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E-book
Author Di Stefano, Diana L

Title Encounters in avalanche country : a history of survival in the Mountain West, 1820-1920 / Diana L. Di Stefano
Published Seattle : Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest in association with University of Washington Press, [2013]
©2013

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Description 1 online resource (x, 171 pages)
Series Emil and Kathleen Sick series in Western history and biography
Emil and Kathleen Sick lecture-book series in western history and biography.
Contents Acknowledgments -- Map of Avalanche Country Study Areas -- Introduction: Arrival in Avalanche Country -- 1. Survival Strategies: 1820-1860 -- 2. Mountain Miners, Skiing Mailmen, and Itinerant Preachers: 1850-1895 -- 3. Industrial Mining and Risk -- 4. Railway Workers and Mountain Towns: 1870-1910 -- 5. Who's to Blame? -- 6. Disaster in the Cascades -- 7. Topping v. Great Northern Railway Company -- 8. Departure from Avalanche Country -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary "Every winter, early settlers of the U.S. and Canadian Mountain West could expect to lose dozens of lives to deadly avalanches. This constant threat to trappers, miners, railway workers, and their families forced individuals and communities to develop knowledge, share strategies, and band together as they tried to survive the extreme conditions of "avalanche country." The result of this convergence, author Diana L. Di Stefano argues, was a complex network of formal and informal cooperation that used disaster preparedness to engage legal action and instill a sense of regional identity among the many lives affected by these natural disasters.Encounters in Avalanche Country tells the story of mountain communities' responses to disaster over a century of social change and rapid industrialization. As mining and railway companies triggered new kinds of disasters, ideas about environmental risk and responsibility were increasingly negotiated by mountain laborers, at elite levels among corporations, and in socially charged civil suits. Disasters became a dangerous crossroads where social spaces and ecological realities collided, illustrating how individuals, groups, communities, and corporate entities were tangled in this web of connections between people and their environment.Written in a lively and engaging narrative style, Encounters in Avalanche Country uncovers authentic stories of survival struggles, frightening avalanches, and how local knowledge challenged legal traditions that defined avalanches as Acts of God. Combining disaster, mining, railroad, and ski histories with the theme of severe winter weather, it provides a new and fascinating perspective on the settlement of the Mountain West.Diana L. Di Stefano is assistant professor of history at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks."Encounters in Avalanche Country is an important work about how humans knew and were shaped by their environments in the American West. It is an intelligent, sophisticated, well-written, intensely researched, thoughtfully structured, deeply felt, and clearly hard-won piece of historical scholarship." -Kathryn Morse, author of The Nature of Gold"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 151-165) and index
Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Subject Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Rocky Mountains
Mountain life -- West (U.S.)
Mountain life -- Rocky Mountains
Avalanches -- West (U.S.) -- History
Avalanches -- Social aspects -- West (U.S.) -- History
Avalanches -- Rocky Mountains -- History
Avalanches -- Social aspects -- Rocky Mountains -- History
Human ecology -- West (U.S.) -- History
Human ecology -- Rocky Mountains Region -- History
HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Pacific Northwest (OR, WA).
NATURE / Ecosystems & Habitats / Mountains.
SCIENCE / Earth Sciences / Meteorology & Climatology.
Avalanches
Frontier and pioneer life
Human ecology
Mountain life
Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains Region
West United States
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2021692704
ISBN 9780295804828
0295804823