Pilgrim's Wilderness

April 1, 2013
In 2002, when the Pilgrim family, a curious group that included a husband and wife and 14 children, showed up in remote McCarthy, Ala., and homesteaded in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, their pioneer spirit, independent nature, religious piety, and throwback ideals were embraced by the frontier community. When the family got into a legal battle with the National Park Service, many Alaskans who bristled at the government’s perceived infringement on landowners’ rights came to the family’s aid. But when journalist Kizzia (The Wake of the Unseen Object) started digging into the Pilgrims’’ past—especially that of the father, Papa Pilgrim (aka Bobby Hale)—for the Anchorage Daily News, he uncovered a bizarre saga. Following Hale’s journey from Texas to Alaska, which included stops in Florida, California, Oregon, and New Mexico—and names like John F. Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, J. Edgar Hoover, and Texas Governor John Connally—Kizzia discovers cracks in the paradisiac image the Pilgrim’s presented to the public. Though it takes a little while for him to set up the story, once Papa Pilgrim’s dark secrets start to become exposed (there are battles between the National Park Service, the government and various small towns), the author sends readers on a roller-coaster ride that is as thrilling as it is shocking. Kizzia’s work is a testament to both the cruelty and resiliency of the human spirit, capturing the sort of life-and-death struggle that can only occur on the fringes of modern-day civilization. Agent: Alice Martell, the Martell Agency. B&w photos.

June 1, 2013
A journalist's gripping account of a modern fundamentalist Christian pioneer family and the dark secrets that held it together. Robert "Papa Pilgrim" Hale, his wife and 15 children came to the remote little town of McCarthy, Alaska, convinced that it was God's will they settle there. Claiming that he and his family wanted nothing more than "to live our old-time way and be left in peace," Pilgrim bought privately owned acreage that happened to be surrounded by lands managed by the National Park Service. McCarthy residents fell in love with the idealistic, God-fearing family members and marveled at how they "could light up any space" with their idiosyncratic brand of American roots music. But when Papa Pilgrim decided to clear a road that ran on public land to the property he christened Hillbilly Heaven, residents became enmeshed in a bitter battle that ensued between their neighbors and the Park Service. On assignment from his newspaper, Kizzia (The Wake of the Unseen Object: Travels Through Alaska's Native Landscapes, 1998) successfully solicited the media-wary Pilgrim for an interview. What he learned--that Pilgrim was the son of a rich Texas family with links to the FBI--was only a small part of the whole story, which came out only after Pilgrim's eldest children ran away from home. The real Papa Pilgrim was a deluded megalomaniac who physically and emotionally brutalized his wife and children. He was also a sexual deviant who coerced his eldest daughter, Elishaba, "to keep his flesh working" so that he could bring forth the 21 children he believed God wanted him to have with Elishaba's mother. The horror at the heart of this story about religious extremism on the fringes of the last American frontier is slow to reveal itself, but when that horror fully emerges, it will swallow most readers. Provocative and disturbing.

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June 1, 2013
This strong work of reportage starts in 2002, when Papa Pilgrim, his wife, and 14 kids buy a 420-acre mining claim embedded in Alaska's WrangellSt. Elias National Park. Papa bulldozes a 13-mile road through the park to tiny McCarthy, and land-rights groups stick with the Pilgrims even when it is revealed that Papa is Robert Hale, born and raised in upper-class Fort Worth. Hale was the only witness when his pregnant high-school girlfriend, daughter of future governor John Connally, shot herself in the back of the head with a fingerprint-free shotgun. Hale's life brimmed with bizarre murkinessnamed in an FBI file on JFK; his mother helping Lee Harvey Oswald get work; squatting for 20 years on Jack Nicholson's New Mexico ranch; and hints of a dinner with Charles Manson. In Alaska, it turns out that for decades Hale has used physical, mental, and sexual abuse to brainwash his whole family. His intriguing past crumbles in comparison to his excruciating cruelty and to the inspiring grace and strength of his children.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)