinclair is a truly wonderful and compelling account of growing up as the eldest daughter in a strict Rasta family. Shining a light on the history of the much-persecuted Rastafari movement, Sinclair lyr

      3 min read

    • Article

      The 10 Best Movies

      Dec 4, 2020

      The 10 Best Movies
      3 min read

    • Article

      The 10 Best Movies

      Dec 4, 2020

      The 10 Best Movies
      3 min read

    • Article

      Not Everything Turns to Gold

      Oct 2, 2018

      Theodore Roosevelt once said, “When I am in California, I am not in the West, I am west of the West.” The Rough Rider’s koan has been widely viewed as a celebration of the limitless California adventure, but it’s also a reminder of the dizzying, vert

      4 min read

    • Article

      Meghan Markle

      Dec 24, 2018

      Meghan Markle
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Stories of James McBride

      Jan 19, 2018

      Five-Carat Soul, James McBride’s new short story collection, is an eclectic and delightful follow-up to his award-winning novel The Good Lord Bird. It is also a collection that has been patchworked, and smoothed together over 30 years. Mr. P & th

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Passage Without Return

      Jul 2, 2019

      Once upon a time, a family moved to the edge of the woods in Alaska to be closer to the stars—so close, the father told his children, they could feel the heat. As in all fairy tales, though, things take a dark turn in The Unpassing, Bay Area novelist

      3 min read

    • Article

      Grace Period

      Jun 9, 2022

      Grace Period
      9 min read

    • Article

      On Our Nightstand

      Jul 2, 2019

      By Obi Kaufmann Heyday, 144 pages, $20 It’s no surprise that Obi Kaufmann’s first book, The California Field Atlas, was a bestseller. Filled with useful facts and Kaufmann’s lovingly detailed paintings of wildlife, it’s a handsome, compact tribute to

      2 min read

    • Article

      4 Ways to Write Hooks for Books

      Dec 11, 2023

      Book authors have to hook readers twice. Like all other writers, authors have to hook readers with the writing in their books. But they also have the additional challenge of hooking readers before they ever crack open the spine or open the digital fi

      5 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      May 23, 2023

      Must See, Must Read
      9 min read

    • Article

      Review: Luis Valdez's 'Valley Of The Heart' Shares An Immigrant Story From California's Past

      Nov 12, 2018

      In Luis Valdez's "Valley of the Heart," two immigrant families - one of Mexican heritage, the other of Japanese - are living side by side on a Northern California farm at the start of World War II. Their lives become entwined not just through marriag

      3 min read

    • Article

      Cursed Lives

      Jan 20, 2022

      The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcolm Gaskill >Allen Lane, 336 pages, £20 In February 1651, in the little settler town of Springfield, Massachusetts, Jonathan Taylor woke in terror in the middle of the night. “Snakes!” h

      2 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Mar 1, 2022

      Must See, Must Read
      14 min read

    • Article

      No, California isn't 'done'

      Jan 4, 2018

      No, California isn't 'done'
      3 min read

    • Article

      Bravehearted Women

      Aug 29, 2023

      Bravehearted Women
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Meaning of Meghan

      Jun 4, 2018

      The Meaning of Meghan
      6 min read

    • Article

      Local Color

      Jul 30, 2020

      Local Color
      4 min read

    • Article

      Readers Respond merge

      Oct 29, 2020

      Readers Respond merge
      2 min read

    Reviews for Pilgrim's Wilderness

    4/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words