In his square-sterned canoe, Alaskan author Dan O'Neill set off from Dawson, Yukon Territory, onetime site of the Klondike gold rush, to trace the majestic Yukon River. His journey downriver to Circle City, Alaska, is an expedition into the history of the river and its land, and a record of the inimitable and little known inhabitants of the region.

With the distinct perspective of an insider, A Land Gone Lonesome gives us an intelligent, rhapsodic-and ultimately, probably the last-portrait of the Yukon and its authentic inhabitants.