Travels in Alaska by John Muir (PDF)

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⭐Divided into parts or chapters about a few trips to Alaska. Mostly he was learning about glaciers, but also recorded descriptions of the country, interactions with Native Alaskans and other indigenous people (Canadian).He is a nature lover, of course, and that comes through in his descriptions. To some degree it’s a travelogue, which makes it a bit more interesting. At times I was wondering why his trips were set up: who paid for them or sponsored chartering the vessel? Was there an organization behind him or was he financing the whole trip? Did he published his scientific findings? What was the purposes of the trips? Enjoyment only, amateur study, etc? These are questions never really addressed in the book, which would have lent more understanding to his several voyages and made the book richer.I found one thing to be very odd . He was often traveling with a missionary and this man tried to convert Natives to Christianity, as such religious people are wont to do. Strangely, though, every tribal chieftain was THRILLED to accept Christ; the Native people were just waiting for just such a prophet as the missionary so they could immediately embrace Christianity.So, as recorded at least 3 times the missionary visits a new tribe. He meets with chieftain. He briefly informs tribal leader about Christ. Tribal leader is super excited and says that their lives have been empty but now they are full. From then on the tribe, leader and shaman are all converts and enjoy services. I simply don’t believe this and wonder if it might have been a forced invention by Muir, as per the times he lived in? Can’t believe that the warlike Tlingit and other aggressive tribes of coastal Alaska would toss away generations of culture and their own beliefs and simply become Christians in literally 5 minutes.A couple of his “day hikes” up mountains I thought to be questionable. Muir blithely climbs “14 to 16 miles” and 7,000 feet (to an 8,000 ft. peak) while dragging along Mr. Young. Muir reaches the summit late in the day. Note that there’s no mention of snow, ropes or ice axes given that 7,000 feet elevation in that part of Alaska or Canada would likely be very snowy in springtime and could also involve technical mountaineering equipment. Oh, and this is just a “day hike”: 14-16 miles without a trail through dense brush, in deep snow and around rock pinnacles at 8,000 ft. with no mountaineering gear, dragging along a less experienced person, yea sure.There are other untruths that have to do with natural history. For example, on pg. 31 he’s “refreshing himself” with huckleberries. The problem is, it’s spring and 3 solid months (or more) until there are any huckleberries. This is merely an example of the exaggerations or lack of veracity noted in several places in the book. If the reader can’t trust events such as this it throws the whole book into the light of fiction, whereas the book is written as non-fiction.Finally, Muir leaves out entire components that would have made the “travelogue”, if that’s what it’s meant to be, more fuller and richer. For example, what did they eat, what was the tent/housing like, how did they live on these trips? Were there hardships: bugs, sun, bears? These topics are given only passing or no mention.Oh, and the glacier and geology desciptions…long and boring.Find another book, perhaps one of Muir’s Sierra books are more truthful and interesting?

⭐Travelling Alaska with John is to see, hear, feel, taste, smell, experience the response of a God-intoxicated man to almost unearthly splendor. Muir’s passions were elemental: apprehending the Divine through an understanding of nature, and hence, the protection and preservation of this voice of the sublime.He travelled to Alaska five times over a 30 year period. This book, only completed a few years before his death, polishes the field notes of his earlier trips and offers almost unedited, his journals from the last journey. Muir’s interests begin with geology, specifically how the U-shaped valleys of both Yosemite and the Alaskan fjord-land resulted from glacial actions. Beginning with ice, they include the land, the trees, the waters, the fish, the First Americans living in the harsh beautiful world, the scientists, the missionaries, transportation, food, and in a chapter that cries to be read aloud, Muir’s experience of a sunrise like the eighth day of Creation and of the Northern Lights.One remembers vignettes of one’s own travels. So vivid, so immediate are these stories that they become part of your own memories. Raining is it? Experience laying your already soggy sleeping bag down in a bog so wet you strip off and shiver your way through the night, then arise—not like new-made bread—but to wring the water from your clothes and bag and slog on. Thinking of what it would be like to walk across that glacier? Start out early, accompanied by a dog who had more loyalty than brains and got over jagged ice frise-de-cheval points, across crevasses, up treacherous slopes—-to get to the other side, and then come back at night, having to encourage the now-alarmed dog to leap those widening chasms, risking your own neck to get the crittur home.Those going to Alaska could hardly have a better companion. The book is portable and a bargain. And those who travel widely through the frigates of books, like Emily, will find their world enlarged and enobled in the company of this good and brave man who did so much to preserve our wild, beautiful places.

⭐Most people associate the great conservationist John Muir with the Sierra Nevada and other mountains in California. However, from his early travels from Kentucky to Florida to this final book published in his lifetime, “Travels in Alaska,” it’s clear his interest extended far beyond California. He was particularly fascinated with southeast Alaska because he saw some of the same scouring in the mountains there as he had found in Yosemite, and he traveled through much of Alaska’s Inside Passage to support his theory that one of the key shaping elements in Yosemite was the glaciers that had covered much of the future national park during the Ice Ages. In “Travels in Alaska,” Muir’s intense curiosity and keen observational skills as a self-taught naturalist equally impressed his Anglo-American companions and native Alaskans who were the guides in his explorations there. Muir’s respect for the tribal members is strongly evident in the book and his interest in their family lives and culture comes through in his observations. He was especially impressed with the love parents had for their children, and how he never saw them speak harshly to them or strike them. Despite some descriptive excesses common to writing of his time that can seem slightly quaint to modern readers, Muir’s reverence for the land and all its creatures stemming from his Christian faith and his humility before the Earth’s sublime natural wonders won me over as they have every time I read his works. His positive outlook, indefatigable pursuit of knowledge in every place he went to, and belief in the power of all creation to lift us and make us better human beings are all in this final book he worked on himself before his death

⭐Why is the blurb like that?! Has it got the wrong blurb because that makes no sense?!

⭐i been a lifelong fan of J.M. and his is a very interesting man who actually created national parks! he originally came from Scotlandwhat he done over the next 50 years is unbelievable very good book

⭐Some wonderful accounts of Alaska’s scenery and wildlife. It makes one long to visit, though as it was written decades ago things may have changed!

⭐A vivid description of the Alaskan landscape. Sometimes the glacial details were too intense but the overall result was good.

⭐Excellent !

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