Republic of Rivers : Three Centuries of Nature Writing from Alaska and the Yukon.
Title:
Republic of Rivers : Three Centuries of Nature Writing from Alaska and the Yukon.
Author:
Murray, John A.
ISBN:
9780199728763
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (362 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- Introduction -- Part I: 1741-1866: Russian America and the Age of Exploration -- 1. The Sea Cow -- 2. The Bering Straits -- 3. Observations on Unalashka -- 4. Prince William Sound -- 5. Arrival at the Arctic Coast -- 6. St. Lawrence Island -- 7. The Bering Straits -- 8. The Pribilof Islands -- 9. Notes on the Copper River -- 10. Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District -- 11. Nulato, a Settlement on the Yukon -- 12. Letter to Sir John Richardson -- Part II: 1867-1958: Territorial Alaska and the Age of Exploitation -- 13. The Rapids of the Yukon -- 14. The Pribilof Islands -- 15. The Alexander Archipelago -- 16. On Crossing the Alaska Range -- 17. The Grand Canon of the Yukon -- 18. The Gustavus Peninsula -- 19. The Dominant Primordial Beast -- 20. Gold Prospectors of the Susitna Valley -- 21. Taku Inlet -- 22. On the Sheep Ranges -- 23. The Barren Grounds Grizzly Bear -- 24. Koyukon Riddles -- 25. The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) -- 26. The Kuskokwim River -- 27. Eskimo Poems -- 28. The North Fork of the Koyukuk -- 29. The Wolves of Mount McKinley -- Part III: 1959-1989: Alaskan Statehood and the Age of Environmentalism -- 30. Other Days -- 31. The Old Crow -- 32. Glacier Bay Journal -- 33. Sheenjek -- 34. One Man's Wilderness -- 35. The Alaskan Journal -- 36. On Building a Raft -- 37. Here I Am Yet! -- 38. Lake Dwarves and Giant Rat -- 39. An Expedition to the Pole -- 40. The Subsistence Cycle -- 41. Gather at the River -- 42. Yukon-Charley: The Shape of Wilderness -- 43. Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska: A Suite -- 44. This Tangled Brilliance -- 45. Haida Hunters and Legend of the Two Fin Killer Whale -- 46. Two Great Polar Bear Hunters -- 47. The Cormorant Hunters -- 48. Ragged Ear of Sable Pass -- Further Reading -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T.
U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.
Abstract:
"The spell of Alaska," Ella Higginson wrote in 1908, "falls upon every lover of beauty who has voyaged along those far northern snow-pearled shores...or who has drifted down the mighty rivers of the interior which flow, bell-toned and lonely, to the sea....No writer has ever described Alaska;no one writer ever will; but each must do his share, according to the spell that the country casts upon him." In A Republic of Rivers, John Murray offers the first comprehensive anthology of nature writing in Alaska and the Yukon, ranging from 1741 to the present. Many of the writers found here are major figures--John Muir, Jack London, Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, and Edward Abbey--but we alsodiscover the voices of missionaries, explorers, mountain-climbers, Native Americans, miners, scientists, backpackers, and fishermen, each trying to capture something of the beauty of this still pristine land, to render in their own words the spell that the country casts upon them. The range ofviewpoints is remarkable. With Annie Dillard we look out at ice floes near the remote Barter Island and see "what newborn babies must see: nothing but senseless variations of light on the retinas." With Frederick Litke we mourn the senseless slaughter of sea mammals. We join scientist Adolph Murie,the father of wolf ecology, as he probes the daily life of an East Fork wolf pack. And we listen as Tlingit Indian Johnny Jack relates the difficulty of maintaining a dignified life close to nature at a time of cultural upheaval for his people. Most of these selections have never appeared in anyanthology and some entries--particularly those written by early American and Russian explorers--have never been available to general readers. There is laughter here and there is sorrow, but finally there is communion and liberation as generation after generation encounter the
unsurpassed beauty and wildness of the Arctic. Taken together, these forty-nine men and women provide a unique portrait of America's final frontier.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
Click to View