Travels in Alaska

Summary

Travels in Alaska is the book John Muir was finishing when he died in December 1914, an account of three of his journeys to southeastern Alaska, published the next year. It is arranged in three parts, the trips of 1879, 1880 and 1890, and ends, unfinished, with a description of the northern lights. Part I begins in 1879, when Muir, after eleven years among the Sierra glaciers, sails north past Puget Sound and British Columbia to Fort Wrangell. Alaska, he writes, is one of the most wonderful countries in the world for the lover of pure wildness. Based at Wrangell among Presbyterian missionaries, he goes up the Stickeen River to its glaciers, climbs a mountain near Glenora with the young missionary S. Hall Young, who falls, dislocates both arms and must be brought down the cliffs by Muir through the night, and later joins a mission excursion on the steamer Cassiar and travels the Cassiar gold trail. In October he hires a canoe and a Tlingit crew, the old Stickeen chief Toyatte, Kadachan, John and Sitka Charley, and with Young paddles north through storms. Guided by Charley's memory of a bay full of ice-mountains, they reach the great inlet now called Glacier Bay, which Muir explores and sketches in rain and snow. They visit the Chilcat people, where Muir and Young are asked to speak, and return to Wrangell. A chapter on the Tlingit describes their houses, customs, religion and feuds, and tells how Toyatte, a church member, was shot when he stood with his young men in a quarrel with the Taku. Part II follows the 1880 voyage with Young to Sum Dum Bay, the Taku River and Taylor Bay, the scene of the adventure with the dog Stickeen, and back to Glacier Bay, where Muir measures the retreat of the ice. Part III, the trip of 1890, finds Muir camped alone near the great glacier that now bears his name. Hoping to cure a lingering cough, he drags a light sled across the ice for days, sleeps on the glacier, and nearly drowns when he plunges into a hidden water-filled crevasse. The book closes with his long description of auroras over the bay. Throughout, Muir mixes glacial science with praise, calling a great glacier one of God's own temples, and records Native life with curiosity and respect. The text was prepared for the press by Marion Randall Parsons, with a preface by William Frederic Badè.

Top Lessons

• Courage and care for a companion

  When Young falls on a mountain near Glenora and dislocates both arms, Muir does not abandon him but works him down the cliffs through the night. The episode shows that a love of adventure must be joined to responsibility for others.

• Listening to local knowledge

  Muir finds Glacier Bay because Sitka Charley remembers hunting seals there as a boy. The Tlingit crew's seamanship, weather wisdom and memory make the exploration possible, and Muir records his debt to them.

• Creation as a temple

  After exploring a glacier Muir writes that he had been in one of God's own temples and had seen and heard Him working. His science deepens rather than replaces his wonder at the Creator.

• Peacemaking and its cost

  Toyatte, a Christian, refuses to fight in the feud with the Taku but will not hide while his young men face danger, and he is shot. His death raises hard questions about loyalty, peacemaking and the call to turn the other cheek.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Several passages concern health and injury. On a mountain near Glenora Young falls and dislocates both arms; Muir binds them to his sides with his suspenders and necktie to limit movement and brings him down at night. In 1890 Muir undertakes his sled trip partly to rid himself of a bronchial cough that had lingered for three months after the grippe, and reports that it improved each day on the ice. The chapter on the Tlingit describes the illegal distilling of hootchenoo, which set off the quarrel that killed Toyatte. These are lay accounts.

• Chapter IV

  Young's fall on a mountain near Glenora, his two dislocated arms, and Muir's improvised binding and night descent.

• Chapter XIII

  Illegal distilling of hootchenoo from molasses and its part in the feud in which Toyatte was shot.

• Chapter XVIII

  Muir sets out on the glacier hoping to cure a three-month cough after the grippe and reports that it cleared on the ice.