Stickeen

Summary

Stickeen is John Muir's true account of the most dangerous day of his Alaska travels and of the little dog who shared it. In the summer of 1880 Muir sets out from Fort Wrangel by canoe with his friend the missionary S. Hall Young and a crew of Native paddlers to explore the glaciers of southeastern Alaska. Young brings along a small, black, silky-haired dog named for the Stickeen people, who regard him as a kind of good-luck charm. Muir objects that such a toy dog will only be in the way, but Young insists, and Stickeen soon proves tough, independent and oddly aloof, a dog who goes everywhere and shows his feelings to no one. On a stormy August morning at an inlet now called Taylor Bay, Muir leaves camp before breakfast to explore a huge glacier, and Stickeen follows him through rain and wind. They spend the day crossing seven miles of ice and exploring its far side. Turning back late in the afternoon, with snow falling and darkness coming, they find themselves trapped among crevasses on a narrow island of ice. The only way off is a thin, weathered sliver of ice that spans a chasm forty to fifty feet wide, sagging far below the rim. Muir cuts steps down the wall, straddles the sliver, chips it level inch by inch, and climbs the far side. Stickeen, who had never before seemed to know what danger was, now understands it perfectly. He cries, moans and refuses to follow, until Muir pretends to leave him and then calls sternly that he must come. At last the dog creeps down the steps, walks the bridge with slow, measured paces, and springs up the notches past Muir's head. His explosion of joy, racing in circles and shouting, is one of the most famous scenes in American animal writing. Muir and the dog stagger back to camp about ten at night, too tired to eat. Afterward Stickeen is a changed dog, devoted to Muir for the rest of the trip. Muir closes by saying that through Stickeen he has learned to look with deeper sympathy into all his fellow mortals. The story first appeared in The Century Magazine in 1897 as An Adventure with a Dog and a Glacier and was published as a small book by Houghton Mifflin in 1909.

Top Lessons

• Do not judge by appearances

  Muir dismisses Stickeen as a worthless toy, yet the dog proves to be brave, wise and capable of deep feeling. The story warns against despising the small and unpromising, a lesson that applies to people as well as animals.

• Courage is not the absence of fear

  Stickeen had never seemed to know danger, but on the brink of the crevasse he sees it clearly and is terrified. His crossing is brave precisely because he is afraid. Muir also must master his own fear to cut steps across the sliver.

• Responsibility for those who follow us

  Muir tried to send Stickeen back, but the dog followed him into the storm, and Muir feels responsible for leading him into danger. Leaders and older brothers and sisters must remember that others follow where they go.

• Sympathy with all creatures

  Muir closes by saying that Stickeen became a window through which he looked with deeper sympathy into all his fellow mortals. Seeing fear and joy in an animal deepened his compassion more widely.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The story is a close lay description of acute fear and its release in an animal. Muir records Stickeen's trembling, moaning and refusal at the crevasse, then an outburst of running, rolling and crying so violent that he feared the dog might die of joy, followed by collapse into a troubled sleep. Muir himself crosses the bridge after a day on the ice with only a piece of bread, and describes the weakness that comes once danger has passed. These are observations of behavior, not clinical claims.

• The Story

  Stickeen's terror on the brink of the crevasse and his frantic, exhausting display of joy after crossing.

• The Story

  After the crossing, weakness overtakes man and dog; they reach camp about ten at night too tired to eat.