Filed under: The Great Outdoors, Wilderness Heroes | Tags: Alaska, Coming Into the Country, John McPhee
I began reading Coming into the County by John McPhee after reading this article by in in the New Yorker back a few months ago. I had never really read anything of his until then and was subsequently recommended the book by Lou Ureneck.
In the book Mcphee recalls the characters and characteristics which comprise the Alaskan landscape at the time. He examines the territory in three parts, first the total wilderness, urban Alaska, and then the people and place of the bush. “In the course of this volume we are made acquainted with the lore and techniques of placer mining, the habits and legends of the barren-ground grizzly, the outlook of a young Athapaskan chief, and tales of the fortitude of settlers–ordinary people compelled by extraordinary dreams,” via Mcphee’s site here.
There are some amazing quotes in the book but this is one of my favorite.
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[...] reading The Survival of the Bark Canoe by John McPhee, a favorite author of The Wildwood and one discussed here previously. The book describes the process used by Henri Vaillancourt to make birch bark canoes using the same [...]
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