Coming in September 2013 — Byrd & Igloo: A Polar Adventure

Byrd & Igloo: A Polar Adventure is the first narrative nonfiction book to tell the daring adventures of legendary polar explorer and aviator Richard Byrd and his lovable dog explorer, Igloo. Byrd is known for being the first to fly a plane over the North and South Poles, while Igloo is famous for being the only dog to explore both the North and South Pole regions. The adventures of Byrd and Igloo opened the door for science and research in the Antarctic. Featuring direct quotes from letters, diaries and interviews, newspaper clippings, expedition records, maps, charts, as well as never-before-seen photos, it will give the complete story of the explorers’ journey.

On the Radar Teens: World War II Round-up — School Library’s Journal’s e-newsletter SLJTeen offers a variety of interesting WWII books for teens.

Remembering the anniversary of D-Day — A list of WWII books that “show the struggle of war” from Scholastic’s official blog.

For a closer look at Castner’s Cutthroats in action, visit the Alaska Veterans Museum’s online exhibit and watch the video below.

WHO-AM Radio Interview with Suzanne Lee

For centuries, the Aleuts have been considered “the finest basket weavers in the world.” Each generation of Aleut women passed down their basket-weaving skills to their daughters and granddaughters. The three styles of Aleut baskets, Attu, Atka, and Unalaska — each named after the Aleutian Island from which the style was first created — are admired for their incredibly fine stitchwork and remarkable skill.

The Aleut basket weavers preparing and weaving the rye grass.

Before WWII, Attu, Alaska — the most western island in the Aleutians — was known for growing the strongest rye grass and producing the best basket weavers. There was great demand for Aleut baskets, especially from 1850 -1919 when explorers and tourists began to actively collect them as souvenirs. In fact, in 1901 the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn was already featuring the Aleut baskets in an art exhibit.

Aleut baskets are usually quite small, some are just 1 1/4 inches in diameter and height — the perfect size for a souvenir. Other popular baskets styles included cigar cases and bottle covers. However, Aleuts also made large baskets to carry and store things, such as dried fish and roots, and they also used the rye grass to weave mats, hats, socks, and mittens.

In 1944, an Aleut basket cost $100. In 1973, Parascovia sold one of her small Aleut baskets to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center for $300. Today, some Aleut baskets are worth thousands of dollars.

Aleut Basket Weaving

The art of Aleut basket weaving is not easy to master and requires great patience. The process in making an Aleut basket begins in the summer when the long, soft rye grass is cut while it is still green. The outer layer of the grass is stripped away, and small bundles are made, which are hung up on a line to dry. It can take several months for the grass to dry out, thanks to the persistent Aleutian fog.

Once the rye grass is ready, the basket weaver uses her thumbnail to split the blade of grass into four tiny strands. The grass is placed in a damp cloth, and the technique used to weave the basket is called “twining.” It’s important that the weaver’s fingers are dipped in water because the moisture keeps the grass flexible. Silk and wool are also woven in to embroider patterns on the basket. Aleut baskets can take four to six months to weave, working several hours a day.

The finished Aleut basket is strong but soft to the touch and feels like linen or grosgrain silk.

Aleut Baskets in Museums

Aleut baskets and other artifacts — such as their kayaks, fishing and hunting gear — can be found in museums all over the world.

One of Parascovia's baskets.

Parascovia’s baskets can be found at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center and at the Alaska State Museums, which have been collecting Aleut baskets for over 100 years.

In the National Museum of Finland’s permanent exhibition, “Fetched from Afar,” a rare collection of Aleut, Inuit, and American Indian art is on display. These items were collected by Adolf Etholén, a Finn who worked in Alaska as a civil servant when it was still part of the Russian empire in the early 19th century.

In Russia, several museums have collections of Aleut art and artifacts. Of particular note, the D.N. Anuchin Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology of Moscow State University and the State Historical Museum in Moscow both house Aleut artifacts from Waldemar Jochelson’s collection. Jochelson was a Russian ethnographer who led expeditions to the Aleutians for the Imperial Russian Geographic Society in 1909 -1910.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has an excellent collection of Aleut baskets, particularly cigar cases, as well as artifacts, such as a hunting helmet and spear.

The Museum of the Aleutians in Unalaska, Alaska houses a permanent collection of some of the very best Aleut baskets.

The kamikazes’ disregard for self-preservation and their fearlessness toward death was difficult for the Americans to understand. But to the Japanese, the kamikazes were revered as godlike in their courage and patriotism. They were modern-day samurai warriors.

On May 11, 1945 two Kamikazes crashed into the USS Bunker Hill, killing 372 and wounding 264.

During WWII all Japanese soldiers followed the Field Service Code, which was based on the bushido code — rules of conduct followed for centuries by the noble samurai warriors.

These rules for the kamikaze pilots and all Japanese soldiers emphasized the following: never surrender, death before dishonor, and loyalty through blind obedience.

The punishment for disobeying these rules was severe, oftentimes leading to death. And the “never surrender” code had devastating consequences in the Battle for Attu during the Aleutian War in Alaska.

Kamikaze pilots were young, usually between 16 to 20 years old, and many had less than 100 hours of flying time. Before each doomed flight, the kamikaze pilot was reportedly locked into the cockpit without a life-saving parachute. Loaded with explosives, the kamikaze’s plane was stripped of any landing gear, making it necessary to launch it from an aircraft. As soon as the kamikaze’s plane made contact, it exploded.

Below is wartime footage of the kamikazes.

The same year that the Akron dirigible crashed,  20-year-old Charlie House had just completed his first year in the Navy. Raised on a farm in Fruitland, Washington, Charlie joined the Navy with the goal of becoming a crew member on the U.S. Navy’s other giant dirigible, the USS Macon.

In the fall of 1934 Charlie was one step closer to his dream when he was transferred to the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey to attend the Lighter-Than-Air School. But Charlie’s hope of flying in dirigibles was destroyed the following spring when the $4 million dollar Macon zeppelin (built by Goodyear) crashed into the Pacific Ocean.

The Macon dirigible disaster put “a crimp in the Lighter-Than-Air Program in the United States Navy,” said Charlie. “This was a serious blow to me, as my strongest desire and ambition was to become a crewman on a dirigible.”

But Charlie’s experience with dirigibles wasn’t over yet.

Three years later, while Charlie was studying at Lakehurst to become a weatherman, the most famous and luxurious dirigible of all — the Hindenburg — was scheduled to make a stop in Lakehurst. And Charlie was assigned to the ground crew. Their job was to grab the Hindenburg’s ropes to help anchor the dirigible as it came in for a landing.

As the Hindenburg made its approach at the Lakehurst landing field, the Hindenburg’s crew threw down the ropes for the Navy ground crew. Suddenly, the Hindenburg burst into flames. When the Hindenburg started to burn and fall from the sky, the Navy ground crew was forced to drop their lines and run for their lives.

“It was a horrible scene,” said Charlie. And one he would never forget.

In this newsreel of the Hindenburg disaster, you can see Charlie House and the Navy ground crew run from the fiery explosion and then turnaround and run toward the burning wreckage to help rescue the passengers on the Hindenburg.

This wouldn’t be Charlie House’s last life-or-death experience. In 1942 he would be part of the weather team in Kiska, Alaska where he would be fighting for his life against the Japanese invasion. More of his extraordinary story of survival in the punishing Alaska wilderness can be found in Ghosts in the Fog.

Kiska, Alaska weatherman, Charlie House, witnessed the Hindenburg disaster and his account was reported in his hometown newspaper.

Unlike the fishermen in “Deadliest Catch,” the Aleuts hunted with a harpoon that they coated with aconite poison. The poison was made from the monkshood root by drying, grating, and fermenting it. With their spears in hand, the fearless Aleuts expertly kayaked right up to the whale and plunged in their poisoned harpoons. And instead of trying to drag the whale back to shore, the Aleut hunters waited patiently for a few days, always on the lookout for the whale to wash up near or on the beach.

The whale could feed the entire village, and no part was wasted. The bones were used to frame their homes, and the whale blubber was used for fuel. The Aleut whale hunters were highly respected, and the “special rights and powers” to be a whale hunter were passed down from father to son.

The Aleuts’ Deadliest Catch

The Aleuts harpooning their deadliest catch in the late 19th Century.

The TV Show “Deadliest Catch”

Watch this clip from the TV show “Deadliest Catch,” and see for yourself just how gutsy the Aleuts were to hunt whales in their kayaks in the deadly Bering Sea.

More about the Aleuts and how they were nearly destroyed by the invasion of the Japanese during WWII can be found in Ghosts in the Fog.

The Army Air Forces developed this training video, starring future U.S. President Ronald Reagan, on how to recognize a Japanese Zero fighter because it was one of the best ways of saving a pilot’s life.

It wasn’t until the Aleutian War that the Japanese Zero fighter’s secrets were finally revealed and then documented in the training video. It began on June 4, 1942 when Japanese Flight Petty Officer Tadayoshi Toga flew his Zero fighter to attack Dutch Harbor, Alaska in what was the beginning of the Aleutian War. Toga’s plane was hit by a bullet, severing the oil line. Trailing black smoke, he tried to land his Zero fighter on Akutan, an island in the Aleutians. But the Zero fighter’s wheels sank in the muskeg, flipping the Zero and breaking Toga’s neck.

The Americans search the crashed Japanese Zero fighter on Akutan Island during the Aleutian War.

On July 10, 1942 Lt. William Thies and his PBY crew spotted the crashed Zero fighter. The Zero was packed up and sent to the North Island Air Station in San Diego where two Marines stood guard while repair crews worked around the clock, reconstructing it. By September 20, 1942 Navy test pilot Lt. Cmdr. Edward Sanders was flying the Japanese Zero fighter, learning its weaknesses so other pilots would know how to survive combat with the Zero.

The Zero fighter’s biggest weakness was that it had no armor and it lost some  maneuverability at higher speeds.  The Allied pilots quickly learned to use hit-and-run diving attacks. But the Japanese Zero fighter remained a fearsome foe until 1943 when American fighter planes with bigger engines and more firepower came onto the scene.

By the end of WWII the Zero fighter was flown by the Kamikazes on their suicide missions.

More about the bombing missions and the fighter pilots in the Aleutian War can be found in Ghosts in the Fog.