Tip of the Iceberg
My 3,000-Mile Journey Around Wild Alaska, the Last Great American Frontier
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
**The National Bestseller**
From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Turn Right at Machu Picchu, a fascinating, wild, and wonder-filled journey into Alaska, America's last frontier
In 1899, railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman organized a most unusual summer voyage to the wilds of Alaska: He converted a steamship into a luxury "floating university," populated by some of America's best and brightest scientists and writers, including the anti-capitalist eco-prophet John Muir. Those aboard encountered a land of immeasurable beauty and impending environmental calamity. More than a hundred years later, Alaska is still America's most sublime wilderness, both the lure that draws one million tourists annually on Inside Passage cruises and as a natural resources larder waiting to be raided. As ever, it remains a magnet for weirdos and dreamers.
Armed with Dramamine and an industrial-strength mosquito net, Mark Adams sets out to retrace the 1899 expedition. Traveling town to town by water, Adams ventures three thousand miles north through Wrangell, Juneau, and Glacier Bay, then continues west into the colder and stranger regions of the Aleutians and the Arctic Circle. Along the way, he encounters dozens of unusual characters (and a couple of very hungry bears) and investigates how lessons learned in 1899 might relate to Alaska's current struggles in adapting to the pressures of a changing climate and world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Travel writer Adams (Meet Me in Atlantis) wonderfully recounts, and emulates, the 1899 voyage organized by railroad tycoon Edward Harriman to survey the coast of Alaska. Using the writings of Harriman and his team of natural scientists including John Muir, at that time the leading writer on the "relatively new" subject of wilderness protection Adams follows along the Harriman expedition's trail to compare what it found during its two-month, 3,000-mile adventure to present-day Alaska. Making "every important stop" that the Harriman team did, Adams details the state's natural beauty, as well as the changes that have taken place since. For example, the town of Ketchikan, which in 1899 consisted only of a salmon cannery and a few buildings, is now Alaska's sixth-largest city, and Yakutat, whose "total isolation" had made it known for "attracting the most extreme dropouts," is now Alaska's "unlikely surf capital." He also gives an excellent account of the history and impact of the oil industry and climate change on Alaska: "The thinning ice that promises a potential boom for Nome's economy and global shipping companies dooms Shismaref to near-certain disaster." Adams gives readers an eye-opening look at the past and present history of a fascinating region.
