Travels in Alaska

Rating:
Summary: Don't know what to make of this
Review: From the title, one would think this a type of travel journal, a panorama of episodes along the way, a sequence of stations between the starting off point and the destination. Instead, the overall weight of the book is given to glaciers, their descriptions, their influence on the landscape, their geological record, the discovery of new glaciers, and other characteristics of these moving rivers of ice. While Muir offers descriptive powers unequaled among authors on nature, never repeating himself though constantly repeating his subject, the sheer repetition tends to bog the work down. Two whole pages might contribute to our view of a particular glacier, and suddenly Muir reports that he's finished a 200-mile leg of his journey on foot. He tells us when he's climbed a glacier, and along the way we've missed an entire week. Time and space almost have no medium in this publication, utterly lost when gazing upon a glacier. For nature lovers who will never go to Alaska, the descriptions in this book make the ranges and glaciers come alive in print, but as a dramatic journey, a travelogue, or a field manual for the Alaskan bush, this book forms only a vague shadow.

Rating:
Summary: Muir in southeast Alaska.
Review: I confess up front, it's been a few years since I read Muir's Travels in Alaska. Yet significant aspects I remember well. Given Muir's exuberance for life and almost everything he encounters in his travels, one almost looses view of Muir the botanist and geologist. But not quite. Here we find the author contemplating the activity of glaciers and documenting the flora of southeast Alaska. Muir (who tended strongly toward vegetarianism) gleefully entertaining himself by foiling duck hunters. Baffling the locals by happily wandering out into major storms.
The book is a journal of Muir's 1879, 1880, and 1890 trips (he wouldn't mind if we called them adventures) to SE Alaska's glaciers, rivers, and temperate rain forests. He died while preparing this volume for publication.
I remind myself, and anyone reading this, that Muir isn't for every reader. And, as other reviewers have stated, this may not be the volume in which to introduce oneself to the one-of-a-kind John Muir. One reviewer doesn't think that Muir is entirely credible in these accounts. I won't say whether or not this is wrong, but I tend to a different view. For some of us -- and certainly for Muir -- wilderness is a medicine, a spiritual tonic, so to speak. For the individual effected in this way, physical impediments and frailties rather dissolve away when he is alone in wildness. I once heard Graham Mackintosh (author of Into a Desert Place) speak of this. In all of his travels alone in the desert, he doesn't recall having ever been sick. This may not sound credible to some, but I strongly suspect it is true.
If you like Muir's writings, read this book. If you like the stuff of Best Sellers, perhaps you should look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Don't start your Muir education with this one
Review: If you're new to John Muir's writings, please don't start with this one. It's a worthwhile read in its own right, don't get me wrong. But read _My First Summer in the Sierra_ or a Muir biography like Michael P. Cohen's _The Pathless Way_ before you move on to this one. Get a good dose of what the naturalist is like and learn some of his background, and then you'll be in the proper frame of mind to tackle _Travels in Alaska_. Otherwise, this book is just one glacier after another. And bless his heart, Muir wants to see them all. And climb them and explore them and sketch them and hike their entire lengths and write about them ad nauseum. He leaves his companions in his wake and puts himself squarely in the face of isolated danger over and over again. Read this book first, and you'll think he's insane. Know his roots in Wisconsin and his good work in California, and you'll be better able to appreciate what he thinks of and does in the Alaska of the late 1800s.

Rating:
Summary: Don't start your Muir education with this one
Review: If you're new to John Muir's writings, please don't start with this one. It's a worthwhile read in its own right, don't get me wrong. But read _My First Summer in the Sierra_ or a Muir biography like Michael P. Cohen's _The Pathless Way_ before you move on to this one. Get a good dose of what the naturalist is like and learn some of his background, and then you'll be in the proper frame of mind to tackle _Travels in Alaska_. Otherwise, this book is just one glacier after another. And bless his heart, Muir wants to see them all. And climb them and explore them and sketch them and hike their entire lengths and write about them ad nauseum. He leaves his companions in his wake and puts himself squarely in the face of isolated danger over and over again. Read this book first, and you'll think he's insane. Know his roots in Wisconsin and his good work in California, and you'll be better able to appreciate what he thinks of and does in the Alaska of the late 1800s.

Rating:
Summary: A REAL TRIP!
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: A REAL TRIP!
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: The Literary Side of Science
Review: Nature is a beautiful and highly complicated phenomena of this world. Many have sought to understand it and capture its essence in writing. The nature writings of John Muir succeed in capturing the beauty of nature as well as the scientific aspect. I have to be honest, I wasn't that enthused about reading a book about science. I expected Muir's book to be identical to a science textbook, definitely not my idea of enjoyment. However, his book was actually full of detailed descriptions and creative uses of similes, metaphors, and analogies. In fact, it completely changed my perception of a scientific novel.

In his book, "Travels in Alaska", Muir brings alive the magnificence of the vast expanses of unexplored Alaskan territory. His prose reveals his enthusiasm for nature, and he weaves clear and distinct pictures through his words. Muir's writing is very personal. His favorable feelings toward the land are very apparent, and reading the book is like reading his diary or journal. He avoids using scientific jargon that would confuse and frustrate the average reader; his words are easily understood.

Muir also uses very detailed descriptions throughout "Travels in Alaska". Although at times his painstaking description is a plus, at others, he seems to take it a little too far. Numerous times throughout the book, Muir spent a paragraph or two talking about something slightly insignificant. He would go off on a tangent of enthusiasm for something as simple as a sunrise or the rain. While his careful observances make the book enjoyable, the sometimes excessive detail tends to detract from the point he was trying to make. The description also reveals that his heart and soul was in his research; this became very evident upon reading the long and thoughtful descriptions.

"Travels in Alaska" can be appreciated by a wide audience. Muir shines light upon the Alaskan territory, and he is detailed in his account of the many people he meets. Anyone could read the book and find enjoyment learning about Alaska when it was for the most part unsettled. Muir shares with the readers his keen insight upon the various Indian tribes that lived in Alaska. At one point in the book, he gives a very detailed description of one tribe's feasting and dancing. His observances capture exactly what he saw and the feelings these observances evoked in him.

John Muir's writing is of high quality. He incorporates beautiful and creative similes, metaphors, and analogies. His prose is very poetic, which makes it an enjoyable read. For example, Muir says that "when we contemplate the world as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty." His work is also very organized. The book is divided into 3 sections, or parts of his trip, as well as separate chapters devoted to specific subjects. Muir spends one chapter describing his trip to Puget Sound, another on Wrangell Island, etc. The book follows a specific format that ensures that everything is easily followed and understood.

Truthfully, I was impressed with the writing, and the fact that it was nothing like a textbook. It incorporated the literary aspect so well, that the book held my interest whereas a textbook would not have. I had the wrong impression of a scientific novel, and I urge anyone unfamiliar with the genre, to give "Travels in Alaska" a fair try. It may just change your mind about scientific writing.

Rating:
Summary: The Literary Side of Science
Review: Nature is a beautiful and highly complicated phenomena of this world. Many have sought to understand it and capture its essence in writing. The nature writings of John Muir succeed in capturing the beauty of nature as well as the scientific aspect. I have to be honest, I wasn't that enthused about reading a book about science. I expected Muir's book to be identical to a science textbook, definitely not my idea of enjoyment. However, his book was actually full of detailed descriptions and creative uses of similes, metaphors, and analogies. In fact, it completely changed my perception of a scientific novel.

In his book, "Travels in Alaska", Muir brings alive the magnificence of the vast expanses of unexplored Alaskan territory. His prose reveals his enthusiasm for nature, and he weaves clear and distinct pictures through his words. Muir's writing is very personal. His favorable feelings toward the land are very apparent, and reading the book is like reading his diary or journal. He avoids using scientific jargon that would confuse and frustrate the average reader; his words are easily understood.

Muir also uses very detailed descriptions throughout "Travels in Alaska". Although at times his painstaking description is a plus, at others, he seems to take it a little too far. Numerous times throughout the book, Muir spent a paragraph or two talking about something slightly insignificant. He would go off on a tangent of enthusiasm for something as simple as a sunrise or the rain. While his careful observances make the book enjoyable, the sometimes excessive detail tends to detract from the point he was trying to make. The description also reveals that his heart and soul was in his research; this became very evident upon reading the long and thoughtful descriptions.

"Travels in Alaska" can be appreciated by a wide audience. Muir shines light upon the Alaskan territory, and he is detailed in his account of the many people he meets. Anyone could read the book and find enjoyment learning about Alaska when it was for the most part unsettled. Muir shares with the readers his keen insight upon the various Indian tribes that lived in Alaska. At one point in the book, he gives a very detailed description of one tribe's feasting and dancing. His observances capture exactly what he saw and the feelings these observances evoked in him.

John Muir's writing is of high quality. He incorporates beautiful and creative similes, metaphors, and analogies. His prose is very poetic, which makes it an enjoyable read. For example, Muir says that "when we contemplate the world as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty." His work is also very organized. The book is divided into 3 sections, or parts of his trip, as well as separate chapters devoted to specific subjects. Muir spends one chapter describing his trip to Puget Sound, another on Wrangell Island, etc. The book follows a specific format that ensures that everything is easily followed and understood.

Truthfully, I was impressed with the writing, and the fact that it was nothing like a textbook. It incorporated the literary aspect so well, that the book held my interest whereas a textbook would not have. I had the wrong impression of a scientific novel, and I urge anyone unfamiliar with the genre, to give "Travels in Alaska" a fair try. It may just change your mind about scientific writing.

Rating:
Summary: Muir's glacier voyages
Review: 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.