February Books

The Maine Woods, By Henry David Thoreau (1864). Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) made three trips to the then largely unexplored Maine woods. In his 1846 essay “Ktaadn” he traveled by foot and canoe to Mount Katahdin. He returned to Maine in 1853 traveling the West Branch of the Penobscot to Chesuncook Lake, which he chronicles in the essay “Chesuncook.” His final trip to the Maine woods occurred in 1857 when he again paddled Moosehead Lake, crossed at Northeast Carry onto the West Branch and continued across the top of Chesuncook, up Umbazookus Steam, across Mud Pond Carry and Mud Pond into Chamberlain Lake. After a visit to Chamberlain Farm, Thoreau made the crossing onto Eagle Lake and Pillsbury Island, the northernmost point of his three journeys. This final trip he writes about in “The Allegash and East Branch.”

The Maine Woods combines these three essays. His attention to detail and expressive style opened up Northern Maine to generations of travelers to come. He took notes constantly, entering into his journal the many plant and animal species he found, describing the rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and the land, creating a realistic minds-eye picture for future travelers. Through his conversations with his Indian guides, Joe Aitteon and Joe Polis he recorded many words and expressions of the Penobscot language and identified the names of several of the bodies of water and mountains along the way. The notes from these conversations offer a glimpse of the Native American history of the area.

His scribbled thoughts by the campfire became a call to nature for future generations. Post Civil War America looked toward the western frontier for wilderness, but posthumously, Thoreau opened a new wilderness and created a further awareness of nature where no one at the time thought to look.

Canoe and Camera: Two Hundred Miles through the Maine Forests, By Thomas Sedgwick Steele (1880). In 1879 the author departed Greenville for Mt. Kineo, on Moosehead Lake the usual starting point for what was then referred to as the St. John Trip. A St. John trip wasn’t necessarily a journey to or along the St. John. It was a term used to describe a voyage into the Maine woods at that time.

Steele and a photographer friend hired three Indian guides to take them from Mt. Kineo up the West Branch, across to Chamberlain Lake, and after a visit to Chamberlain Farm, down through Telos Lake and Webster Stream to the East Branch and down to Mattawamkeag.

The author explains their method of camping in 1879, how they handled rips and rapids in birch bark canoes and their general travels over water and land in the steps of Thoreau. (Thoreau’s Maine Woods was published in 1864.) Although Steele was certainly aware of Thoreau’s earlier trip (1857), he seldom refers to the Concordian’s writings, preferring to offer his own interpretation of the journey.

Steele’s focus is more on the actual passage and the impediments the woods and waters provided, while Thoreau took the time to study the surroundings along his passage with a naturalist’s eye. Read the rest of this entry »

January Books

Grizzly Maze, By Nick Jans. This is the story of Timothy Treadwell’s fatal obsession with Alaskan bears. In 2003 Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were eaten by the grizzly bears they believed they had befriended.

Treadwell spent years doing everything he was told not to do when it came to the coastal brown bears of Alaska. He believed that they were misunderstood creatures and was seeking to overturn the perception of them as dangerously aggressive animals. A Californian, he spent his summers at Katmai National Park living with the bears. His methods are certainly questionable (they didn’t work, he was eaten) as was his purpose. When not in coastal Alaska, he was back in California raising money for his “research.”

Untrained, and with little experience in the Alaskan bush, Treadwell seems a meal waiting to happen.

Never Cry Wolf, By Farley Mowat. This story by Canadian author Farley Mowat is based on two summers he spent in the subarctic of northern Manitoba as a biologist studying wolves and caribou. With the belief that the wolf population was killing off the caribou herds, the government of Canada sent Mowat north to learn more about the wolf population and to find ways to stop, what they then felt was the wonton slaughter of the herds by wolves.

Mowat lived mostly alone on the tundra studying the wolves and over the course of his study developed a deep affection for the much maligned wolves. His work determined that the wolves in fact were not a threat to the caribou or to man. His story is not only entertaining, but offers insight into the lives of wolves and the misconceptions of man regarding these animals.

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December Books

Wager with the Wind: The Don Sheldon Story, by James Greiner, was first published in 1974. One of the pioneers of early Alaskan aviation, Sheldon became the “guardian angel” of climbers on Denali (Mount McKinley). From his base at Talkeetna, Sheldon flew some of the earliest climbers to the high mountain glaciers. He perfected the glacier landing and became the pilot most sought after by serious climbers.

Sheldon, along with other early Alaskan aviators, defined what the Bush Pilot would become. His story is fascinating and full of daring as he accomplished with an airplane, things never done before.

Artic Bush Pilot: From Navy Combat to Flying Alaska’s Northern Wilderness, by James Anderson, published in 2000 is the story of James “Andy” Anderson, and the establishment of regular Bush flying in the Bettles, Alaska region. A former Navy combat pilot, Anderson was one of the first to bring aviation to the Koyukuk River area, serving miners, sportsmen, scientists, sourdoughs, adventurers and the Native population. He flew what ever was needed and in conjunction with Wein Airlines brought scheduled air service to the Artic.

His adventures and the story of the growth of the industry and how people of the region came to rely on the airplane for supplies, medical emergencies and mail brings to life this period of Alaskan history, it’s beauty and dangers, and opens a window on the people of the Koyukuk region in the period following World War II.

Alaska’s Wolf Man: The 1915-55 Wilderness Adventures of Frank Glaser, was published in 1998 earned author Jim Reardon the “Alaska Historical Society’s Historian of the Year Award” for 1999. Described as a latter-day “Far North Mountain Man,” Glaser traveled across wilderness Alaska by foot, wolf-dog team and eventually, by airplane. He was a naturalist at heart, but to survive worked as a market hunter, trapper, roadhouse owner, musher and federal predator agent. He learned many of the secrets of wilderness survival by observing the Alaska wildlife, especially wolves. He prospered in far-off lonely places in the Alaska bush; surviving encounters with grizzlies and Mother Nature in a place were temperatures would often drop to 50 and 60 degrees below zero.

A skilled woodman and a crack shot, he became an Alaskan legend.

Alaska’s Wolf Man brings to life the intense vastness of the country, it’s loneliness and savagery, while telling the story of a man and a time now past.

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