Author David Ramseur presents Melting the ice Curtain: The Extraordinary Story of citizen Diplomacy on the Russia-Alaska Frontier.In 1988, David Ramseur helped organize the Alaska Airlines “Friendship Flight” between Nome, Alaska and Provideniya, Russia, which reunited indigenous peoples of common languages and cultures (Siberian Yupik and others) for the first time in four decades. In Melting the Ice Curtain, how inspiration, courage, and persistence by citizen-diplomats bridged a widening gap in superpower relations is explored. David Ramseur managed federal grants for academic exchanges between Alaska and the Russian Far East for the UAA American Russian Center. He served as press secretary, communications director, chief of staff, and foreign policy adviser to Alaska Governors Steve Cowper and Tony Knowles and to Anchorage Mayor and U.S. Senator Mark Begich. Melting the Ice Curtain is published by University of Alaska Press.