After the 1970-71 school year, my wife and I were weary of teaching as are so many other teachers in June, and so we. sought relaxation by traveling to Fairbanks, Alaska, in our Toyota. The route taken by the Davidsons in this novel duplicates that route. Observations of the landscape are meant to be accurate although colored by my moods. In characterization, however, most is fiction. Each character is drawn from a composite. He or she is based on observations taken from many people I have known who have had some function or occupation in common. For example, the personalities of the girls' physical education teachers are based on features I have observed in both male and female physical education teachers but not in any one in particular. In addition, the relationship between John and Kris is not a picture of how our marriage was, but of how it might be for any young couple who meet after growing up in both physically and emotionally divergent worlds.