In the fall of 1897, eight whaling ships became trapped in the ice on Alaska's northern coast. Without relief, two hundred whalers would starve to death by winter's end. Mercifully, an extraordinary missionary, Tom Lopp, and seven Eskimo herders embarked on a harrowing journey to save the whalers, driving four hundred reindeer more than seven hundred untracked miles. At the heart of the rescue expedition lies another, in some ways more compelling, journey. In a Far Country is the personal odyssey of Tom and his wife Ellen Lopp, their commitment to the natives and the rugged but happy life they built for themselves amid a treeless tundra at the top of the world. The Lopps pulled through on grit and wits, on humility and humour, on trust and love, and by the grace of God. Their accomplishment would surely have received broader acclaim had it not been eclipsed by two simultaneous events: the Spanish- American War and the Alaska gold rush. The United States and its territories were transformed abruptly and irrevocably by these fits of expansionist fever, and despite the thoughtful, determined guidance of the Lopps, the natives of the North were soon overwhelmed by a force mightier than the fiercest Arctic winter: the twentieth century.

"This account of physical and psychological endurance is a personal odyssey drawn out of the historical narrative of an epic expedition... Taliaferro charts the advance of the ice in all its crushing, buckling power, while imagining men and reindeer under a cloud of steamy breath as they labour across the tundra." FT "This worthy book paints a frigid portrait of life 70 miles from the Arctic Circle more than a century ago... (John Taliaferro's) book is an important addition to the canon of literature pertaining to the introduction of reindeer." Daily Telegraph"

John Taliaferro is a former senior editor at Newsweek and the author of three acclaimed books, Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore, Charles M. Russell: The Life and Legend of America's Cowboy Artist, and Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs. He lives in Pray, Montana, and Austin, Texas.