Carnegie Mellon University
November 13, 2016

Alex Hills and his Alaskan adventure stories

The Alaskan newspaper Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman recently discussed the release of Alex Hills' third book, Finding Alaska's Villiages: And Connecting Them, which examines the history of telecommunications in Alaska.

According to the Frontiersman,

"The autobiographical look at Alaska’s telecommunications history in the 1970s identifies the major players in bringing telephone, television, and radio to rural Alaska. The story, which bounces back and forth between descriptions of the harrowing plane travel, tech work and poignant human moments that typified Hills’ work on rural Alaska’s first phone and radio projects, reveal the mind of a man who gets along with both man and machine."

Written for a general audience, the book describes Alex’s adventures traveling Alaska by bush plane and snow machine, braving extreme weather and rough terrain to bring telephone service to small villages across the big state, and later developing a new public radio station to serve the people of Alaska’s huge northwest region. 

Listen to Hills discuss the book with with Alaska Public Media.