His story, “Chasing Ghosts,” about that expedition, which appeared in the May 2007 issue of Outside magazine, was chosen for The Best American Travel Writing 2008. In 2006, he followed the route of the Ghost Mountain Boys across New Guinea - a journey that historians describe as 'one of the cruelest in military history' - and shot a documentary film in the process.

His fascination with New Guinea and the war in the South Pacific led him to the story of the 32nd Division, the Ghost Mountain Boys, and his book of the same name.

His first book, The Final Frontiersman was chosen by Amazon in 2004 as the #1 Outdoor title of the Year and one of the Top 50 books of the Year and by the Midwest Booksellers Association as one of the Top 2 nonfiction titles of the year. He has written stories for Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Military History, Backpacker, Audubon, Field and Stream, and many other magazines and newspapers. The journey would test them, and their relationship, in one of the planet’s most remote a land of wolves, musk oxen, Dall sheep, golden eagles, and polar bears.Īt turns poignant and humorous, Braving It is an ode to America’s disappearing wilderness and a profound meditation on what it means for a child to grow up-and a parent to finally, fully let go.Īuthor, adventurer and producer James Campbell is a native of Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife and three daughters. It would be their third and most ambitious trip, backpacking over Alaska’s Brooks Range to the headwaters of the mighty Hulahula River, where they would assemble a folding canoe and paddle to the Arctic Ocean. So he decided to take Aidan back to Alaska one final time before she left home. Under the supervision of Edna, Heimo’s Yupik Eskimo wife, Aidan grew more confident in the woods.Ĭampbell knew that in traditional Eskimo cultures, some daughters earned a rite of passage usually reserved for young men. Despite windchills of 50 degrees below zero, father and daughter ventured out daily to track, hunt, and trap. She even agreed to return a few months later to help the Korths work their traplines and hunt for caribou and moose.

So when James Campbell’s cousin Heimo Korth asked him to spend a summer building a cabin in the rugged Interior, Campbell hesitated about inviting his fifteen-year-old daughter, Aidan, to join Would she be able to withstand clouds of mosquitoes, the threat of grizzlies, bathing in an ice-cold river, and hours of grueling labor peeling and hauling logs?īut once there, Aidan embraced the wild. The powerful and affirming story of a father's journey with his teenage daughter to the far reaches of AlaskaĪlaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to only a handful of people, is a harsh and lonely place.

Braving It by James Campbell