Icebound Empire is about industry and politics on the Last Frontier. It is the epic story of three men caught up in the early twentieth century battle for control of Alaska’s land and resources. George Cheever Hazelet, Stephen Birch, and David Henry Jarvis were prime movers in the most ambitious early Alaska development initiative — the Morgan-Guggenheim Alaska Syndicate. These three men convinced New York investors to provide capital to build the Kennecott copper mines and the Copper river and Northwestern Railway, but opposition from political opportunists, Eastern conservationists and muckraking journalists stifled further industrial development on the last frontier.