'Firecracker Boys' author to give Egan lecture July 16

Award-winning Alaska author Dan O'Neill is giving a talk at the Egan Lecture Hall at the University of Alaska Southeast at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 16.

O'Neill is the author of "The Firecracker Boys." In 1958, Father of the H-bomb, Edward Teller, unveiled his plan to create an instant harbor on the coast of Alaska by exploding a string of nuclear bombs. Instead, he accidentally helped launch the environmental movement.

With accompanying slides, O'Neill will tell the story of Project Chariot - how a small Eskimo village, along with a handful of Alaska scientists and conservationists, thwarted Teller's scheme and sparked a new era of environmental awareness.

O'Neill's other works of literary non-fiction include "The Last Giant of Beringia," published in 2004 about the Bering Land Bridge, and "A Land Gone Lonesome," which centers on a canoe trip down the upper Yukon River.