Who Killed Alaska?

Brown, writing with freelancer Crane, notes that he and his family, who were part of the last rush of romantics to Alaska in the 1960s, witnessed corporate power acting as corrosively in the land of ``rainbow-lit glaciers'' as it had in other oil states. Brown, working as the operator of an oil disposal dump site on the Kenai Peninsula, rapidly clashes with corrupt state agents, oil operatives and the ``extraction mentality'' of the boom years in the '70s. The Alaska that dies at the hands of bureaucrats is actually Brown's dream of pioneer innocence, one senses. His story is a somber tale of a caring citizen waging a seemingly losing battle against the abuse of natural resources. (Apr.)