I thought the title was "Escape (On / To) Venus" (not the Burroughs novel) - written for children or young adults.

The story is about a spaceship of colonists heading to Venus from Earth - one young passenger is the son of a former astronaut who travelled to Venus and disappeared years ago. The son realizes that Venus is protected by an electrical field (?) that causes ships to crash-land.

Once on Venus, he searches for his father and eventually finds his father's ship - can't remember if he finds his father or much else about it. I do remember that Venus had primitive life - hostile primates of some sort that threw rocks or had slingshots(?).

I seem to remember that the ship left Earth from Alaska.