Jimmy Bluefeather

I found this well conceived and well written storyline exceptional and engrossing, with enough different characters and connected threads to keep a reader attentive, or a lazy reader annoyed. A story both inspiring and poignant, with a bonus in conveying much more than the printed words with insights to spare.

“Used to be it was hard to live and easy to die. Not anymore. Nowadays it was the other way around. ”

“Wasn’t it enough, Keb wondered, to feel the wind in your face, to drink the rain and pet a friendly dog and know the softness of a woman’s thigh? Wasn’t it enough to hear a wolf howl, to build a morning fire in the kitchen cookstove, to taste the first nagoonberry pie of summer, to carve a spoon from alder? Wasn’t it enough to feel the tide run beneath your boat, a boat you built with hand tools and great heart?”

“More and more though, men died in the wreckage of their own lives, shadowed by false prophets, lost in the thumping, grinding world those same men created for reasons that didn’t seem reasonable anymore. ”

“. . . we like someone because; we love someone although.”

“. . . when men set out to destroy each other, the first victim was always the same: truth.”

“Old Keb figured that if a greedy man could put his money where his mouth is, stuff it all in there, then he couldn’t talk anymore and that would be a good thing . . . men that are often wrong but never in doubt.”

“ . . . the hardest thing when you’re digging yourself into a hole is to stop digging.”

“You don’t have to master nature. You only have to master yourself.”

“ . . . the best revenge is the one not taken.”

And the eco-lit aspect has teeth.

“Highly regarded scientists see the natural world failing everywhere, and at nobody’s peril more than our own,” Kate said. “If we pass any single tipping point beyond all mitigating strategies, we’ll never again have the bountiful world we once did. When I was a little girl watching TV, I rooted for the Indians, not the cowboys. I never liked Scarlett O’Hara on her big plantation, or Clint Eastwood with his big gun. This legal case isn’t anti-Native. It’s about big business buying whatever it wants, including our own government, and destroying the natural world. Well, guess what? We’re part of that natural world. ”

“Everything was bigger these days, except open space. . . . The greatest gift we can leave this world is the forest and the sea the way we found it, separate and the same, the oldest home of all, older and more beautiful than all the things industrious people pride themselves in building.”

“Men talk about change, how everything must change, how it’s inevitable, and so they bring about change with their own greed, seeing only what they want to see. But do they themselves ever change? These men?”

“The world is not ours to be mastered, only cared for.”

And so much more for those that have a heart of natural world wonderment. To those that don't yet but have an open mind, maybe this will nudge some enlightenment.

I picked this book on a trip to Alaska recently. Kim's lovely wife Melody was a naturalist on a cruise I was on. I thought to be nice I would buy her husband's book. But I was immediately hooked on the book. Kim's story is captivating. Through beautiful narrative and an intriguing story, Kim Heacox shows you the depth, beauty, and complexity of Alaska. I loved the book so much I chose it for my book club and they all loved it as well.

I highly recommend this book.