South to Alaska: A True Story of Courage and Survival from America's Heartland to the Heart of a Dream

Born in the dusty heart of Oklahoma in 1916, ten-year-old Melvin dreams of living in Alaska. Nearly fifty year later, he builds a boat in his Arkansas back yard, launches it on the Arkansas River, and cruises it to Alaska by way of the Panama Canal. Melvin has never been south of the United States border and has never been on a boat in the open ocean. "Learn by doing," he says. A true story of courage, endurance, and survival, South to Alaska chronicles Melvin's 10,000-mile journey through a watery world he knows little about, to a world he cannot forget