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Coming Into the Country
‘John McPhee is celebrated in America and all but unknown in this country. The volume I love most is Coming into the Country, an account of Alaska and the Alaskans. His genius is that he can write about anything.’ – Robert Macfarlane
In this unforgettable and astutely observed travel account, Pulitzer Prize-winner John McPhee journeys into the wild frontiers and frigid climate of Alaska – exploring the diverse terrain of this Northern US state. Travelling by foot and canoe, helicopter and dog team, McPhee traverses total wilderness, urban landscape, and the depths of the bush, drawing a rich and comprehensive history of this vast land and its varied inhabitants.
With his keen eye and poetic sensibility at the helm, we paddle with McPhee through the salmon-filled waters of the Brooks Range Rivers, meet a young chief of the Athapaskan tribe, and become well-acquainted with the habits of the barren-ground grizzly bear. We encounter settlers along the way and discover the extraordinary dreams that impel them to survive in one of the most remote regions on Earth.
McPhee is an endlessly curious adventurer and Coming into the Country is the work of a master storyteller.
‘It is a reviewer’s greatest pleasure to ring the gong for a species of masterpiece.’ – New York Times Book Review
‘McPhee has acted like an antenna in a far-off place that few will see. He has brought back a wholly satisfying voyage of spirit and mind.’ – Time
‘With this book McPhee proves to be the most versatile journalist in America.’ – New York Times
In this unforgettable and astutely observed travel account, Pulitzer Prize-winner John McPhee journeys into the wild frontiers and frigid climate of Alaska – exploring the diverse terrain of this Northern US state. Travelling by foot and canoe, helicopter and dog team, McPhee traverses total wilderness, urban landscape, and the depths of the bush, drawing a rich and comprehensive history of this vast land and its varied inhabitants.
With his keen eye and poetic sensibility at the helm, we paddle with McPhee through the salmon-filled waters of the Brooks Range Rivers, meet a young chief of the Athapaskan tribe, and become well-acquainted with the habits of the barren-ground grizzly bear. We encounter settlers along the way and discover the extraordinary dreams that impel them to survive in one of the most remote regions on Earth.
McPhee is an endlessly curious adventurer and Coming into the Country is the work of a master storyteller.
‘It is a reviewer’s greatest pleasure to ring the gong for a species of masterpiece.’ – New York Times Book Review
‘McPhee has acted like an antenna in a far-off place that few will see. He has brought back a wholly satisfying voyage of spirit and mind.’ – Time
‘With this book McPhee proves to be the most versatile journalist in America.’ – New York Times
438 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
649 people are currently reading
11196 people want to read
About the author
John McPhee
132 books1,851 followersJohn Angus McPhee is an American writer. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourth occasion in 1999 for Annals of the Former World (a collection of five books, including two of his previous Pulitzer finalists). In 2008, he received the George Polk Career Award for his "indelible mark on American journalism during his nearly half-century career". Since 1974, McPhee has been the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 464 reviews
June 9, 2024
This was the first non-geology McPhee book for me — and a test to see whether I started to find geology fascinating or whether it’s McPhee’s writing chops that did the trick for me. Well, maybe geology rocks indeed, but McPhee is where the magic is. A good writer is like a wizard with words. Obviously.
Here we get to see 1977 Alaska, which is a beautiful but strange place. A remote and huge expanse of land with competing ideas to apply the frontier approach to it or keep it as preserve of nature for those who have little in the way of pristine nature elsewhere, a place that attracts wilderness enthusiasts and people who’d prefer to be left alone as they make their living in whichever way they please whether they are permitted so or not, those who’d prefer use and exploit and those who wants to conserve, the spirit of individualism and collectivism, and the ever-receding wilderness. All that in the same place and time, and sometimes even in the same people.
We see the forests and rivers where bears roam and salmon swim, the tiny remote towns full of tensions and dramas, and the efforts to move the state capital from Juneau to a bunch of other places (the campaign that as we know 50-ish years later ended up unsuccessful). It’s pretty much three books in one - wild Alaska (Salmon River), rural Alaska (Upper Yukon, the settlement of Eagle) and urban Alaska (Juneau, Anchorage).
McPhee’s own presence is stronger in this book than in his geology series. He’s here hiking though the wilderness, terrified of bears, taking a canoe down the river, fishing, and hanging out with quite a few characters whose rugged quirks are fascinating. And he shines through the crisp clear prose with sharp vivid observations. The imagery is strong, the descriptions are crystal-clear and fresh and often surprising and wonderfully effective.
One thing I got out of this book is that I’m not Alaska material, but enjoying it through McPhee filter was lovely and oftentimes a bit scary.
4 stars.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
“Alaska is a foreign country significantly populated with Americans. Its languages extend to English. Its nature is its own.”
Here we get to see 1977 Alaska, which is a beautiful but strange place. A remote and huge expanse of land with competing ideas to apply the frontier approach to it or keep it as preserve of nature for those who have little in the way of pristine nature elsewhere, a place that attracts wilderness enthusiasts and people who’d prefer to be left alone as they make their living in whichever way they please whether they are permitted so or not, those who’d prefer use and exploit and those who wants to conserve, the spirit of individualism and collectivism, and the ever-receding wilderness. All that in the same place and time, and sometimes even in the same people.
“They invite a question. To a palate without bias – the palate of an open-minded Berber, the travelling Martian – which would be the more acceptable, a pink-icinged Pop-Tart with raspberry filling (cold) or the fat gob from behind a caribou’s eye?”
We see the forests and rivers where bears roam and salmon swim, the tiny remote towns full of tensions and dramas, and the efforts to move the state capital from Juneau to a bunch of other places (the campaign that as we know 50-ish years later ended up unsuccessful). It’s pretty much three books in one - wild Alaska (Salmon River), rural Alaska (Upper Yukon, the settlement of Eagle) and urban Alaska (Juneau, Anchorage).
McPhee’s own presence is stronger in this book than in his geology series. He’s here hiking though the wilderness, terrified of bears, taking a canoe down the river, fishing, and hanging out with quite a few characters whose rugged quirks are fascinating. And he shines through the crisp clear prose with sharp vivid observations. The imagery is strong, the descriptions are crystal-clear and fresh and often surprising and wonderfully effective.
“Looking over the side of the canoe is like staring down into a sky full of zeppelins.”
One thing I got out of this book is that I’m not Alaska material, but enjoying it through McPhee filter was lovely and oftentimes a bit scary.
4 stars.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
September 1, 2014
I was really hoping this would be about geology, along the lines of Basin and Range. It wasn't. It's divided into three sections; in the first, McPhee wanders around unpopulated Alaska with several other men in several canoes/kayaks. I think one was from the Sierra Club, one from the Bureau of Land Management, etc. They fished to supplement their food supplies, and camped along the rivers and streams. The second section was about the attempt to get Alaska's capital moved from Juneau. I now know more about this issue than I ever wanted to. At the end of the section it really sounded like the move was going to come off; people voted and wanted the capital moved to Willow. (This was written in 1977.) But a check of the primary authority on such matters, Wikipedia, shows that Juneau is still the capital, so McPhee must have been stoned or something when he wrote that sentence.
In the third section McPhee moved to Eagle, a teeny tiny town on the Yukon River, and pretty much just interviewed the residents of Eagle and told us their stories. Some are interesting; some aren't. (The 2010 census showed the population of Eagle as 86.)
In spite of the need for women to be tough in the wilds of Alaska, there are no women's libbers here. The women do all the cookin' and much, much more; wood choppin', skinnin' of critters, waitin' for the menfolk to come a-home from their trips.
Maybe a few people sound relatively sane, but most sound a bit crazy. Or a lot crazy. There are your Cliven Bundy types up there. They don't like the people of the lower 48 dictating the rules in Alaska. Alaska is different. People of Alaska, hear me: Alaska is not different. It is a state that in many respects is qualitatively different from, say, Connecticut. It is not legally, Constitutionally, different. Because you build a cabin on a plot of land, trap and hunt your own critters for food, bulldoze yourself a gravel landing strip for your little plane, it does not follow that you now own that land. Don't get all uppity when the Bureau of Land Management comes to tell you you don't actually own that land. You know how I know I own my home? Because I wrote a check; the bank agreed to supply the rest; we had a ceremony (with lawyers for both sides) where we all signed many sheets of paper; and at the end of it one of these sheets of paper was the title and deed to my home. Plus I pay real estate taxes on this home. If the Bureau of Land Management comes to tell me I don't own my home, then we have a problem. You, Alaska trapper and fisher with no title to your little cabin, you don't have a problem.
McPhee's writing style wears thin. This was 438 pages of it.
June 16, 2011
Things I learned about Alaska:
-- Merrill Field, a light-plane airfield in Anchorage, handles fifty-four thousand more flights per year than Newark International. This is so because bushplane trips are more common than taxis or driving, the roads being what they are.
-- Fried cranberries will help a sore throat.
-- That somethings are better left unchanged or not re-named:
"What would you call that mountain, Willie?"
"Denali. I'll go along with the Indians that far."
Everyone aboard was white but Willie (William Igiagruq Hensley), of Arctic Alaska, and he said again, "Denali. What the hell did McKinley ever do?
I learned the difference between a visitor and a tourist in Alaska: A tourist stays a week and drops four hundred dollars. A visitor comes with a shirt and a twenty-dollar bill and doesn't change either one.
I learned that Alaska is a great place for nicknames: Pete the Pig, Pistolgrip Jim, Groundsluice Bill, Coolgardie Smith, Codfish Tom, Doc LaBooze, the Evaporated Kid, Fisty McDonald, John the Baptist, Cheeseham Sam, and the Man with the Big Nugget. I actually came across a Codfish in my own travels, but I have an odd job.
I learned that bear scat is "fairly, but not acutely fresh" when it "glistens but has stopped smoking." Not everything I learned will I actually use.
I learned that Alaska, at least the Alaska of 1977, was a place where people, tired of government and other people, fled to. I learned that the government followed them there and refused to let them alone. I learned that Alaskans are prone to a philosophy: LIVE EACH DAY SO THAT YOU CAN LOOK EVERY DAMN MAN IN THE EYE AND TELL HIM TO GO TO HELL.
We need such people. At least we need a place where such people could go. A place I might go if it wasn't so cold. A place so vast and unpeopled that if anyone could figure out how to steal Italy, Alaska would be a place to hide it.
This was another wonderful trip that John McPhee took me on. It's dated, to be sure. But wonderful characters are portrayed; good stories told. In the battle between independent, brave individuals and a pedantic, fuzzy-wuzzy government, John McPhee leaves no doubt whose side he is on.
-- Merrill Field, a light-plane airfield in Anchorage, handles fifty-four thousand more flights per year than Newark International. This is so because bushplane trips are more common than taxis or driving, the roads being what they are.
-- Fried cranberries will help a sore throat.
-- That somethings are better left unchanged or not re-named:
"What would you call that mountain, Willie?"
"Denali. I'll go along with the Indians that far."
Everyone aboard was white but Willie (William Igiagruq Hensley), of Arctic Alaska, and he said again, "Denali. What the hell did McKinley ever do?
I learned the difference between a visitor and a tourist in Alaska: A tourist stays a week and drops four hundred dollars. A visitor comes with a shirt and a twenty-dollar bill and doesn't change either one.
I learned that Alaska is a great place for nicknames: Pete the Pig, Pistolgrip Jim, Groundsluice Bill, Coolgardie Smith, Codfish Tom, Doc LaBooze, the Evaporated Kid, Fisty McDonald, John the Baptist, Cheeseham Sam, and the Man with the Big Nugget. I actually came across a Codfish in my own travels, but I have an odd job.
I learned that bear scat is "fairly, but not acutely fresh" when it "glistens but has stopped smoking." Not everything I learned will I actually use.
I learned that Alaska, at least the Alaska of 1977, was a place where people, tired of government and other people, fled to. I learned that the government followed them there and refused to let them alone. I learned that Alaskans are prone to a philosophy: LIVE EACH DAY SO THAT YOU CAN LOOK EVERY DAMN MAN IN THE EYE AND TELL HIM TO GO TO HELL.
We need such people. At least we need a place where such people could go. A place I might go if it wasn't so cold. A place so vast and unpeopled that if anyone could figure out how to steal Italy, Alaska would be a place to hide it.
This was another wonderful trip that John McPhee took me on. It's dated, to be sure. But wonderful characters are portrayed; good stories told. In the battle between independent, brave individuals and a pedantic, fuzzy-wuzzy government, John McPhee leaves no doubt whose side he is on.
November 23, 2017
A year or two out of college I was employed at a bookshop in Seattle, earning little more than minimum wage. For a change of scene, I signed up with some friends to work the salmon season at a cannery in Alaska. It was rough work, seven days a week, 8am to 11pm (or to 1am on nights when you had cleanup duty). We didn’t get to see much of “real Alaska,” but you could feel it around you. The wilderness.
The cannery was located on an island in the southeast of the state. The town was small for anyplace other than Alaska, with not much more than a single road. The rest of the island was uninhabited. People wandering into the interior were sometimes never heard from again. No one went in search of them. It was assumed the wolves or bears had got them. The moss and muskeg would hide their bones.
Though I saw little of Alaska, it was enough to grasp its fascination. If my sense of it had faded some over the past twenty years, McPhee’s wonderful book has helped to revive it. I suddenly find myself scheming ways to get the wife and kids up north on vacation as soon as possible.
One of my college professors first introduced me to John McPhee. It was a writing course, and he was reading brief passages from one of McPhee’s books (I don’t recall which one), lingering over certain passages and expostulating on the genius of his prose, his crystalline expressions. McPhee is rarely flashy. There is no false posturing. He is curious, broad, but crisp, fresh, clear.
My former favorite of McPhee’s books (among those I have read) was Basin and Range, but Coming into the Country is just as good. The first part of it follows McPhee on an outing in the total wild of the Brooks Range. The second has to do with the politics of the state circa 1977. The third, and by far the longest, is the best. In it, McPhee lives with and among the trappers, the miners, the townspeople, the hippie kids and the Athapaskan natives of the Yukon River country near the Canadian border.
In this small but broadly scattered and loose-knit community, McPhee finds all the hope, discontent and anxiety of the human condition. It’s a parable (perhaps) of the riddling complexities that face us today, finding ourselves to be a part of the natural order and yet standing, somehow, outside of it.
The cannery was located on an island in the southeast of the state. The town was small for anyplace other than Alaska, with not much more than a single road. The rest of the island was uninhabited. People wandering into the interior were sometimes never heard from again. No one went in search of them. It was assumed the wolves or bears had got them. The moss and muskeg would hide their bones.
Though I saw little of Alaska, it was enough to grasp its fascination. If my sense of it had faded some over the past twenty years, McPhee’s wonderful book has helped to revive it. I suddenly find myself scheming ways to get the wife and kids up north on vacation as soon as possible.
One of my college professors first introduced me to John McPhee. It was a writing course, and he was reading brief passages from one of McPhee’s books (I don’t recall which one), lingering over certain passages and expostulating on the genius of his prose, his crystalline expressions. McPhee is rarely flashy. There is no false posturing. He is curious, broad, but crisp, fresh, clear.
My former favorite of McPhee’s books (among those I have read) was Basin and Range, but Coming into the Country is just as good. The first part of it follows McPhee on an outing in the total wild of the Brooks Range. The second has to do with the politics of the state circa 1977. The third, and by far the longest, is the best. In it, McPhee lives with and among the trappers, the miners, the townspeople, the hippie kids and the Athapaskan natives of the Yukon River country near the Canadian border.
In this small but broadly scattered and loose-knit community, McPhee finds all the hope, discontent and anxiety of the human condition. It’s a parable (perhaps) of the riddling complexities that face us today, finding ourselves to be a part of the natural order and yet standing, somehow, outside of it.
November 30, 2023
I've read this twice, many years apart. Mostly a historic document now -- but what a history!
One of the rereads was in our camp at Flat, an old and formerly very, very rich placer gold camp. It was a pretty miserable job (cheap jr. company, but I needed the work), but a nice group of co-workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat,_A... Iditarod was the river port for Flat. Somewhere I have a handful of blank checks from the vault of the old Bank of Iditarod. . . .
Tony's is the review to read: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... McPhee is just a flat amazing writer. 4.4 stars, by memory.
One of the rereads was in our camp at Flat, an old and formerly very, very rich placer gold camp. It was a pretty miserable job (cheap jr. company, but I needed the work), but a nice group of co-workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat,_A... Iditarod was the river port for Flat. Somewhere I have a handful of blank checks from the vault of the old Bank of Iditarod. . . .
Tony's is the review to read: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... McPhee is just a flat amazing writer. 4.4 stars, by memory.
October 1, 2024
One must follow the role of an uninvited visitor—an intruder—rather than that of an aggressive hunter, and one should go unarmed to insure this attitude.
We were in Newfoundland a year ago, a lovely holiday and upon the world's most uncomfortable couch I found reruns of Northern Exposure. I loved the show back in its heyday. It appeared apt, especially the episode where on Thanksgiving the First nation people through tomatoes at the white people. A few months after that, we returned from Serbia to discover that Amazon Prime now had all of Northern Exposure in its content vault. I then viewed every episode. Thus, I was intrigued by McPhee's description of the eccentrics who leave the "Lower 48" and venture north. There are three sections, the first dealing with a canoe and kayak trip rife with conversation about conservation and bear attacks. The second details urban Alaska and political tensions; this crystallized in ballot measure to move the state capitol. The final section is a series of portraits which in juxtaposition create an Alaskan mesh, forever in disunion.
Was I ever disappointed! Perhaps the blame should rest with me, if only partially. I just recoiled from the arrogance, intentional or not. I enjoyed the sections detailing bush pilots but disliked nearly everything else.
We were in Newfoundland a year ago, a lovely holiday and upon the world's most uncomfortable couch I found reruns of Northern Exposure. I loved the show back in its heyday. It appeared apt, especially the episode where on Thanksgiving the First nation people through tomatoes at the white people. A few months after that, we returned from Serbia to discover that Amazon Prime now had all of Northern Exposure in its content vault. I then viewed every episode. Thus, I was intrigued by McPhee's description of the eccentrics who leave the "Lower 48" and venture north. There are three sections, the first dealing with a canoe and kayak trip rife with conversation about conservation and bear attacks. The second details urban Alaska and political tensions; this crystallized in ballot measure to move the state capitol. The final section is a series of portraits which in juxtaposition create an Alaskan mesh, forever in disunion.
Was I ever disappointed! Perhaps the blame should rest with me, if only partially. I just recoiled from the arrogance, intentional or not. I enjoyed the sections detailing bush pilots but disliked nearly everything else.
March 6, 2023
2023 - ‘70’s Immersion Reading Challenge
Coming Into the Country: A remarkable voyage of spirit and mind into America’s last great wilderness - Alaska by John McPhee (1976; 1979 ed.) 417 pages.
If you are from Alaska, then you are definitely going to want to read this book. Alaska was going through huge progressive changes in the 1970’s. The author smoothly interweaves a bit of history and politics with interviews of the natives, especially in and around Eagle, which was the first incorporated town of interior Alaska situated on the Yukon River. In the ’70’s, Alaska was in its third gold boom and now the oil boom. The U.S. government was moving in and changing the climate in Alaska. The author, from New Jersey, traveled to Alaska to feel and experience the last wild piece of America, and to interview these locals and natives to get their feelings about the changes taking place. This book is divided into three sections: The Encircled River, What They Were Hunting For, and Coming Into the Country.
(1) The Encircled River
McPhee and four other guys, who worked for the U.S. government, began a canoe and kayak expedition at the head of the 60 mile long Salmon River in the Brooks Range that runs through the Baird Mountains in Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska. It is the most northern river above the Arctic Circle. Their purpose was to study the river as a national wild river that Congress would be voting on the following year, 1978, to become part of the Kobuk Valley National Monument, along with 15 other millions of acreages they were to vote on for national parks. The natives would soon have to accept the idea of now owning property and having boundaries; whereas, before they were roamers, following the herds of moose and caribou. The legislation passed under Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980.
McPhee learned from his adventuring guides, that it takes money to go into the bush to hunt and fish. These men moved to Alaska only to find their dreams of hunting or fishing squashed because the reality of it is you need lots of money to charter planes out to areas where the fish, moose and caribou even exist.
(2) What They Were Hunting For
What they were hunting for back in the 1970’s was a new place to move the capital from Juneau, which had been the state capital since 1906. There were no roads into Juneau. One had to hire a bush pilot and fly in. McPhee flew around with the committee in charge to scout out the three possible sites for the new capital: Lake Larson, Mount Yenlo, and Willow, which all three would have been more centrally located between the two rival cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks, but much closer to Anchorage. Willow won the vote and construction was supposed to begin in 1980. (p. 169) The author didn’t know at the time, when the book was published in 1977, that the capital of Alaska would not be moved in 1980 because here it is year 2023 and Juneau is still the capital, and, by the way, you still have to charter flights into the city. This section of the book gives interesting insight into the steps the Alaskan government took to try and change it….and the expense, into the millions of dollars spent, just to try and find a suitable place that never panned out.
(3) Coming into the Country
The upper Yukon is referred to as “the country”. A stranger arriving up there is said to have “come into the country”. (p. 175)
This part of the book is the longest and is all about the native locals who live and survive on the Yukon River, in and around Eagle. The author stayed at the homes of these natives and participated with them in gold digging, hunting and hiking expeditions, while getting their views on the progressive changes taking place in Alaska. He gives great insight into the lives of these people and their environment, with a little history, on Eagle.
The hard truth about living “in the country” of Alaska…
A lot of these people who keep coming into the country don’t belong here. They have fallen in love with a calendar photo and they want to live under a beautiful mountain. When they arrive the reality doesn’t match the dream. It’s too much for them. They don’t want to work hard enough; they don’t want to spread out – to go far enough up the streams. (Richard Okey “Dick” Cook, came into the country in 1964 from Lyndhurst, Ohio, p. 253)
Page 410 tells of the authors own struggles to pick sides. He enjoys the beautiful national parks and wildlife refuges….and I do too. I’m so glad we have them. At the same time, I do realize that progress, and even just the preservation of land, comes with a double-edged sword, putting an end to one way of life for another. Many of the natives are implementing, and prefer using, modern tools and equipment (aluminum boats with their Evinrude motors, ski-doos, fuel, guns, purchased rations, and, of course, government subsidies). And because of this, they are forced into taking jobs in the bigger cities, away from their families, for a season to make money to pay for those conveniences they have come to depend on. That’s part of the payoff!
———————————————
INTERESTING FACTS
ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT OF 1971
Alaska was purchased from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867, but didn’t become a state until 1959. It wasn’t until 1971 when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act gave the natives (Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts) one billion dollars and 44 million acres of land. A lot of this land, as we now know today, contained gold, silver, other minerals and oil and gas rights, which they were and would be able to profit from. (p. 145) A much different situation compared to how the natives were treated previously in the lower 48.
HOMESTEADING IN ALASKA
In the 1862 Homestead Act, homesteaders were given 160 acres, free of charge, for coming to Alaska. They had to live on the property for three years, build a dwelling to live in and grow a crop on an eighth of the land (p. 161), but that deal ended in 1974…according to this author. But, another source online states the 1862 Homestead Act officially ended on October 21, 1976 with a 10-year extension for Alaska. The last free, 160-acre homestead was claimed on October 21, 1986. (U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management: “History of Alaska Homesteading”, )
But, even after the homestead act ended, it appears people would still go and build small cabins deep into the interior Alaska, believing they had staked a claim to a piece of Alaska, and little was ever mentioned. But, if oil was discovered on the land, or even nearby, the U.S. Government would send officials through the area on helicopters to dish out eviction notices, and it didn’t matter how long you had been established there. (p. 232-33, 236) The State of Alaska had until 1984 to finish choosing its 103 million acres, which much was in the way of parks, government forests, wildlife refuges, huge petroleum reserves in the north, and the 44 million acres appropriated to natives. There wasn’t much land left for squatters, or want-to-be-homesteaders, to sneak in a cabin anywhere. (p. 234)
GOLD IN ALASKA
(1) 1890’s - $17/oz.
(2) 1934 - Government set price at $35/oz.
(3) 1970’s - for first time gold was allowed to float with the market and Americans were allowed to buy and keep gold. It rose to nearly $200/oz., settling to $150/oz. (p. 219)
Today, n 2023, the price of gold is $1,832/oz., fluctuating with the daily market (Forbes Advisor at Forbes.com online website). Recreational gold panning is still allowed on public lands, such as national forest, wildlife refuges, some state parks, national parks (higher restrictions), lands administrated by the Bureau of Land Management and the State of Alaska.
To determine if an area is open to mineral entry and if there are legal mining claims in an area, contact the state Division of Mining or, for claims on federal lands, the Bureau of Land Management. Once you have determined land status, know that it is public land, that it is open to mineral entry, and that it has no legal claims, check with the managing agency to determine what restrictions might be in force. (Recreational Gold Mining in Alaska @ myalaskan.com, accessed 3/3/2023)
For gold panning on private property, you must have owners permission. For the use of any heavy equipment, you must have a permit.
Coming Into the Country: A remarkable voyage of spirit and mind into America’s last great wilderness - Alaska by John McPhee (1976; 1979 ed.) 417 pages.
If you are from Alaska, then you are definitely going to want to read this book. Alaska was going through huge progressive changes in the 1970’s. The author smoothly interweaves a bit of history and politics with interviews of the natives, especially in and around Eagle, which was the first incorporated town of interior Alaska situated on the Yukon River. In the ’70’s, Alaska was in its third gold boom and now the oil boom. The U.S. government was moving in and changing the climate in Alaska. The author, from New Jersey, traveled to Alaska to feel and experience the last wild piece of America, and to interview these locals and natives to get their feelings about the changes taking place. This book is divided into three sections: The Encircled River, What They Were Hunting For, and Coming Into the Country.
(1) The Encircled River
McPhee and four other guys, who worked for the U.S. government, began a canoe and kayak expedition at the head of the 60 mile long Salmon River in the Brooks Range that runs through the Baird Mountains in Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska. It is the most northern river above the Arctic Circle. Their purpose was to study the river as a national wild river that Congress would be voting on the following year, 1978, to become part of the Kobuk Valley National Monument, along with 15 other millions of acreages they were to vote on for national parks. The natives would soon have to accept the idea of now owning property and having boundaries; whereas, before they were roamers, following the herds of moose and caribou. The legislation passed under Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980.
McPhee learned from his adventuring guides, that it takes money to go into the bush to hunt and fish. These men moved to Alaska only to find their dreams of hunting or fishing squashed because the reality of it is you need lots of money to charter planes out to areas where the fish, moose and caribou even exist.
(2) What They Were Hunting For
What they were hunting for back in the 1970’s was a new place to move the capital from Juneau, which had been the state capital since 1906. There were no roads into Juneau. One had to hire a bush pilot and fly in. McPhee flew around with the committee in charge to scout out the three possible sites for the new capital: Lake Larson, Mount Yenlo, and Willow, which all three would have been more centrally located between the two rival cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks, but much closer to Anchorage. Willow won the vote and construction was supposed to begin in 1980. (p. 169) The author didn’t know at the time, when the book was published in 1977, that the capital of Alaska would not be moved in 1980 because here it is year 2023 and Juneau is still the capital, and, by the way, you still have to charter flights into the city. This section of the book gives interesting insight into the steps the Alaskan government took to try and change it….and the expense, into the millions of dollars spent, just to try and find a suitable place that never panned out.
(3) Coming into the Country
The upper Yukon is referred to as “the country”. A stranger arriving up there is said to have “come into the country”. (p. 175)
This part of the book is the longest and is all about the native locals who live and survive on the Yukon River, in and around Eagle. The author stayed at the homes of these natives and participated with them in gold digging, hunting and hiking expeditions, while getting their views on the progressive changes taking place in Alaska. He gives great insight into the lives of these people and their environment, with a little history, on Eagle.
The hard truth about living “in the country” of Alaska…
A lot of these people who keep coming into the country don’t belong here. They have fallen in love with a calendar photo and they want to live under a beautiful mountain. When they arrive the reality doesn’t match the dream. It’s too much for them. They don’t want to work hard enough; they don’t want to spread out – to go far enough up the streams. (Richard Okey “Dick” Cook, came into the country in 1964 from Lyndhurst, Ohio, p. 253)
Page 410 tells of the authors own struggles to pick sides. He enjoys the beautiful national parks and wildlife refuges….and I do too. I’m so glad we have them. At the same time, I do realize that progress, and even just the preservation of land, comes with a double-edged sword, putting an end to one way of life for another. Many of the natives are implementing, and prefer using, modern tools and equipment (aluminum boats with their Evinrude motors, ski-doos, fuel, guns, purchased rations, and, of course, government subsidies). And because of this, they are forced into taking jobs in the bigger cities, away from their families, for a season to make money to pay for those conveniences they have come to depend on. That’s part of the payoff!
———————————————
INTERESTING FACTS
ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT OF 1971
Alaska was purchased from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867, but didn’t become a state until 1959. It wasn’t until 1971 when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act gave the natives (Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts) one billion dollars and 44 million acres of land. A lot of this land, as we now know today, contained gold, silver, other minerals and oil and gas rights, which they were and would be able to profit from. (p. 145) A much different situation compared to how the natives were treated previously in the lower 48.
HOMESTEADING IN ALASKA
In the 1862 Homestead Act, homesteaders were given 160 acres, free of charge, for coming to Alaska. They had to live on the property for three years, build a dwelling to live in and grow a crop on an eighth of the land (p. 161), but that deal ended in 1974…according to this author. But, another source online states the 1862 Homestead Act officially ended on October 21, 1976 with a 10-year extension for Alaska. The last free, 160-acre homestead was claimed on October 21, 1986. (U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management: “History of Alaska Homesteading”, )
But, even after the homestead act ended, it appears people would still go and build small cabins deep into the interior Alaska, believing they had staked a claim to a piece of Alaska, and little was ever mentioned. But, if oil was discovered on the land, or even nearby, the U.S. Government would send officials through the area on helicopters to dish out eviction notices, and it didn’t matter how long you had been established there. (p. 232-33, 236) The State of Alaska had until 1984 to finish choosing its 103 million acres, which much was in the way of parks, government forests, wildlife refuges, huge petroleum reserves in the north, and the 44 million acres appropriated to natives. There wasn’t much land left for squatters, or want-to-be-homesteaders, to sneak in a cabin anywhere. (p. 234)
GOLD IN ALASKA
(1) 1890’s - $17/oz.
(2) 1934 - Government set price at $35/oz.
(3) 1970’s - for first time gold was allowed to float with the market and Americans were allowed to buy and keep gold. It rose to nearly $200/oz., settling to $150/oz. (p. 219)
Today, n 2023, the price of gold is $1,832/oz., fluctuating with the daily market (Forbes Advisor at Forbes.com online website). Recreational gold panning is still allowed on public lands, such as national forest, wildlife refuges, some state parks, national parks (higher restrictions), lands administrated by the Bureau of Land Management and the State of Alaska.
To determine if an area is open to mineral entry and if there are legal mining claims in an area, contact the state Division of Mining or, for claims on federal lands, the Bureau of Land Management. Once you have determined land status, know that it is public land, that it is open to mineral entry, and that it has no legal claims, check with the managing agency to determine what restrictions might be in force. (Recreational Gold Mining in Alaska @ myalaskan.com, accessed 3/3/2023)
For gold panning on private property, you must have owners permission. For the use of any heavy equipment, you must have a permit.
November 19, 2009
This book has meant a lot to me as an Alaskan interested in the raggedy interplay between development and conservationism, although I had never read it in its entirety. Now I have. I would say this book at best offers a kind, sympathetic view of all sorts of Alaskans circa 1977, a period which I just barely remember from grade school. I still recall the statewide debate on whether to give "Mount McKinley" the new/old name of "Denali" as part of ANILCA, then called the D-2 Lands Bill, which was a hot-button topic (i.e. federal take-over) for Alaskans such as my parents. I remember the debate to move the capital to Willow. I remember John Denver's goodwill trip to Alaska to promote conservation and the passage of ANILCA. It was all HIGHLY charged politics in which the feds were dabbling, playing, frivolizing with OUR land. The outgrowth of both the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act are INCREDIBLY far reaching with regards to living and working in Alaska today. In that respect, the first two chapters of the book are now dated and rather nostalgic, kind of a time-capsule of what was going on while these landmark Congressional laws were being sussed out.
The chapter "Coming Into The Country" (nearly half of the book) on the Yukon River/Charley River area of Interior Alaska was by far the best part of the book, focusing on the communities of Central, Circle, and Eagle and the idealistic, sometimes hard-nosed characters that live there. Although McPhee, in what I've read, was an impressionable young man leaning to the side of environmental conservation at the expense of economic development, I think his writing in this book shows both a reverence for Alaska's brand of wilderness (in a word, awesome) as well as a sympathetic, humane perspective on the toll that Congressional protectionism, environmental regulation, and romantic idealism has on the lives of real families living in "the country".
(The best writing is the transcription of journal entries made by a young man, Rich Corazza, living alone in a cabin somewhere around Eagle. This section is one third into the last section "Coming Into The Country" and made me grin and laugh out loud. A true seeker with a good dose of humor and longing.)
The chapter "Coming Into The Country" (nearly half of the book) on the Yukon River/Charley River area of Interior Alaska was by far the best part of the book, focusing on the communities of Central, Circle, and Eagle and the idealistic, sometimes hard-nosed characters that live there. Although McPhee, in what I've read, was an impressionable young man leaning to the side of environmental conservation at the expense of economic development, I think his writing in this book shows both a reverence for Alaska's brand of wilderness (in a word, awesome) as well as a sympathetic, humane perspective on the toll that Congressional protectionism, environmental regulation, and romantic idealism has on the lives of real families living in "the country".
(The best writing is the transcription of journal entries made by a young man, Rich Corazza, living alone in a cabin somewhere around Eagle. This section is one third into the last section "Coming Into The Country" and made me grin and laugh out loud. A true seeker with a good dose of humor and longing.)
December 4, 2008
“If anyone could figure out how to steal Italy, Alaska would be the place to hid it." What a vivid way to describe Alaska's immensity. 'There has been a host of excellent books on Alaska. My favorite until recently was Joe McGinnis's Going to Extremes but John McPhee's Coming Into the Country is wonderful, too.
McPhee's book is divided into three parts: first an exploration of wilderness described during the course of a canoe/kayak trip down the Salmon River. Much in the manner of the river, his descriptions meander into all sorts of eddies and whirlpools. His description of bush pilots is priceless. On one occasion he is flying (a regularly scheduled airline, mind you) in a single engine plane in horrible weather. The pilot is skimming the trees to find landmarks because he can't see anything. He has a map on his lap, but suddenly hands it to a passenger to help figure out where they are. "I had been chewing gum so vigorously that the hinges of my jaws would ache for two days."
Stumbling on a grizzly bear in a blueberry patch (fortunately upwind), he muses on the best way to survive a grizzly's charge - no consensus of opinion, but most survivors believe the best thing to do is stand absolutely still and shout as loudly as possible, for that is the least likely reaction the bear, which does not have good sight, would expect of game. Running away is useless for grizzlies are very fast. They are also quite coordinated. They enjoy schussing down snow-covered mountains at 96 feet/second through trees and around boulders only to screech to a stop, stand up and walk away, just before going -over the edge of a cliff.
The second part of the book discusses the Alaskan government's search for a new capital and the conflict that generated. Juneau really makes a lousy site because of its remoteness, not to mention its horrible landing approach to the airport. Alaska attracts very independent and anti-authoritarian types of people so it witnesses a battle between those suffering from the "Sierra Club Syndrome" or others fondly embracing the "Dallas Scenario."
Many of these folks are affectionately profiled in the third section. John Cook, for example, has consciously tried to eliminate the need for money and authority. He tries to live on $1,500 a year (this was written in the mid seventies); he has a series of trap lines and rarely uses a parka, even at -30'. The closest town is Eagle, about 30 miles away via dog sled, with a population of about 100. Almost all live by the ut restrictions on code, "Never put restrictions on any individual.... Up here they ain't gettin' you for spittin' on the sidewalk."
Ironically, most moved there for the space, yet land is less available (as of 1977) than in the lower '48 because when Alaska became a state deals were made with the native Americans and the federal government to set aside almost the entire state as either a reservation or park land. Whereas before statehood someone could build a cabin 80 miles from nowhere, now a government helicopter might fly over and throw them out. Homesteading no longer exists, but in Alaska that loss seems especially poignant in territory where you might have to fly somewhere to take a shower.
McPhee's book is divided into three parts: first an exploration of wilderness described during the course of a canoe/kayak trip down the Salmon River. Much in the manner of the river, his descriptions meander into all sorts of eddies and whirlpools. His description of bush pilots is priceless. On one occasion he is flying (a regularly scheduled airline, mind you) in a single engine plane in horrible weather. The pilot is skimming the trees to find landmarks because he can't see anything. He has a map on his lap, but suddenly hands it to a passenger to help figure out where they are. "I had been chewing gum so vigorously that the hinges of my jaws would ache for two days."
Stumbling on a grizzly bear in a blueberry patch (fortunately upwind), he muses on the best way to survive a grizzly's charge - no consensus of opinion, but most survivors believe the best thing to do is stand absolutely still and shout as loudly as possible, for that is the least likely reaction the bear, which does not have good sight, would expect of game. Running away is useless for grizzlies are very fast. They are also quite coordinated. They enjoy schussing down snow-covered mountains at 96 feet/second through trees and around boulders only to screech to a stop, stand up and walk away, just before going -over the edge of a cliff.
The second part of the book discusses the Alaskan government's search for a new capital and the conflict that generated. Juneau really makes a lousy site because of its remoteness, not to mention its horrible landing approach to the airport. Alaska attracts very independent and anti-authoritarian types of people so it witnesses a battle between those suffering from the "Sierra Club Syndrome" or others fondly embracing the "Dallas Scenario."
Many of these folks are affectionately profiled in the third section. John Cook, for example, has consciously tried to eliminate the need for money and authority. He tries to live on $1,500 a year (this was written in the mid seventies); he has a series of trap lines and rarely uses a parka, even at -30'. The closest town is Eagle, about 30 miles away via dog sled, with a population of about 100. Almost all live by the ut restrictions on code, "Never put restrictions on any individual.... Up here they ain't gettin' you for spittin' on the sidewalk."
Ironically, most moved there for the space, yet land is less available (as of 1977) than in the lower '48 because when Alaska became a state deals were made with the native Americans and the federal government to set aside almost the entire state as either a reservation or park land. Whereas before statehood someone could build a cabin 80 miles from nowhere, now a government helicopter might fly over and throw them out. Homesteading no longer exists, but in Alaska that loss seems especially poignant in territory where you might have to fly somewhere to take a shower.
February 13, 2012
I love McPhee's writing. I first read this book when it was published in part in the New Yorker, and again soon after it was published as a book. So this is the third time I've read it. I've read maybe ten books three times, so I really, really like this.
First, because McPhee writes so beautifully. He could write about anything and I would read it. I've even read his geology books. Not because I like geology, (I don't), but because I just eat up his words. It is like eating chocolate, I usually stop when the supply runs out, not because I'm finished.
Second, the people and the spirit that makes up Alaska. Everything is so unbelievably huge. I love the stories about people who cut tractors up into pieces, fly them to remote regions, weld them back together so they can build an airstrip for a bigger plane.
Third, the Alaska he writes about was disappearing when he wrote it, and has been replaced with at least two generations of Alaska since then.
I will be visiting Alaska this summer and I am looking forward to seeing what's new and what remains of the old. Will it be strip malls? I'll let you know.
First, because McPhee writes so beautifully. He could write about anything and I would read it. I've even read his geology books. Not because I like geology, (I don't), but because I just eat up his words. It is like eating chocolate, I usually stop when the supply runs out, not because I'm finished.
Second, the people and the spirit that makes up Alaska. Everything is so unbelievably huge. I love the stories about people who cut tractors up into pieces, fly them to remote regions, weld them back together so they can build an airstrip for a bigger plane.
Third, the Alaska he writes about was disappearing when he wrote it, and has been replaced with at least two generations of Alaska since then.
I will be visiting Alaska this summer and I am looking forward to seeing what's new and what remains of the old. Will it be strip malls? I'll let you know.
April 14, 2017
A bit boring in some segments in the middle, but the book redeems itself with John McPhee's wonderful prose style and the fierce personalities of his subjects.
March 16, 2024
Boring men travel down a river, stop, fish, throw some shit into their campfire, discuss bear maulings, I fell asleep. Just no.
April 29, 2019
This book is a somewhat lengthy discussion of three different aspects of Alaskan existence. Although I have traveled to Alaska, I must admit that I am not very knowledgeable about its ways, although I have a few friends who have lived there and could probably have more to say about the sorts of deep divisions that Alaskan society has. I must say, though, that in general much of the sort of division shown here is something that I can relate to as someone with a generally strong knowledge of the divisiveness of life in rural America and the wellspring of ambivalence there is about government and identity in many parts of the United States outside of the big cities. Alaska does seem, at least in this book, to be a very small world, and small worlds have a great degree of similarity in that they bring out the pettiness and fractiousness of people to a greater extent than is evident when one looks only at human beings en masse. If this book was definitely not my favorite by the author, it certainly provided, as always, an entertaining look at people the author happens to be spending a lot of time with.
This nearly 450 page book is divided into three parts that explore different aspects of the Alaskan experience. In the first book, "The Encircled River," the author goes on an adventurous kayak adventure in one of Alaska's many Salmon Rivers, surrounded by the Brooks Range in northern Alaska and dealing with people as varied as forest Eskimos and government employees who want to protect large swaths of Alaskan wilderness as well as the possibility of harm from Alaska's massive grizzlies. The second book, "What They Were Hunting For," is a rather grim and self-absorbed look at Alaskans hunting for a location for a new state capital, arguing about the dominance of Anchorage, and demonstrating a distinct lack of interest in the rest of the world outside of their large but remote state, which at times almost seems like foreign territory for all it knows or cares of the lower 48. Finally, the third book, "Coming Into The Country," examines the divisions and rivalries among a group of people who have mostly left behind their life in the lower 48 and come to live in Alaska seeking homesteads, quarreling with the government while sometimes seeking public aid, and worried about politics and religion and questions of identity.
Indeed, as a whole this particular book demonstrates the ferocity of identity questions when one looks at Alaska. A wide variety of people seek very different things in coming to Alaska, including space from others even while remaining dependent on logistical chains going to larger cities, political power in a small world where it does not take much to be a big fish (and this even before Sarah Palin), and a desire to create a somewhat anarchical society with little money that is funded by government largess due to the oil wealth there, as well as an unspoiled wilderness free of anyone but themselves to sort out boundaries and questions of who deserves the landfalls to be received from the exploitation of the Alaskan wilderness and its resources. I must admit that I do not find the Alaskans to be all that different from the people I grew up around, and I was pleased to find so many interested in books despite the difficulties of collecting books in such remote territory. If Alaska is a bit cold and remote for my tastes, the tensions of Alaskan society are only slightly more exaggerated than those of most rural areas in the American west or south, for similar reasons of colonialism.
This nearly 450 page book is divided into three parts that explore different aspects of the Alaskan experience. In the first book, "The Encircled River," the author goes on an adventurous kayak adventure in one of Alaska's many Salmon Rivers, surrounded by the Brooks Range in northern Alaska and dealing with people as varied as forest Eskimos and government employees who want to protect large swaths of Alaskan wilderness as well as the possibility of harm from Alaska's massive grizzlies. The second book, "What They Were Hunting For," is a rather grim and self-absorbed look at Alaskans hunting for a location for a new state capital, arguing about the dominance of Anchorage, and demonstrating a distinct lack of interest in the rest of the world outside of their large but remote state, which at times almost seems like foreign territory for all it knows or cares of the lower 48. Finally, the third book, "Coming Into The Country," examines the divisions and rivalries among a group of people who have mostly left behind their life in the lower 48 and come to live in Alaska seeking homesteads, quarreling with the government while sometimes seeking public aid, and worried about politics and religion and questions of identity.
Indeed, as a whole this particular book demonstrates the ferocity of identity questions when one looks at Alaska. A wide variety of people seek very different things in coming to Alaska, including space from others even while remaining dependent on logistical chains going to larger cities, political power in a small world where it does not take much to be a big fish (and this even before Sarah Palin), and a desire to create a somewhat anarchical society with little money that is funded by government largess due to the oil wealth there, as well as an unspoiled wilderness free of anyone but themselves to sort out boundaries and questions of who deserves the landfalls to be received from the exploitation of the Alaskan wilderness and its resources. I must admit that I do not find the Alaskans to be all that different from the people I grew up around, and I was pleased to find so many interested in books despite the difficulties of collecting books in such remote territory. If Alaska is a bit cold and remote for my tastes, the tensions of Alaskan society are only slightly more exaggerated than those of most rural areas in the American west or south, for similar reasons of colonialism.
August 10, 2019
It is ten-thirty, and about time for bed. Everything burnable—and more, too—has long since gone into the fire. We burn our plastic freeze-dry bags and we burn our Swiss Miss cocoa packets. If we have cans—devilled ham, Spam—we burn them, until all hint of their contents is gone.Please, don't burn garbage while camping. Aluminum foil, plastics, styrofoam and batteries don't just disappear when burned. Burning food residue from unlined cans and packing them out is ok, though. What's Burning in Your Campfire? Garbage In, Toxics Out. (or if you prefer, pdf format)
You might also enjoy:
✱ Kings of the Yukon (highly recommended)
✱ The Lonely Land (highly recommended)
✱ Made of Salmon: Alaska Stories from the Salmon Project
✱ Tip of the Iceberg
✱ Two in the Far North
✱ The Only Kayak
✱ Rhythm of the Wild
✱ Rowing to Latitude
✱ Passage to Juneau
✱ Arctic Dreams
✱ Crossing Open Ground
✱ One Man's Wilderness
✱ The Good Rain
February 29, 2012
McPhee's Coming Into the Country is rightly considered a classic with its detailed description on life in mid-1970s Alaska. Much of the writing is stunning, packed full of river trips and anecdotes about characters the author encountered during his many months in the country. He captures well the contradictions embodied in many Alaskans: a thirst for solitude alternating with a an affinity for social gatherings, an abhorrence of government even as they live and trap on public land, and the sparse population combined with a sense that there are few places left to go, live, and be free. McPhee's writing style full of rapid fire quotes summing up various points of view is effective in conveying these contradictions. He also captures an important transitional time in the state's history when the Trans-Alaskan oil pipeline and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act were new realities. Read nearly 40 years after it was published, I believe the book reflects an important historical slice of Alaskan culture.
Despite the overall high quality of writing, I found that some parts dragged (I found myself skimming dozens of pages related to a possible shift of Alaska's capital city from Juneau to parts unknown). If 4.5 stars were possible, that is what it would receive from me.
Despite the overall high quality of writing, I found that some parts dragged (I found myself skimming dozens of pages related to a possible shift of Alaska's capital city from Juneau to parts unknown). If 4.5 stars were possible, that is what it would receive from me.
April 24, 2017
John McPhee is one of my journalistic heroes. I read him obsessively when I was younger and yearning to become a journalist myself. This book, about Alaska, is perhaps my favorite, or at least the one I'd recommend to someone who has never read McPhee before. These days, when everyone seems to have a severely truncated attention span, perhaps McPhee can seem a touch long-winded, but I completely disagree -- I don't think he wastes a sentence. He does write in a pre-internet way, and that, in my opinion, is nothing but good. Read him on paper, not an e-reader, if possible. Even better, take this book in your backpack and head up to Alaska. Perhaps take the public ferry there, out of Bellingham, Washington. It's extremely reasonable. Bring a sleeping bag and sleep on the sundeck, saving your money. You see the same sights as the most expensive cruise ships in the world, and you'll meet some amazing people. Read "Coming into the Country" at night. See the northern lights. Feel goosebumps all over. Change your life forever. That's what I did, and I haven't regretted it for a moment.
February 21, 2010
I'd easily put this in my top ten books ever read category, right up there alongside another McPhee book, Annals of the Former World.
This book is written for folks like myself, that are obsessed with the ideal of living in Alaska, of getting away from it all, of the dream of escaping from a corrupt country, into a country that while in America, is definitely not of America. McPhee has some of the most wonderful prose I have ever read, and he tackles with it the three frontiers, all wild to different degrees: the political, the conservational, and the individual. The individual frontier being the most fascinating of all as he paints a living picture of the type of men that "don't fit in".
This book is written for folks like myself, that are obsessed with the ideal of living in Alaska, of getting away from it all, of the dream of escaping from a corrupt country, into a country that while in America, is definitely not of America. McPhee has some of the most wonderful prose I have ever read, and he tackles with it the three frontiers, all wild to different degrees: the political, the conservational, and the individual. The individual frontier being the most fascinating of all as he paints a living picture of the type of men that "don't fit in".
April 13, 2020
Brilliant three-part, million-facet look at Alaska. My favorite part is probably the first--"The Encircled River"--which is literally a textbook example of how to write a travel narrative, with a grizzly at each end. The middle part is sly political commentary, but the last and longest part is what McPhee is always doing: introducing you to people and arranging that you see the world from their eyes, even when they can't do that for each other. The scale and the number of inhabitants of Eagle, AK, and environs is suitably Alaskan, and so alien to what I like, believe, care for, or share that it is astounding how long I spent in that place and still enjoyed myself. It's always McPhee, without a wristwatch, terrified of grizzlies, and listening loudly that makes this work. Recommended for social distancing.
August 21, 2021
It's hard to believe this book is almost 35 years old, a long time in this genre, and one wonders how he would report a visit to Alaska now. I have enjoyed many of his pieces, and this one is pretty good too. If I have any qualms, it might be that he is a tad repetitive and some of the information was perhaps a bit more than I wanted to hear about. I think it could easily have been a hundred pages trimmed, but I guess you can always skip past things if you wanted to. Oddly enough, even as beautiful as so many people say Alaska is, it is one place I do not have that much of a craze to visit.
August 7, 2025
I don’t usually read nonfiction but when it’s McPhee I know it’ll be good. He is able to immerse himself in wilderness/cultures and write about some of the most fascinating people without voyeurism or artifice. His respect for the people and places he writes about is obvious.
I expected to enjoy the panoramic scenes of canoe trips, grueling journeys in 40 below, and the nuances of land preservation. I did not expect to enjoy learning about early statehood politics, trap lines, sluice, Cat D9s, and pilot navigation. The heart of Alaska is in this book.. you can feel the wild and the expanse of it.
I expected to enjoy the panoramic scenes of canoe trips, grueling journeys in 40 below, and the nuances of land preservation. I did not expect to enjoy learning about early statehood politics, trap lines, sluice, Cat D9s, and pilot navigation. The heart of Alaska is in this book.. you can feel the wild and the expanse of it.
May 5, 2024
Coming Into the Country was on every list I found of books to read before visiting Alaska. Written in 1977, at times it was a little dated - but still interesting. The book is essentially broken into three sections - one is a group of men out canoeing, fishing, camping, one is about the debate about moving the capital of Alaska out of Juneau, and one is McPhee’s experiences when he moved to a town of 86 and spent his time learning about the residents and their stories. All in all an interesting read that gave me a sense of what the area was like about 45 years ago.
July 31, 2020
Alaska is a fantastic setting and McPhee intertwines a lot of themes in interesting ways: Frontierism, environmental preservation, geopolitics, native rights, individuality and self sufficiency, mining history... I think it falls off a little in the 3rd section as it becomes less tightly structured and more of a series of biographical vignettes and a portrait of bush country. The first and second parts are among the best I've read of him.
August 28, 2025
I enjoyed reading about the people of Alaska, through their stories. Great book describing the people and the way they live.
May 31, 2021
Who would have thought an anthropological, almost ethnographic, account of the author's time spent in the nation's Last Frontier, the great North of Alaska, just a handful of years after its admission to the Union as the 49th state, would be so wholly engaging. Not this city boy.
John McPhee was a Princeton-educated easterner from New Jersey with an interest in preservation and environmental concerns, but also an extraordinary ability to capture peoples with his depiction of their most mundane moments: foraging for food, constructing shelter in the subarctic wild, and even subsisting on public assistance in the extreme northwest fringes of the country. Yet he brings to life an assortment of highly developed real-life characters just living their usual lives under very unusual circumstances.
The book is largely sectioned off into accounts of the author's personal travails through the bush north of Fairbanks but south of the North Slope: bears, ptarmigans, graylings, Eskimos, and ice cold glacial rivers. Then the story moves south to the story of site selection for the potential move of the capital from Juneau to Anchorage. Political intrigue, tensions between locals and the state and federal government. Bears. The Anchorage media sought to pressure a move closer to the center of population in the state, while Juneau persisted despite its remote location to the extreme southeast of the state. Finally, the author moves the story to the tiny towns north and east of Fairbanks such as Circle, Eagle, and Tok, where only the hardiest of diehards will brave the extreme winters, and bears, along the Yukon River at minus sixty and seventy below zero.
I was amazed and impressed with the honesty and utterly guileless approach the author took to writing of river and bush people who are self-described isolationists. McPhee genuinely loves his subjects and relates their love for the land, despite their eccentricities, gruffness, and the endless cycle of death that pervades the wild. "You look at this country, it hits you in the face. . . . That life and death are not a duality. They're just simply here--life, death--in the all-pervading mesh that holds things together."
It's a rare thing to find a pick that captivates each time I pick it up, which reads so fluidly and seamlessly that it's akin to catching up with a longtime acquaintance. I read this book in preparation for an upcoming trip to Alaska, and what I found was a world of wonder unlocked by the narrative of a keen observer who loved those he observed.
I am looking forward to my trip.
John McPhee was a Princeton-educated easterner from New Jersey with an interest in preservation and environmental concerns, but also an extraordinary ability to capture peoples with his depiction of their most mundane moments: foraging for food, constructing shelter in the subarctic wild, and even subsisting on public assistance in the extreme northwest fringes of the country. Yet he brings to life an assortment of highly developed real-life characters just living their usual lives under very unusual circumstances.
The book is largely sectioned off into accounts of the author's personal travails through the bush north of Fairbanks but south of the North Slope: bears, ptarmigans, graylings, Eskimos, and ice cold glacial rivers. Then the story moves south to the story of site selection for the potential move of the capital from Juneau to Anchorage. Political intrigue, tensions between locals and the state and federal government. Bears. The Anchorage media sought to pressure a move closer to the center of population in the state, while Juneau persisted despite its remote location to the extreme southeast of the state. Finally, the author moves the story to the tiny towns north and east of Fairbanks such as Circle, Eagle, and Tok, where only the hardiest of diehards will brave the extreme winters, and bears, along the Yukon River at minus sixty and seventy below zero.
I was amazed and impressed with the honesty and utterly guileless approach the author took to writing of river and bush people who are self-described isolationists. McPhee genuinely loves his subjects and relates their love for the land, despite their eccentricities, gruffness, and the endless cycle of death that pervades the wild. "You look at this country, it hits you in the face. . . . That life and death are not a duality. They're just simply here--life, death--in the all-pervading mesh that holds things together."
It's a rare thing to find a pick that captivates each time I pick it up, which reads so fluidly and seamlessly that it's akin to catching up with a longtime acquaintance. I read this book in preparation for an upcoming trip to Alaska, and what I found was a world of wonder unlocked by the narrative of a keen observer who loved those he observed.
I am looking forward to my trip.
February 22, 2009
This book was a challenge for me. McPhee divided his exploration of Alaska into three sections--the first, stage-setting section on the northern tree line; the second, uses the search for an ideal site for a new state capital to explore urban Alaska; and the final section, on "the bush," really focuses on the motives and lifestyles of in-migrants to the state. I breezed through the first two parts; the relocation of the state capital (which never happened) in particular was literally a bird's eye view of Alaskan cities and their inhabitants. The third part, however, desperately needed editing: descriptions of grizzly dangers, gold-sluicing methods, and conflicts among resource-hungry and cabin-fevered Yukon inhabitants became monotonous and overly repetitive. McPhee clearly became enamored of the rugged individualists who chose to leave the Lower Forty-eight behind to build lives based on subsistence and skills-building. While his book does not gloss over their less admirable qualities--a tendency toward paranoia, chaos, alchoholism, and particularly misogyny--he comes down firmly for their willingness to pit themselves against nature. Surveying the environmental effects of one gold-mining team's efforts, he writes, "This pretty little stream is being disassembled in the name of gold.... Am I disgusted? Manifestly not.... This mine is a cork on the sea. Meanwhile (and, possibly more seriously), the relationship between this father and son is as attractive as anything I have seen in Alaska--both of them self-reliant beyond the usual reach of the term, the characteristic formed by this country." (410) This celebration of masculine triumph over nature is nothing new, and is disappointing from a writer who can be such a subtle thinker.
Want to read
September 30, 2025Uncle Eric rec
August 9, 2017
“What had struck me most in the isolation of this wilderness was an abiding sense of paradox. In its raw, convincing emphasis on the irrelevance of the visitor, it was forcefully, importantly repellent. It was no less strongly attractive—with a beauty of nowhere else, composed in turning circles. If the wild land was indifferent, it gave a sense of difference. If at moments it was frightening, requiring an effort to put down the conflagrationary imagination, it also augmented the touch of life. This was not a dare with nature. This was nature.”
I'll read John McPhee on any subject. So glad I don't live in Alaska, and so glad I read this book. Fantastic perspective of the land and the deeply curious and strong people who inhabit it.
July 2, 2013
The Country lies around the upper Yukon River. The book induced aching for it. This one work teaches more about Alaska than any other source I know: Statehood demeaned Alaska, the Native Claims Settlement Act made a well-intentioned wreck, and the pipeline contorted it in good and bad ways that will prove insignificant over time. Most of all, the book made clear how painful the federal government's interference is to "whites and Indians alike" of The Country.
July 19, 2013
I read this book in the mid-80's. I was encouraged to read it by a friend who had lived in Alaska in the early 80's and knew some of the people mentioned in the book. I remember I liked it and found it interesting but I don't remember too much about the details.
November 30, 2007
I know this is practically sacrilegious, but this was my second favorite book I read before I traveled to Alaska in the early 80s. My favorite book was Going to Extremes by Joe McGinniss.
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