If You Lived Here I'd Know Your Name

<DIV>Tiny Haines Alaska is ninety miles north of Juneau accessible mainly by water or air-and only when the weather is good. There's no traffic light and no mail delivery; people can vanish without a trace and funerals are a community affair. Heather Lende posts both the obituaries and the social column for her local newspaper. If anyone knows the going-on in this close-knit town-from births to weddings to funerals-she does.<br><br> Whether contemplating the mysterious death of eccentric Speedy Joe who wore nothing but a red union suit and a hat he never took off not even for a haircut; researching the details of a one-legged lady gold miner's adventurous life; worrying about her son's first goat-hunting expedition; observing the awe-inspiring Chilkat Bald Eagle Festival; or ice skating in the shadow of glacier-studded mountains Lende's warmhearted style brings us inside her small-town life. We meet her husband Chip who owns the local lumber yard; their five children; and a colorful assortment of quirky friends and neighbors including aging hippies salty fishermen native Tlingit Indians and volunteer undertakers-as well as the moose eagles sea lions and bears with whom they share this wild and perilous land. <br><br> Like Bailey White's tales of Southern life or Garrison Keillor's reports from the Midwest NPR commentator Heather Lende's take on her offbeat Alaskan hometown celebrates life in a dangerous and breathtakingly beautiful place. </DIV>