Travels in Alaska

The beauty of this wonderful reprinting is how it shows John Muir as a person, how it helps us to understand the dynamic and overwhelming beauty of Alaska, and the changes in the people of Alaska. Muir's complete, tireless, and joyful commitment to nature comes through on every page. The book unintentionally provides an excellent portrait of the kind of inexhaustible devotion it takes to change the world as did Muir. The book also provides a stunning portrait of Alaska in the latter part of the 19th Century and allows one to compare the Alaska of those days with Alaska of earlier times and of today. The biggest changes are in the glaciers and in the people. The glaciers have receded dramatically as a natural part of their centuries' long retreat. It is interesting to compare what Muir saw with the experience of Vancouver almost exactly 100 years earlier (ca. 1793). Vancouver could hardly enter Glacier Bay. Muir could enter quite some distance, but the glaciers were still the dominant features. Today, the glaciers have largely receded into deep valleys. Muir encountered people in Alaska living largely as they had for centuries. They were hunters and fishermen and lived in small groups along the shore line. As Jonathan Raban points out in the intricately woven fabric of his sublime book "Passage to Juneau," the people of southeast Alaska considered the sea to be the real environment of their lives while the land was considered dangerous and unknowable. They lived along the shore and knew how to live off and with the sea year round. The lives of the Alaskan people are very different today but greatly influenced by the past. Raban often characterizes Muir's writing as overblown and florid. However, it is a portrait of a man, a maritime land and a people. To do justice to those three, the book had to be what it is - an astonishingly colorful and detailed portrait in words.

John Muir's "Travels In Alaska" is his accouts of his trips to Southeast Alaska in 1879, 1880, and 1890. Southeast Alaska 125 years ago was sparsely settled and poorly explored; Muir's adventurous spirit and enquiring mind led him to investigate the numerous inlets and glaciers in the area, including the magnificent and much-celebrated Glacier Bay. Muir's simple, muscular prose weaves a fascinating narrative out of descriptions of the people, wildlife, and geology he encounters on his journey, suffused with his endless sense of wonder at the landscapes in which he saw the hand of God. The reader can hardly help but be carried along by Muir's enthusiasm. Muir's descriptions may be most relevant to those traveling Southeast Alaska by cruise ship, for a sense of what the landscape looked like before the population reached today's size and spread. Those not interested in the travel aspects of the book and in numerous descriptions of glaciers may find this book less interesting. This book is highly recommended to fans of John Muir's writings, and to those planning a trip through Southeast Alaska.

John Muir's diaries and stories are enchanting - and especially welcome during my long, hot drives around Los Angeles this time of year! Just hearing narrator Lee Salibury talk about the glacier formations is refreshing - and the sound effects and music add so much to the ambience! The six hours of reading seem to FLY by, and make summer traffic bearable. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

No doubt about it, John Muir was one of America's greatest citizens. He founded the Sierra Club and was instrumental in starting the ecological movement in the United States. In this book Muir recounts three journeys to Southeast Alaska that he took in the late 1800's. He writes better about glaciers than any writer who ever lived. There are flaws: Muir's attitudes about native peoples are simple-minded and ignorant, and his prose is sometimes dry and dull. Also, one cannot help but call Muir's credibility into question when he writes than he and his dog Stickeen walked fifteen miles across a crevasse-riddled glacier in three hours and then had nothing for dinner but a moldy cracker. But these are important records from a man who truly loved the natural world, and it's essential reading material for anyone traveling to Southeast Alaska or anyone wishing to learn more about glaciers.