Don't start your Muir education with this one

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	• Travels in Alaska John Muir NuVision Publications, 2007 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A REAL TRIP!

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!

Don't start your Muir education with this one

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.

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Muir's glacier voyages

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.

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