This book digs into environmental themes in Alaska travel writing since U.S. statehood in 1959, drawing on the works of six authors including Barry Lopez, Jonathan Raban, Tom Lowenstein and others. Each work, though disparate in style, advocates for the empowerment of the Alaska Native people by connecting not only with diverse perspectives but with the lived realities in the geographical spaces that have formed them.
In analyzing how these authors have succeeded in depicting the realities of alterities, and where they have perhaps fallen short by more recent standards, we may begin to carve out a system of ethics. This is important as fresh waves of travel writers search for their own place in the environmental conversations surrounding the ever-evolving, 21st century Arctic and its place on the front lines of a changing climate.
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1 Peter Matthiessens Oomingmak
2 John McPhees Coming into the Country
3 Barry Lopez Arctic Dreams
4 Tom Lowensteins Ancient Land, Sacred Whale
5 Jonathan Rabans Passage to Juneau
6 Nancy Lords Beluga Days
7 Anglophone Travel Writing: From Mercantilism to the Enlightenment
8 Anglo-Colonization, the Protestant Work Ethic, and the Last Frontier
9 Jefferson versus Hamilton
10 The Rise of Environmental Awareness
11 Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, and John Muir
12 Environmental Justice in Alaska
PART 1: Mapping the Ethical Fault Lines
1 The McPhee Conundrum
1 The Question of Manichaeism in Environmental Writing
1.1 Encounters with the Archdruid
1.2 Annals of the Former World
1.3 Coming into the Country
2 What Does John McPhees Work Mean for Alaska?
2 Masculinity v. Femininity
1 Libby Beaman
2 Margaret Murie
3 Lois Crisler
4 Ecofeminism in Alaskan Literature
5 Nancy Lord
3 Native Oral Tradition, Lack of Written Record, and Lack of Respect
1 Attention to Language in Arctic Dreams
2 Raban Evokes Wittgenstein, Importance of Names
3 Tom Lowenstein and the Experiment of Translation
4 Depictions of Alaskan Natives
1 Rabans Conflicted Contribution to Native Peoples
2 Nancy Lords Sensible Objectivity with Regard to Natives
3 Matthiessens Sharp, Concise Reflections on Alaska Natives of Nunivak in
Oomingmak
4 Conclusion
5 Religion and Spirituality
1 Lords Aesthetic Atheism
2 Peter Matthiessen, the Missing Zen Master
3 Tom Lowenstein, or, How Does Buddhism Relate to the Inuit?
4 Wordsworth and Emerson, and their Descendants
5 The Native Eye in Lopez and Lowenstein
6 Conclusion
6 Animals
1 Animals Speak in the Work of Barry Lopez
2 Nancy Lord is Made of Salmon
3 Tom Lowensteins Whales
4 Matthiessens Means of Animal Communication
5 Do Animals Actually Speak in These Works?
7 Liberty
1 Rabans Fishermen
2 McPhees River People
3 Lords Take One Alaska Native Distrust of the White Man
PART 2: Writing beyond the Last Frontier
Introduction
8 Perspective on Myopic Writing
9 Psychological Issues and the Middle Way
1 Introduction to Rationalization as a Social Construct, Linked with
Political Journalism and Contemporary Academic History
2 What in the World Can We Learn about the American Political Dichotomy from
an Englishman?
3 Attention to Language and Tone
4 The Bloom and Lilla Controversies
5 Community and (Toxic?) Masculinity: What Could John McPhee Do Better?
6 Conundrum Conclusion, and a Pre-emptive Defense of the Middle Way
10 Jon Krakauer, John Vaillant, and Dave Eggers: Different Approaches to
Sensational Writing
1 Sensational Non-Fiction
11 Local Travel Writing in the Country, or Broadly Outside?
1 What the Walt?
Benjamin Ferguson is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He is also a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Malaurie Institute of Arctic Research (MIARC) and has published several articles on themes of Travel Writing and Ecocriticism about Alaska.
