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Time-Life American Wilderness Series
Wild Alaska
Dale Brown made three trips to Alaska in preparation of this book. The opening chapter describes the geography, geology, and climate of Alaska. Chapter Two features Glacier Bay National Park; plant succession is a major topic of this chapter. In Chapter Three we learn about the geology, botany, and wildlife of Katmai National Park. The ecology of Denali National Park is the subject of Chapter Four. In Chapter Five the author shares with us his journal entries written during his trek through the vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The book concludes with a consideration of the challenges facing the Alaskan wilderness such as pollution and the tapping of natural gas and oil reserves. Bears, Dall sheep, caribou, wolves, and mountain goats are among the many animals featured in both text and photographs. A detailed map accompanies each chapter.
184 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Dale Brown
38 books3 followersDale^^Brown Time-Life editor/author
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 18, 2019
Wild Alaska (in Time-Life Books' The American Wilderness series), Dale Brown, 1972. 184pp.
The tone of the book is, “I'm a stranger here myself, but my guides are showing me cool stuff.”
The author spent 2 weeks backpacking into, and backpacking and rafting out of, the south slope of the Brooks range in far northeast Alaska, in the Arctic National Wildlife Range. This was the real wilderness trip. pp. 140–167. It's the largest wildlife refuge in the U.S., 130,000 square miles.
Glacier Bay National Monument, on the coast just south of Yukon Territory, has glaciers that have been melting continually, as long as people have been writing about them, beginning in the 1800s. It may be they've been receding since the ice age. As they melt, they expose wood that grew before the ice age. As the glaciers recede, the forest progresses from lichens to mosses to ferns to alders to willows to spruce to hemlock.
Katmai National Monument, at the base of the Alaska Peninsula, includes the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a slowly-cooling volcanic area.
In Mount McKinley National Park, between Anchorage and Fairbanks, the author stayed at road level, shows and tells of wolves hunting moose. In the photo on pp. 138–139, the pack is in single file, on a hunt, the one wolf with his tail held high is the alpha male. He's well back from the front—as the leader of a bicycle-racing team is for most of the race—but when needed, he takes to the fore, having saved his strength.
In all, the author spent 5 weeks in Alaska, with one or more knowledgeable guides in each place. Well done. Lots of nice photos.
The book answers questions like these:
goodreads.com/trivia/work/2572146-wil...
The tone of the book is, “I'm a stranger here myself, but my guides are showing me cool stuff.”
The author spent 2 weeks backpacking into, and backpacking and rafting out of, the south slope of the Brooks range in far northeast Alaska, in the Arctic National Wildlife Range. This was the real wilderness trip. pp. 140–167. It's the largest wildlife refuge in the U.S., 130,000 square miles.
Glacier Bay National Monument, on the coast just south of Yukon Territory, has glaciers that have been melting continually, as long as people have been writing about them, beginning in the 1800s. It may be they've been receding since the ice age. As they melt, they expose wood that grew before the ice age. As the glaciers recede, the forest progresses from lichens to mosses to ferns to alders to willows to spruce to hemlock.
Katmai National Monument, at the base of the Alaska Peninsula, includes the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a slowly-cooling volcanic area.
In Mount McKinley National Park, between Anchorage and Fairbanks, the author stayed at road level, shows and tells of wolves hunting moose. In the photo on pp. 138–139, the pack is in single file, on a hunt, the one wolf with his tail held high is the alpha male. He's well back from the front—as the leader of a bicycle-racing team is for most of the race—but when needed, he takes to the fore, having saved his strength.
In all, the author spent 5 weeks in Alaska, with one or more knowledgeable guides in each place. Well done. Lots of nice photos.
The book answers questions like these:
goodreads.com/trivia/work/2572146-wil...
January 31, 2022
A collection of several essays and photographs from expeditions into various parts of Alaska in the late 60s or early 70s. Pictures not very clear or crisp, but some of the stories were interesting. Some about the 1912 eruption of the katmai volcano, and creation and exploration of the "land of 10000 smokes" area. Some others on glacier bay, and a hiking / paddling expedition across ANWR.
September 17, 2021
Beautiful photos.
October 28, 2009
Wild Alaska was published forty years ago in this Time-Life series, American Wilderness." I enjoyed the text and the many photographs.
January 18, 2015
Time-Life American Wilderness Series
March 6, 2017
Thoroughly enjoyed this book's imagery and detailed stories of the Alaskan wilderness. I only hope that the Last Frontier is still as raw and as untouched as Brown saw it forty years ago.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews