On Patrol with the US Coast Guard chronicles award-winning author Dana Stabenow’s two research trips with the United States Coast Guard.

Dana has written two thrillers, Blindfold Game and Prepared for Rage, and when researching both novels she went on patrol with the US Coast Guard, first on the Alex Haley for 16 days in the Bering Sea, and then on Munro for seven weeks off the coasts of Central and South America.

Dana was invited to write a daily blog from the ship so the shore-bound families of the crew could witness, as much as possible, the lives their loved ones were living at sea. She poked her nose into every nook and cranny and interrogated most of the crew as to the particulars of their jobs. She found USCG to be one of the most hospitable communities in the world and nearly every door – or in this case, hatch – was flung wide open for her.

Dana got to know the USCG in depth during her trips with them. She was in the circle around the captain as they planned the midnight rescue of an injured fisherman offshore of the Pribilof Islands. She got to jump off the side of the ship into the Pacific Ocean where it’s 8,000 metres deep. And she got a king’s ransom in the way of original source material for her novels’ ‘Coasties’ heroes. The crew even helped her with plot points. As Dana says, ‘The absolute best part of a writer’s life is the research.’

Dana Stabenow was born in Alaska before Statehood, grew up on and around fishing boats, and worked for an air taxi service, a cannery, and later, on the oilfields of the North Slope. Today, she’s an Edgar Award-winning mystery writer with over 25 Alaska-based novels to her credit. Stabenow knows Alaska.

Writing for Alaska Magazine, she revisits old haunts and explores new ones to capture the vital pioneering spirit of her home state. From cruising the Inner Passage to hiking the Chilkoot Trail, from bidding on bachelors at Talkeetna’s Winterfest to a behind-the-scenes look at the Iditarod sled dog race, Alaska Traveler collects over 50 of Stabenow’s columns about life on America’s last frontier. It’s Alaska in all seasons – not just the summer months – and in all its quirky, iconoclastic glory. Travellers planning a trip to Alaska will find much to inspire them, as will those just interested to read more about the state that residents call The Great Land.