Carl Ben Eielson soared to fame as the pioneer hero of Alaskan aviation. He was the first pilot to fly around the North Pole from Alaska to Spitzbergen Island and the first to establish air mail service in Alaska, opening the vast white mystery of the north to commercial and passenger planes.

During the first World War Eielson left the University of North Dakota and enlisted in the Army Air Force. Peace was declared before he had a chance to fight, and he returned to college to study law. But flying was in his blood and he quit school to stunt at county fairs, living the reckless, dangerous life of the "air gypsy." When he accepted an offer to teach school in Alaska, he thought his flying days were over, but in Fairbanks, a group of business men bought a plane and hired Eielson to pilot it.

Thus began the first commercial fights in Alaska. In a clumsy, egg-crate plane he flew to mining camps with supplies, raced on emergency missions carrying medicine, frightened dogs and equally frightened men. There were no reliable maps of the wilderness, no weather reports. Each flight was a gamble with death.

But Eielson's most dangerous adventures began when he piloted for explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. On one of their flights over the Arctic their plane crashed in a blizzard. In below-zero weather they spent seventeen terrifying days wandering among ramming, hammering icebergs, alone on top of the world in a region unknown to man. 

Carl Ben Eielson's life combined thrilling adventure with extraordinary achievement. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Harmon Trophy. Just outside the city of Fairbanks is the Eielson Air Force Base, our country's tribute to the greatest Alaskan flyer of all time.

From the dust jacket