Solka in his Words and Art

Description

Paul Solka, Jr., (1908-1998) spent much of his childhood in a now-vanished mining camp located along Tenderfoot Creek, 75 miles southeast of Fairbanks in Interior Alaska. His father was a miner, his mother a nurse turned mining-camp medic, who, in addition to her other duties, was his teacher until the family moved to Fairbanks and Paul entered high school.

After graduating, Paul labored for a short time as a miner with his father. However, mucking underground did not suit him, so he became a printer, artist, and writer—spending 27 years on the staff of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner newspaper.

In addition to working as the newspaper’s printer, Paul wrote historical columns. Most of his writings appeared on the pages of the News-Miner, and until now could only be found in back issues of the newspaper. Collected here are several of his longer pieces, telling of his father’s adventures in the Klondike and other areas along the Yukon River in the early 1900s, of his family’s life in a frontier mining camp, and of the World War II years at Ladd Air Field in Fairbanks.

Solka was also a talented painter, and the subjects of his art, like his writing, often reflected his life: a lonely trapper’s cabin, an isolated mining camp, the grandeur of a mountain scene under a starry sky. Numerous examples of his art are reproduced in the book.

An enjoyable read, Solka, his Art and Writings provides an intimate look at life in Interior Alaska as it used to be. It includes five maps, 20 examples of his art, and 23 photos.