South to Alaska: From the Heartland of America to the Heart of a Dream

Born in the dusty heart of Oklahoma in 1916, ten-year-old Melvin Owens dreams of living in Alaska. More than forty years later, to the astonishment of neighbors and friends, he single-handedly constructs the 47-foot Red Dog in his Arkansas backyard. After launching the boat in 1971, Melvin cruises along the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico where, in 1973, he begins an amazing journey along the Caribbean coasts of Mexico and Central America, through the Panama Canal, then into the Pacific Ocean to Alaska. Melvin has never been south of the United States border and has never even been on a boat in the open ocean. Thwarted by mechanical problems, nature's fury, illness, thievery and loneliness, Melvin fears a deadly end before reaching the place of his dreams and returning to the woman he loves. A true story of courage and endurance, South to Alaska chronicles Melvin's perilous 10,000-mile solitary journey through a watery world he knows little about, to a world he cannot forget.