The Final Frontiersman

Heard a great book talk today at the Appleton Public Library. Speaker was James Campbell, author of The Final Frontiersman. It's the story of Heimo Korth, a native of Appleton who in 1975 at age 20, leaves Appleton for the Alaskan interior to subsist on fur trapping, hunting, and fishing. He's still there. Campbell lives in Wisconsin and lived for a time in Appleton; he is Korth's first cousin. In the audience were some who had known Heimo's family and some of his teachers at Appleton West. Sounds like a wonderful book, made more interesting by the notion that someone from Happy Valley could retreat to the arctic wilderness and remain there for thirty years when almost all the other Alaskan “mountain men” have given it up.