Alaskana Books is living history

PALMER - Eugene Short died nearly six years ago, but his presence permeates the four walls of a little bookstore in downtown Palmer. Inside the store, 25,000 Alaska books - most of which he collected over a 26-year period - are neatly stacked, organized and posted for sale.

Lorie Kirker bought Alaskana Books and the thousands of volumes from Short, a former director of the old Anchorage Community College, just before he died.

Despite the fact that her business may well be the largest bookstore in the world dealing exclusively with Alaskan books, Kirker doesn't see hordes of people pounding down the doors. The store, however, is about more than just selling books, and the lack of sheer numbers doesn't seem to bother Kirker one bit.

After teaching on the Aleutian Chain for 20 years and raising her children there, Kirker now lives in Houston with her husband, where she does "mail orders" - mushes her sled dogs - during the week and tends to her bookstore Friday through Sunday.

Years ago, Kirker used to buy books from Short, who sold them out of a little house on Arctic Boulevard in Anchorage. When Kirker still lived on the Aleutians, she used to visit the store from time to time, trying to find books about the Aleutian Islands.

Short compiled the impressive collection after he retired from teaching and directing the college.

"He was just a wonderful man," Kirker explained as she walked through the many sections of her Palmer store on Sunday. "I'd take an empty suitcase from the bush and buy books from him."

One day, after she and her husband had moved to Houston, Kirker was visiting with Short in his store and he offered to sell the place because he was getting up in age.

At the time, Kirker didn't have the money, but six months later, Short called again. By then Kirker and her husband had sold their house in Dutch Harbor and had enough money to buy the store.

Before he passed away, Kirker worked with Short for a few months, side by side. During that brief time, he helped familiarize Kirker with his eclectic piles of books that cover vast areas of Alaska's maritime history, the gold rush, Russian settlements, Native cultures, whaling and a wide range of topics too broad to recount in a single article.

Box by box, Kirker moved the collection out to her Palmer store. She opened for business in December 2000 in the old hatchery building from the Matanuska Colony Project.

Today, when she's not deep in conversation with one of her customers, she does all the janitorial work, bookkeeping and everything else.

Books are the centerpiece of Kirker's store and she has no plans to add a café or coffee shop, as many contemporary bookstores have. She does keep hot coffee, tea and cookies, though, for the few customers who wander in. They've usually heard about the place through word of mouth and often come searching for obscure books or all-but-forgotten maps, journals and stories from Alaska's legendary past.

While Kirker hasn't read every single volume in the building, she's looked through more than she can possibly recall and has probably forgotten more about Alaska than most people ever know.

Organized by region, theme, author, historical significance and various and sundry other activities, the books are maps of the people and events that shaped Alaska.

One rather large section of the store starts off with the Crustacean period of Alaska and goes on through the ice age, Native civilization and the peopling of Alaska and Russian explorations. In chronological order, it continues on to the sale of Alaska, early American explorations and the gold rush, before marching through World War I, World War II, the fight for statehood, the 1964 earthquake and construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

Yellow Post-it notes peek from the pages of many books, reminding Kirker of the content and subject matter if anyone inquires.

"There's so much that you learn from collecting books," she said.

When people ask about a particular town, village, native language or historical era, Kirker's enthusiasm for state history kicks into overdrive. She loves rummaging through her impressive volumes to find little-known books and brittle, yellowed maps that reveal the story of bygone peoples and cultures.

"The customers that come in here have such great adventures. Alaskans just do have more adventures than anybody else," she said. "And it's fun because they will pick up a book and they'll say, 'You know this guy didn't know what he was talking about. I knew him and he BS-ed his way through life.' They know the authors, they know the books, it makes it fantastic."

Kirker gets a little animated when talking about the thing she most enjoys - the customers. She's seen historians, book collectors and amateur lovers of Alaskan history come in looking for specific books about certain times and places in Alaska. Each person brings his or her own story.

"The customers are just fantastic," she said. "They are just so interesting. Of course they are coming in here because they're interested in Alaskan books, which is my thing."

One time, a lady was browsing through the store and she came up to Kirker with tears in her eyes.

"She said, 'This is the only picture of my grandmother that I've ever seen,' and I thought, 'Oh man, this is great,'" Kirker said. "There are people like that who are so sincere and have such great feeling for the books because, like I said, they know the people in the books. I've learned so much from them that you just couldn't learn from books."

Kirker admits that parting with certain volumes is difficult at times - sort of like letting one of your children go, she said. Before Short died, he told Kirker that every book had to have a price, otherwise she'd just be surrounded by great books and never sell a thing.

There are still many boxes from Short's collection that Kirker has yet to open and organize.

"As I unpack boxes of books, I'm like, 'Oh, two for me and one for the bookstore,'" Kirker said, with a chuckle.

She recalled one particularly difficult book to let go.

"This one book this guy was buying for his mother for Christmas. He was all excited about it and he said, 'There's even a map in the back,'" she said. "And I go, 'There's a map in the back of that book?' But what could I do, he was buying it for his mother for Christmas."

It was the only map Kirker's ever seen tucked into one of the books, and she still wonders what secrets it might have told.

While Alaskans make up the lion's share of her faithful customers, Kirker has sold a few books online, especially the more valuable rare editions. She said she has a bit of a problem selling online, however.

"Gene had a thing when he had his book store," she said. "He hated to see a good Alaska book go down to Florida or someplace like that, so it's been real hard for me to sell online."

Short's presence looms large over the bookstore each time Kirker opens another one of his boxes.

"He collected everything," she said. "It wasn't just books. If there was a New Yorker in the '30s that had an article on Alaska, he has it. I've still got about 20 boxes that I haven't gone through yet. I'll open a box and I'll go, 'Gene, oh my gosh, this is fantastic.' It's just amazing what he collected."

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.