Introduction -- Alaska: when Alaska was a different land -- "The Great Death, " the white man's gold rush -- Sweden, 1875, Lovisa Erika Jakobssons/Rika Wallen -- Montenegro: Jovo Hajdukovic, 1879 -- McCarty's beginnings -- John's entrance -- The Alaska Road Commission and the cutoff -- McCarty -- Sugar beets and rationing/McCarty agriculture -- Alonzo Maxey and the U S Army military reservation -- Fraternity of prospectors -- The building of the roadhouse -- The family left behind: Milice Andje -- Prospectors scattered to the four winds -- Rika's Entrance -- The sale of the roadhouse; McCarty's/Rika's -- Tuberculosis at Healy Lake and in the Upper Tanana c. 1920 -- Trading -- Milo began trading "Inside" the agreement in 1922 -- The bison herd importation -- The Interior's most recognized big game guide -- The Potlatch of 1927 -- The roadhouse -- The happy days of trading -- The Tetlin reserve -- Trading and the office of Indian affairs -- John's family: Milo marries in Montenegro -- Transitions to the modern age -- A promoter not a miner -- Rika's roadhouse in the 1930s -- Early Alaska trucking -- World War II -- The isolation of the Upper Tanana -- Milo's investments and the death years -- Last days of the roadhouse -- Reaching for straws -- Fred and John -- Jack Singleton and C.D. Flannigan -- Transition -- MiliceAndjeJovova -- "They had the best of both worlds" -- Rika -- Epilogue: surviving family in Sweden and Montegro -- Alaska, 1895, when the rivers and valleys were little-known -- Hajdukovich's Alaska, landmarks of the Big Delta region -- Traders in the late 1920s-early 1930s -- Credits -- List of illustrations -- Glossary.