Threadbare: Class and Crime in Urban Alaska

Alaska’s perch at the geographic corner of civilization isn’t all wilderness and reality TV. There’s a darker side too. Above the 49th parallel some of the nation’s highest rates of alcoholism, suicide, and violent crime can be found. While it can easy to write off or even romanticize these statistics as the product of a lingering Wild West culture, talking with real Alaskans reveals a different story.

Journalist Mary Kudenov set out to find the true stories behind this “end-of-the-road” c...