The Great Land

Beginning near Sitka and ending in the Yukon Delta, this collection of essays on Alaska's natural grandeur takes the reader on a grand tour of a great land. Stopping at Nome, St. Lawrence Island, King Island, Fort Yukon, Richardson, and other points north, editors Hedin and Holthaus demonstrate the diversity of Alaska through writings that offer a rich understanding of the complexities of the land and its people. The Great Land takes readers whale watching, glacier viewing, and visiting the town of Cordova in the wake of the great Exxon Valdez oil spill. More than a scenic tour, it offers observations of the Aleuts by a Russian Orthodox priest, remembrances of changing lifeways by a young Eskimo, and recollections of the first white explorers by a 120-year-old Athabaskan woman. It features contributions by visiting naturalists John Muir and Edward Hoagland, literary views from John Dos Passos, and contributions by native Alaskans whose names are not as well known but who know their land and their neighbors as no outsider can. "Alaskans love their surroundings, are thrilled and challenged by them, " write Hedin and Holthaus. "But Alaska is in fact a hard place to live, hard and cold and sharp. Alaskans have to be careful how they move." Through these writings, Alaskans and non-Alaskans alike may better comprehend what it means to be a part of that Great Land.