Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News. Used with permission.

"Nancy Lord is one of Alaska’s prominent writers ... Lord is not a short-term visiting observer, but one who lives on the Cook Inlet coastline, who fishes in season, and is centered on the land and the sea life to be found there. She writes exceedingly well, with deep, informed understanding of the people, the region, and the issues involved."

— Poet John Haines

Nancy Lord writes both fiction and literary nonfiction from her home base in Homer, Alaska. Her work is informed by a deep connection to the landscape and culture of the place she calls home. As a commercial salmon fisherman for twenty-five years, she takes a particular interest in coastal Alaska and the sustainability of its resources and communities.

Nancy’s latest book is Beluga Days: Tracking a White Whale’s Truths (Counterpoint Press, 2004.) In this work of literary nonfiction she examines issues surrounding the depleted population of Alaska’s Cook Inlet beluga whales. Her search takes her to villages of Native hunters, out on the water with biologists, and to Canada’s St. Lawrence River, where a similarly isolated beluga population is endangered by industrial contaminants.

"What interested me from the start," she says, "is that an animal can be so well 'loved' and yet be brought to the brink of extinction. I wanted to understand what factors were involved, so that we might learn more generally about what we can do to conserve and protect our environment and the life it supports. I also wanted to engage readers in a lively narrative that would take them to places and among people they might not otherwise experience, so that they might see for themselves some of what happens in the intersection between nature and culture."