Tide, Feather, Snow: A Life in Alaska

I got this book hoping for an Alaskan adventure like the Stabenow series provides. This isn't that kind of book. There's a lot of big, wonderful, exciting and dangerous Alasks. Danger comes from underestimating Nature and it comes from being ill prepared. Excitement comes from tight writing and getting involved with the characters, hoping for their survival, if not success. This is a story about a triumph of human perseverance and ingenuity pitted against almost reckless ignorance of survival basics. It is a story about people, trust and dependence on each other. However, beyond the story of the people is some excellent writing that evokes the grandeur and majesty of the largest, most varied and most pristine state. It made me want to go back and visit Alaska again.

This book enters the fairly glutted genre of Alaskan autobiographies. Homer Alaska probably ranks behind only Hollywood and DC for inspiring memoirs. A quick glance at my bookshelf found Fishcamp Life on an Alaskan Shore, As Far As You Can Go Without A Passport: The View From The End Of The Road and Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man all featuring life in Homer and the journeys that led there. So can there be another deserving personal story about finding a home in Homer? Apparently yes. Homer has a strange draw in that it is the "End of the road." But the key point is that it is still on the road so you can live a "frontier life" and still get a McDonald's hamburger. I've been fortunate to visit the city annually for the last twelve years (about the same time period the author writes about) and where my writing has been practical - where can you find a public shower type stuff - Weiss uses painterly strokes to paint the town, the landscape and Alaskan lifestyles, carefully rendering the joys and warts of living in Alaska. The author's tale is bittersweet, being charmed by what Alaska has to offer but always showing an undertone of human failure. She dives into set net salmon fishing, only to have someone vandalize their nets while they are gone. Or they visit the Russian Colonists at the end of the East Road who live a private, utopian lifestyle, but when they get to the end of the road, they find trespassing signs and a littered beach. Even her relationship with her boyfriend is haunted by a human failure that cannot be overwhelmed by the dream of living in Alaska. Like many people coming to Alaska, Weiss' dream seemed to resonate in an empty spot within her. This is by no means unique story, but it is a well told one. It is a personal journey toward finding a woman's own worth and purpose while discovering what I feel is one of the most amazing corners of our continent. I think for a lot of people who come to the state, this is their experience. Maybe it should be required reading for anyone heading north to find a simpler life to answer personal troubles. Weiss impressively catalogs the changes that have taken place in the area whether they are seasonal, or cultural like the shift from fishing village to retirement location. She creates an amazing sense of place which made the book a joy to read.

The most appealing aspect about TIDE, FEATHER, SNOW: A LIFE IN ALASKA is the very descriptive voice that author Miranda Weiss uses to describe her experience in Homer, Alaska. Weiss's decision was not a spur of a moment calling but something that had been living and breathing in her psyche since childhood when she assembled a 43-page research project on the state of Alaska when she was in fifth grade that also included creating a Baked Alaska as well as taking a hiking trek to the Blue Ridge Mountains as a teenager that remained a constant reminder. But Weiss describes it best: "a long slow ache" (28). Destiny may have brought her to the state known as "The Last Frontier." However, this would be a frontier where she would have to adjust and adopt to the small-town quaintness, the wilderness, living off the land, dealing with day and night, and still struggling to leave the life she left behind in the Maryland suburbs. As one reads each passage from the book, one can almost see and smell the landscape that Weiss vividly shows. Alaska may be the last frontier with parts of the state still appearing untouched, and with Weiss's several encounters with various living sea creatures, Humback whales, rockfish, salmon, and mussels for viewing or for foraging for food, this was her life; she saw the beauty of nature right before her eyes. But also situated within Weiss's narrative are layers of the historical and cultural background of the people of the Kachemak Bay region that is rich with remnants of Native cultures and settlements of the Sugpiaq, Alutiiq, Den'ina Athabascan and origins of expansionist activity in Alaska by the Russians during the 1700s and other historical tidbits. TIDE, FEATHER, SNOW is an enticing book. It is a combination of memoir and nature writing that may be compared to other books that fall under this genre, such as John Muir's narratives about living or being in touch with nature or "God's country." But in between the enthralling descriptions, Weiss shows that change is inevitable in all aspects of life that also includes the nature of things.

I am an Alaska stalker. I've always dreamed of living there, but it's not a dream that's going to happen, so now I live there vicariously. I read everything I can about Alaska, from Dana Stabenow's mysteries to John McPhee's "Coming Into the Country." Humor, adventure, history...I eat it up...and most of the time it's a miserable diet. It seems that every cheechako who didn't get swallowed by a grizzly bear or flipped to oblivion in a speeding Snowcat has to write a book about it. Some writers get all mystical with it, others are obviously indulging their imaginations. A few produce the kind of book that brings you there, to a place where you can smell the trees, feel that first trace of cold on a July night that means winter is already on its way. Some writers don't so much depict Alaska as open the door and let you walk through. Mirandq Weiss is one of them. She's written a lyrical book, but it's much more than that. First of all, she moves from the East Coast to Homer, which was the exact trajectory of my dreams. As Miranda struggles to get the survival skills, to figure out how to relate to a small and insular and eccentric community that are needed to get by, she slowly morphs into the genuine article...not a green horn cheechako, but a woman who is comfortable in her surroundings, challenged and awed by them, but not overwhelmed. The culture clash facing every non Alaskan who ventures up north, the seeming contempt for the environment that shares equal time and space with reverence for land and nature in the Alaskan psyche, even the enormous difficulties of just getting a meal on the table are beautifully described, so those of us with the Alaska jones feel like we're part of it. Miranda describes her surroundings with a crystal clarity that puts you right there. I sat in a cabin with her and actually smelled the coffee brewing and saw the morning sun getting higher and bringing out the critters as it warmed the land. She has an enchanting writing style, and I mean that in every sense of the word. For pages on end, she bewitched me and I was there...suspended somewhere in Alaska, living the dream. This is another must have for all Alaska stalkers! Weiss's keenly observed prose introduces readers to the memorable people and peculiar beauty of Alaska's vast landscape and takes us on her personal journey of adventure, physical challenge, and culture clash. In the tradition of John McPhee's Coming into the Country, this elegant and affecting memoir is nature writing at its best.

This autobiography bears a passing resemblance to both "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie Dillard and to "Woodswoman" by Anne LaBastille. All are observations of nature by women. Additionally, Ms. LaBastille writes of life in the Adirondack wilderness while Ms. Weiss does the same for the Alaskan wilderness. Miranda Weiss moves with her boyfriend to Homer, Alaska to live, to teach and to survive. The beauty and harshness of Alaska are described in prose that will determine whether the reader wants to move to Alaska immediately or merely visit there one day. A thread running through the book is the health of her relationship with her boyfriend and whether it can survive two years in Alaska. The wildlife, the flowers, the weather, and the fishing are written about in fascinating ways for the non-environmental reader to comprehend and care about. This is the book you will want to read before going to Alaska.