I learned in school that blood has a memory. It carries information that makes you who you are. That’s how my brother and me ended up with so much
I learned in school that blood has a memory. It carries information that makes you who you are. That’s how my brother and me ended up with so much in common, we both carried inside us the things our parents’ blood remembered. Sharing what’s in the blood, that’s as close as you can be to another person.
…I spent as much time as I could in the woods. To look at me, you might of thought, But you are only seventeen, and a girl, you have got no business being off in the wild by yourself where a bear could maul you or a moose trample you. But the fact is, if they put me and anyone else in the wilderness and left us there, you just see which one of us come out a week later, unharmed and even thriving
In the great north, snow and isolation can hide a world of secrets, but some will still bleed through.
Being a badass has certain advantages, particularly when one spends so much time in the Alaskan woods. It’s maybe not always an advantage in places with fewer trees, like school. Tracy Sue Petricoff is seventeen. She can handle herself in the wild. But she is not yet able to handle the wild in herself. You might even see her as half-feral. Her latest attack on a classmate, however justified it might have been, has resulted in her being cast out of the more structured world of public education, and left her to the somewhat less restrictive environment of home. Of course, home has not been an entirely safe place for her either.
[image] Jamey Bradbury - from her site
Her mother had died when Tracy was fifteen, hit by a car while walking on the side of the road near their home. This left a huge gap in Tracy’s upbringing, as mom was the person who knew her best, who had taught her to recognize animal tracks, who had taught her to identify plants and their uses, and who truly understood her innermost self, an unspoken family legacy that is both a gift and a curse. Her father, Bill, a good man, a regular contender in the annual Iditarod, was rocked by his wife’s death, lost his focus, struggled to cope, but is trying his best to be mother and father to Tracy and her younger brother, Scott. This includes rules, but Tracy reacts to rules like a bear might to a trap. Her mother gave her one cardinal rule. Never make another person bleed. Sorry, Mom.
Returning home from the woods one night a large man slams into her. In the ensuing tussle, she is tossed hard enough against a tree that she loses consciousness. On waking she finds there is blood on her knife, and a trail where the man had gone. Her memory of the event is fuzzy. Did she cut the man? Why had they crossed paths? She tries to put it out of her mind, but when neighbors report an intruder having stayed in their cabin, and her father comes to the aid of a bleeding man emerging from the woods, she wonders if this is the man she had encountered, and will he be coming back, for her.
I felt the trail tugging at me, every acre of land behind the house yearning for me to roam its familiar hills and hollows. Any other evening, I might of stole away for a few more minutes, long enough to satisfy the craving in me.
But underneath that pang was my heart, stuttering, and my skin prickling. A pair of eyes, a hunched shadow, hidden by the night and waiting. Thoughts of the stranger made my breath stop, and it wasn’t a feeling I enjoyed. I wouldn’t feel settled, I realized, till I knew he was no longer a threat.
The Wild Inside is a riveting, genre-bending coming-of-age/thriller/mystery/horror novel with a dose of fantasy and a touch of romance. Tracy would like nothing more than to be left to her devices, hunting, setting traps, retrieving what she catches for food and fur and racing with her dogs. Her personal receiver is tuned to the call of the wild, as she feels a particular affinity with the animals of the forest, can perceive and interpret sounds, smells, and sights that most will overlook. She is as much a creature of the woods as she is a civilized human being. I was very much reminded of the character Turtle from My Absolute Darling, in her toughness and feel for the natural, not that other stuff. She is a woodland detective, as skilled as Sherlock Holmes at spotting clues, but with the nose of a hound and the night vision of an owl. And she is determined to unravel the mystery of her forest fracas. For reasons of her own, Tracy does not tell her father about her unfortunate encounter. (What a tangled web we weave) The secrets involved with that event lock her into a series of lies that make her life much more complicated than it needs to be, with tragic results.
[image] Image is from the author’s site
More complications ensue when dad hires a young drifter to help out. Bill trains dogs, has forty doghouses and a kennel on the property. That is a lot of shoveling, and other chores as well. As he takes on outside work in addition to bring in enough to provide for his family, Bill could sure use the help. How much do they really know about Jesse Goodwin, who seems to be particularly adept at gaining Bill’s trust? Can Jesse be trusted? There is something off about the new hired hand, an odd sort, whose CV does not always hold up to close, or even routine scrutiny. Trying to figure out the mystery of Jesse is part of the fun of the book. The tension of wondering if/when the mysterious man from the forest will return and wondering what he will want is another. The boogeyman just outside the frame is a device that works well to sustain the tension level.
The Iditarod features large in this landscape, Dad having been a regular contestant, Tracy having competed in the Junior Iditarod, with her final Junior race and the full-on Mush-mania, for which she will be eligible for the first time, both on a near horizon. Tracy loves to race dogs as much as she loves to run, to hunt, and to breathe in the fullness of the woods. It provides motivation for some of her decision-making, both the good and bad sorts. Although she is basically a good person, she is no paragon. In fact, she can be a pretty self-involved teenager and if you count on her to always do the right thing, your totals will be off. There is a dramatic, dark twist near the end that some readers will find discomfiting. I thought it made sense under the circumstances, and how Tracy handles it is consistent with what we have seen of her up to then. It’s a pretty daring move by Bradbury to steer her tale in that direction. Whether you approve or not, it will definitely jangle your senses, and makes for an outside-the-box ending.
There was one item in the story that jangled my senses a bit. I did not understand how Tracy thought she could get away with paying substantial entry fees for races without having a well-prepared explanation for how she got the money. A solution is found later but Tracy’s presumption seemed a bit much, even for a teenager. In another instance. I thought it a stretch that one character was far too ready to try talking with another who had already confessed to some pretty dire deeds. A more reasonable range of choices would seem to be either lock and load or stay the hell away.
[image] Image is from the author’s site
Bradbury’s love for the landscape comes through loud and clear (and, I expect, played a role in her decision to live in Anchorage for the last fifteen years, having been born and raised in Illinois) in her lyrical, beautiful writing. The cold, the woods, the severe beauty of the landscape all serve as a wonderful backdrop for and echo of the harsh challenges Tracy faces.
Tracy Sue Petricoff’s physical DNA is known, but if I were checking her literary DNA markers, I would be looking for signs of Mowgli, John Clayton, and Katniss Everdeen. Jamey Bradbury’s freshman novel is a triumph, a coming of age tale set in the borderlands, interior and exterior, where the wild meets the world. Her struggle to understand and gain some control over the urges she experiences makes her relatable, even though our adjustments might not have been so daunting. It is riveting, tear-inducing, and jolts through such sudden turns that you will need to make sure your feet are firmly planted on your sled, and your team is exceptionally well-trained. You would hate to tumble and be left behind. This is one ride you will want to mush through to the end.
The Aleutian Archipelago: fourteen large and fifty-five small volcanic islands, strung over more than a thousand miles. Somewhere there, he’s alive
The Aleutian Archipelago: fourteen large and fifty-five small volcanic islands, strung over more than a thousand miles. Somewhere there, he’s alive. On good days, her faith overshadows doubt. And what is faith but belief independent of proof, a conviction that stands on its own. To this she knows John would roll his eyes. The thought makes her smile.
John Easley is missing. Shaken by the death of his RCAF brother over the English Channel, the 38-year-old writer determines to bring information to the people at home about what is really happening in the war. It seems so much more meaningful to him than reporting on bird migration for National Geographic. He feels he owes Warren at least that much. His wife, Helen, disagrees. Their last words before he took off yet again on a war-reporting mission were harsh, and final.
She is facing challenges of her own. Her father is not well, and she wants to be there for him. She is struggling with not having much by way of work skills and is stuck at a low-level job. John’s absence gnaws at her until, realizing that she still loves him, she decides to do everything in her power to find and bring him home. John had bailed out from a damaged aircraft over the Japanese occupied island of Attu. He struggles to survive in the treeless tundra. Helen struggles to find him.
[image] Brian Payton - from his site
The story flips back and forth between the challenges John and Helen face. John has to figure out how to stay alive, and hidden from the occupying army. I was reminded of David Malouf’s excellent book, An Imaginary Life , about another person isolated in an arctic realm. Helen must figure out how to find John. Both face daunting tasks.
The Wind is a powerful, beautifully written, heart-wrenching love story, but sails well past any simple notions of romance. There is struggle here with the imagined instead of the actual partner. Does there come a time when imagination, whether fed by love or not, loses its sharp focus? How can love survive absence of the other? How far can love take a person when the odds are overwhelmingly against? Can love keep someone alive?
In addition to the compelling tale of a reverse Odyssey, one in which Penelope goes in search of Ulysses, Payton offers us considerable payload in his look at a little-seen part of WW II history. For those who thought that the last time the USA endured the landing of foreign troops was during the War of 1812, you have another think coming. Japan captured and occupied several of the Aleutian islands, and had plans to advance farther. News media of the time was subject to government censorship and the political leaders did not want it known that a foreign power had successfully invaded US territory. We are given a look at a remote and challenging aspect of the war. Along those lines Payton drops in bits of information. For instance, because the land was challenging as a place on which to build strong flat surfaces, a runway was constructed of metal matting cinched together. Another scene shows Americans dropping off planes for Soviet pilots to fly back to the USSR and use in the war on Hitler. We also get a look at the USO,
[image] The USO sees action - from strangemilitary.com
As for gripes, I have two. While the cover art is beautiful, it fails to let the reader know what this book is all about, focusing as it does on a single early moment in the story, and ignoring what follows. I was not all that thrilled with the ending. But that did not detract from the great joy that can be had reading this book. Your heart will get quite a workout. John Easley, a decent guy, is engaged in a prolonged life-and-death struggle, and Helen’s love takes on heroic dimensions. There is a large range of emotion from which to draw here. Uplift to be experienced, delight in beauty of various sorts, appreciation for the sacrifices of some, anger, sadness and disappointment as well. Bring your hankies. The love that Brian Payton portrays glows even brighter against the spare environment in which it is set.
The American Booksellers Association named the Wind is not the River a January ’14 Next List pick
Mention is made in the book about John Huston making a documentary of the military campaign in the Aleutians. Here is the film, Report from the Aleutians. It clocks in at 43:13.
A shorter (17:26), color version can be found here
Here is a map of the Aleutians that seemed too tough to read to fit the image into the body of the review
The National Park Service also has some interesting information about the Aleutians here
Plastic Duckie, You’re the one. Well, one of 28,800 anyway.
Donovan Hohn begins his tale with an accident at sea. A container ship, in the face of fifPlastic Duckie, You’re the one. Well, one of 28,800 anyway.
Donovan Hohn begins his tale with an accident at sea. A container ship, in the face of fifty-foot waves, rolls sufficiently to dump more than a few containers, those box-car sized giant legos that we use to transport stuff from here to there. One such dumpee held a large quantity of plastic bath toys. Included were beavers, frogs, turtles and the most-familiar, ducks. Not rubber, mind you, but plastic. His aim is to find as many places as possible where the friendly critters might have beached. Did they all? Beach, that is? What happened to these things? That is the crux of the investigation. Or at least the Maguffin of the story, as Hohn, in questing after ultimate ports of the lost bath toys, finds many items of interest along the way.
The location of the spill is discovered in short order, but we learn that such information is a closely held corporate secret. Hohn sets off on a variety of individual adventures. He travels on a thousand-foot-plus container ship through the very waters where the bath toys had taken a tumble. They disembarked south of the Aleutians, in a current known as the North Pacific Subpolar Gyre. I presume they proceeded to gimble in the waves. (Ok, Ok, pushing it. I know). Is there any chance that they managed to find their way into Arctic waters and then through and down to the Atlantic coast? I’m not telling.
[image] From the author's site
He joins Chris Pallister, head of an Alaskan NGO, trying to clean up the mass quantities of floating crap that winds up on parts of the Alaskan coast. Chris had had an eye-opening experience in the political world
the first day he [Pallister] reported to duty [as a staffer for Alaska’s Republican senator Frank Murkowski] …Murkowski assigned him the task of rifling through the Endangered Species Act for loopholes.
There are those who contend that Chris’s efforts do nothing to solve the problem, that cleaning up the extant mess only gives cover to those who are responsible for it, and drains available resources from better targeted efforts. Hohn sails with marine scientists and checks out a Pacific location known as the Great Garbage Patch. It turns out there is an explanation for why flotsam collects in certain places, and one may conjure images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. He sails on a Canadian Ice Breaker, visits far-north native communities, visits the factory where the floaters were born, even checks in with the child psychology professionals who had a hand in the toys’ design.
As with any good book there are at least as many questions raised as answers found. And as with most good stories, it is about the journey, not the destination.
We learn something about giant container ships, why they are so gigantic, how they fare in the ocean, and learn what special oceanic tricks might have caused the ducks to dive. We learn a fair bit about ocean currents and the more sprightly gyres. There is significant information on the status of the Arctic Ocean and a compelling discussion on the nature of “the commons." Here are a few more nuggets. Albatrosses go after floating plastic because it tends to be encrusted with barnacles. Only 5 percent of plastics get recycled. Among the many theories of the nature of the North Pole, Plato thought that the pole lay at the head of a giant tunnel through which water circulated to the earth’s core. Sounds like a theory Ted Stevens could get behind. One of my favorite factoids in the book was why the federal government promoted the use of bath toys in the 1940s. It is bound to make you smile.
So, read, enjoy, learn.
[image] Donovan Hohn - from the Telegraph
This brings us to some other aspects. First I have to offer up a large asterisk. I found this book to be a rather slow read. But I am not sure how much was the book and how much was me. For reasons that I will not go into here, my spirits have been at a low ebb for a week or so, and I might have had a tough time getting through The Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck let alone a somewhat lengthier tale of her distant relations. But now that I have made my excuses…
For a book like this to succeed it must engage the reader, it must offer new information, and it must put you at ease with your Virgil. It does not hurt if it is a fast read, and it is a good thing if the reader cares about the author’s quest. There is a wealth of information here, but I felt that information appeared at the peaks of waves and the distance between peaks was sometimes too great. Hohn seems like a pretty decent guy, likeable, intelligent, inquisitive. He reports about his struggles coping with being away from home for considerable durations, once as his first child is about to pop out. Kudos to the missus for her extreme understanding and forebearance. Hohn comes across well, but I felt that there was maybe a bit too much of his personal experience bobbing to the surface at times, and that it slowed down the story he was telling. I will not tell the final result of his journey of discovery, but I did feel that he drifted off course a time or two and that also slowed things down.
So bottom line is that this is a book that has a wealth of information to impart. You will be surprised enough at some items and will learn enough overall to make this a worthwhile read, despite running into an occasional doldrum.
If you want more detail, here is the study from the journal Science to which the NatGeo article refers - Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made - by Roland Geyer, Jenna R. Jambeck and Kara Lavender Law
[image] This dead albatross chick was found with plastics in its stomach on Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Marine plastic can be dangerous to wildlife. - text from the above article - Photograph by Dan Clark, USFWS/AP
Before the recognition he received for Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer was a serious outdoors type, writing about other serious outdoorsBefore the recognition he received for Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer was a serious outdoors type, writing about other serious outdoors types. In this collection of essays, Krakauer relates several stories of his personal adventures, one about a youthful, and maybe foolish venture to a particularly difficult climb in Alaska, another about his attempt at Eiger. And these are quite good. But I most enjoy Krakauer when he writes about the Damon-Runyon-esque characters who inhabit the world of extreme adventuring.
[image] John Krakauer - image fr0m his Facebook pages
For example, in Gill, he writes of John Gill, the world’s foremost practitioner of “bouldering” (think fly on ceiling) as someone who might really levitate. Two drunken brothers manage to have a crack at a surprising number of major climbs despite their disinclination to organization and sobriety in The Burgess Boys. Chamonix is a town in France Krakauer calls the “death sport capital of the world.” The story features a bar in which large screens entertain the crowd with diverse scenes of death and near death. It is laugh-out-loud funny when Krakauer illuminates the sundry ethnic conflicts, with particular attention paid to the creative insults each enjoy using on the other. It called to mind Python-like Frenchmen launching diseased animals at their English foes while calling out “come back here so we can taunt you some more.”
While most of us are not likely to have a go at Eiger’s north face, work as bush pilots, try surviving hurricane force winds with temperatures so cold as to defy imagination while huddled in a torn tent or dubious ice cave at twenty-something thousand feet, it is a wonderful thing to have some crazy person who lives in that world to report to the rest of us what goes on there. Eiger Dreams is a fast, entertaining and informative read.
Caribou Island is a masterpiece. Set in the remote bleakness of water-soaked, small town Alaska, this is a tale of desperation, failure, of man-versuCaribou Island is a masterpiece. Set in the remote bleakness of water-soaked, small town Alaska, this is a tale of desperation, failure, of man-versus-nature but also of man so arrogant and self-involved, so removed from reality that he does not bother to properly prepare for the battle. Some hope is gleaned, some battles are won, but the war seen here is a dark, suffocating presence.
Alaska felt like the end of the world, a place of exile. Those who couldn’t fit anywhere else came here, and if they couldn't cling to anything here, they just fell off the edge. These tiny towns in a great expanse, enclaves of despair.
Whereas most fiction floats atop a watery base of prose, Vann’s characters and story sit amidst a thick stew of imagery. His writing has the density, the economy of a short story. No event occurs that does not contribute to the underlying momentum, or to enhancing our understanding of the characters or their actions. Salmon thrashing about on the deck of a boat echo how his characters struggle to survive the travails of their lives. One even dreams of himself underwater with the hooked fish. The Alaskan environment is as much a character as the characters themselves. While it can be a beautiful landscape, and that is noted more than once, it is mostly harsh here, offering chill wind, rain, snow, cold, the harshness of the venue reflecting the harshness of the characters’ emotional states.
The water was no longer turquoise. A dark, dark blue today, with blackness in it, a clarity, no glacial silt suspended. Irene didn't know it could change so completely in even a day. A different lake now. Another metaphor for itself, each new version refuting all previous.
Vann’s language is as unadorned as a block of Hubbard ice, reminding me of Cormac McCarthy, particularly in his frequent verb-free sentence constructions.
The primary actors in Caribou Island are a late-middle-aged couple, Gary and Irene. Gary is impulsive, controlling, a bully and a coward, who cannot ever see himself as being in the wrong. He wants to test his mettle by constructing a cabin on the shore of remote Caribou Island. Another character thinks about sailing a ship around the world, thus conjuring Robert Stone and Outerbridge Reach. Gary’s wife, Irene, desperately trying to save her marriage, reluctantly agrees to help, despite knowing that constructing this cabin is only another in a long history of follies. Their daughter, Rhoda, is a veterinarian’s assistant. She lives with, and expects to marry Jim, a dentist, who is going through a mid-life crisis. A sociopathic man-user rips through the scenery, leaving a trail of destruction, and a few minor characters are given lines. But their actions serve primarily to highlight the larger issues. Looming over all is Irene’s memory from age ten, when she found her mother, hanging.
What effect must that have had on such a young person? Vann ought to know. His own father took his life when Vann was thirteen. Irene carries that memory on her back like Jesus stumbling toward Calvary. Given Vann’s prior work, one must wonder if one or more of his characters will find their way to a similar a dark end.
But there is a route. There are reasons, challenges, revelations, lies, contemplations. Abandonment and isolation are prime here. Vann casts a laser light on how people manage to see past each other, how they miss chances to connect. He looks at how fear, whether of failure, or of being alone, can help cause the very things we most want to avoid. Even the sociopath is running from something. Vann shows how people can make each other invisible, whether consciously or not, and do so at their peril, and how their externalizing of internal issues and images impacts those around them. Are we doomed to repeat the crimes of our parents? Of our parents’ parents? Of forebears beyond counting?
The subject matter may be tough, but the journey is incredibly rich, the main characters well realized, the craft impressive. You will find yourself thinking about scenes from this book long after you have moved on to your next read. Vann is the real deal, and this is top notch literature. Climb into your leaky boat, brave the icy wind and squall-driven waves slapping at the sides of your craft and head over to Caribou Island . It is a memorable sojourn. And if this is not recognized as one of the best books of 2011, I will eat my copy.
When David Vann was 13 years old his father committed suicide. This book is Vann’s way of trying to reach out to his dead father, to bring him back toWhen David Vann was 13 years old his father committed suicide. This book is Vann’s way of trying to reach out to his dead father, to bring him back to life in a way. Don’t expect a yuck-fest. The book is divided into five short stories and one much longer piece (175 pps).
All are told from the view, if not necessarily in the voice, of a young boy, Vann’s avatar.
In Icthyology – a father’s suicide parallels a boy’s (Roy) interest in fish and his fish tank.
Rhoda tells of the increasing strain between the boy’s father and his wife, the boy’s stepmother. The suicide is implied in this one.
Legend of a Good Man tells of how the boy tries to re-connect with one of the men his mother had dated after his father killed himself.
[image] Vann with his father - from The Times Company
In Sukkwan Island a divorced father takes his son with him to a remote Alaskan island, intending to live there for a year. Unfortunately he brings along his emotional weakness. I thought that Vann used this one to vent some rage at his lost parent, as dad does not come off too well.
In Ketchikan a grown up Roy returns to Alaska and arranges to see a woman with whom his father betrayed his mother
The final story, Higher Blue, has Vann referring to “the boy” and “the father” a chilling distance-maker in a tale about trying to reconnect, to the memory of his father, at least.
OK, so the subject is a bit of a downer. Don’t be put off. The writing is compelling. I was drawn in, felt for the boy, and even for the hapless father. Vann’s big chunk here, Sukkwan Island, reads like Stephen King, page-turning and frightening.
It is a bit scary, as well, seeing a photo of Vann as a kid with his dad, and then noting how similar to his father the adult writer has become. That he has declined to go to therapy to help cope with the issues that arose from his true-life experiences may leave Vann with a reservoir of unresolved feeling with which to fuel his writing. But I imagine there is a personal cost as well.
Completely aside from the issue of Vann and suicide, you will also learn a bit about Alaska, the physical challenges of the state, the mentality of many of the residents, the way of life lived, or aspired-to by many people up north.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
The author's website and his GR pages – his website includes, among other things, a large list of interviews
This is a rich source of information for anyone planning a visit to our largest state. It is visually stunning, printed on high quality paper, with a This is a rich source of information for anyone planning a visit to our largest state. It is visually stunning, printed on high quality paper, with a generous quantity of photographs and maps. For those with minimal patience, there is even a handy best-of section at the front. It offers a comprehensive range of options for not only the cruise traveler but for those who are into more challenging explorations. The wife and I are planning a 2011 journey north and this was our first stop. Planning our trips is half the fun and reading this book was very exciting, offering useful tips, plenty of web links, phone numbers and a wealth of ideas. No one book is likely sufficient for planning a trip to such a vast place, but the Insight Guide was a wonderful introduction. Highly recommended. One caveat, and this may be a hazard common to the genre, there is a lot of what looks like direct flogging for particular vendors. Hard to tell if all recommendations are straight up, or may have been influenced....more
This is a must read for anyone who is interested in international affairs, ecological threats or climate issues. The changes that are taking place in This is a must read for anyone who is interested in international affairs, ecological threats or climate issues. The changes that are taking place in the Arctic will have great impact on the rest of the world. Alun Anderson offers a look at various aspects of that change with an eye to the potential dangers and benefits.
Anderson looks first at the people who inhabit the north, the Inuit, whether in Canada, Greenland, the USA or Russia, reports on the issues faced by local residents, their hopes for the future and the challenges they face.
Next he writes about the alarming decline in arctic ice coverage, looking at several of the factors that contribute to the change. The obvious decreases in area covered by ice does not take account of the decrease in ice depth or age. New ice is shallower, more susceptible to melting and, being lighter, is more easily pushed to warmer seas by arctic winds.
How will Arctic territorial claims by the several nations with Arctic borders be resolved? How much of the Arctic is national territory and how much is international waters? Who will have a say in how conflicting claims are resolved?
Oil drilling in the Arctic. Is it possible? If so, how will it be done, how much, by whom, with what benefits and what risks.
So much information here, and so many questions. There are opportunities to adapt, but the potential dangers are, well, chilling.
05/06/12 - The scientists at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have come up with yet more confirmation for global warming being the cause of Arctic de-icing.
6/22/14 - The name Hank Paulson might ring a bell from the economic collapse of the late Bush administration. He is now counseling the world to not ignore the signs of impending climate disaster the way he did the signs of impending economic meltdown when he was in office. In this small NY Times article, he sees an opportunity for the USA and China to work together to make a difference. The piece is titled, The Coming Climate Crash, and I am certain Paulson is sincere, but in the absence of any gray matter in today's nihilistic, scorched-earth Republican Party, no common sense recommendations have a prayer when they have to compete with what he calls short-termism. Of course Paulson engages in the sort of self-serving, narrow-view interpretation of the past that one can expect from Republicans who have been bounced out of the public sphere (see recent pronouncements from professional liar Dick Cheney, griping about ISIS miseries in Iraq), somehow ignoring true details of their involvement in creating the messes they would have the rest of us pay to clean up now. He ignores the corruption that was inherent in causing the economic crash at his peril. All that said, it is encouraging whenever one of the dark-side sorts sees the light on any policy matter of substance. And while there is certainly room for debate on whether the carbon tax is the best approach to reducing emissions, it is encouraging that he is one Republican who seems ready to set aside the politics of blame-the-black-guy to seek actual solutions. Take it all with a grain of salt. Paulson will not be facing voters, ever, so can say things that politicians faced with the Deliverance demographic and the desire for Koch Brothers support would never admit to. Science is real. It is getting corrupt legislators to vote in the actual interests of their voter-constituents and not merely serve the demands of their funder-constituents that is the real challenge. And all the research in the world, and intelligent policy planning will not move that mountain. Still, it is a net positive to hear from a Republican that reality exists and should be addressed. It is a rare thing and should be cherished.
October 9, 2015 - This LA Times article, What Exxon knew about the Earth's melting Arctic, By SARA JERVING, KATIE JENNINGS, MASAKO MELISSA HIRSCH AND SUSANNE RUST lets us know what Exxon knew and when they knew it as regards global warming. Yet another sociopathic corporation lying to the public with a straight face. Strong stuff.
Although the book here is about the Arctic, there is plenty going on in Antarctica as well. You mighr want to check out Countries Rush for Upper Hand in Antarctica, a NY Times Magazine piece By Simon Romero, with photographs by Daniel Berehulan, about the international competition going on right now for for resources real and potential at the bottom of the world.
The March 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine has an amazing article about the challenges and dangers of resource extraction in the Arctic - In the Arctic’s Cold Rush, There Are No Easy Profits - By Joel K. Bourne, Jr. - Photographs by Evgenia Arbugaeva - check it out
[image] The new Goliat platform awaits commissioning in a fjord near Hammerfest, Norway, last April. Now moored in the Barents Sea at 71° north, it’s the world’s northernmost offshore oil platform. -= from the NatGeo article
April 26, 2017 - National Geographic - An interesting piece on the vulnerability of once-frozen archaeological relics to thawing and increasingly destructive erosion by a tumultuous Bering Sea - Alaska’s Thaw Reveals—and Threatens—a Culture’s Artifacts - by A. R. Williams -- Photographs by Erika Larsen
[image] This centuries-old ulu, or cutting tool, was plucked from the thawing ground at Nunalleq. Embodying the native Yupik belief that everything is constantly in transition, the handle can be seen as either a seal or a whale.
October 2017 - National Geographic Magazine - They Migrate 800 Miles a Year. Now It’s Getting Tougher, By Gleb Raygorodetsky - on the Nenets, reindeer herders of the Russian Arctic, and how their lives are being impacted by global warming and development
[image] A Nenet herder leading his charges past a Russian gas pipeline - from the above article - photo by Evgenia Arbugaeva
January 2018 - National Geographic Magazine - Last Ice - The Arctic’s perennial sea ice cover—the ice that survives the summer melt season—has shrunk dramatically - by Tim Folger
[image] Dripping wet, a polar bear climbs onto an ice floe in northernmost Hudson Bay. Polar bears perch on sea ice to ambush seals—the source of 90 percent of their calories—when the seals surface. National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala is leading an effort to preserve some of the bears’ dwindling habitat. “In Russia we found bears stuck on islands eating grass and seabirds,” he says. (text from NatGeo - photo by Paul Souders) - from the above article
[image] The temperature difference from normal over the Arctic averaged over the next five days in the GFS model forecast. (University of Maine Climate Reanalyzer)
Miranda Weiss writes of her experiences as a new resident of the south central coast of Alaska. She moved there to be with her boyfriend about ten yeaMiranda Weiss writes of her experiences as a new resident of the south central coast of Alaska. She moved there to be with her boyfriend about ten years prior to the publication of the book. Bred to Maryland suburbs, it was a large shift from what had come before. But clearly she had a desire for that sort of experience. Her significant other was very much into the self-sufficiency that is requisite for life in such a place, and she was attracted to that, wanting not only to enjoy his skills, but eager to build her own.
There are passages in this book that I found almost magical. My favorite paints a picture of the community all out at once, participating in a mass orgy of dip-netting (only locals are allowed to use such nets—outsiders are restricted to hook and line) to take in a share of the annual salmon run. It was riveting.
She tells of life and culture in Homer, Alaska, with an emphasis on how the external world defines the rhythms of one’s life. Her naturalist point of view was appealing. She writes also about the difficulty of finding friends in such a small place. That loneliness was clearly problematic for her, at least during the time of which she writes.
I was of two minds about the book. I enjoyed the content of what Weiss was describing. There was new information in the book. One section tells of a religious community known as the Old Believers descendants of early Russian settlers, and committed to many ancient customs. Although it did not stop them from tooling around in the latest SUVs. It was interesting to learn about the challenges faced by the everyday locals, particularly new ones. And the nature writing was satisfying. But can one like the book and not the author?
I found it difficult to relate much to Weiss, at least what she chose to reveal of her inner thoughts. I always got the sense that she was holding back a huge chunk of herself from the reader. Of course that is her right. And her purpose was to tell of Alaska, not her personal travails, necessarily. But she tells enough about her personal dealings, particularly her relationship with her boyfriend, to make one wonder, when a large event takes place at the back end of the book, exactly what went into it. I found her minimal treatment of this annoying. I felt that it was a sort of tease, merely the visible tip to a calved slab of glacier. Ultimately, I would have much preferred for her to have omitted her personal relationship issues and stuck to a description of the externalities of her northern world, if she was not prepared to write of both with equal forthrightness.
PS - It would also have been nice to have some maps in the book, the better to gain a sense of her environment, both in Homer and when she and her boyfriend were out in the really wild delta near Bethel on a summer project. Yes, we do have internet access here in wildest New York City, (even where I live now, in Wilkes Barre, PA) but still.
A writer comes upon a piece of a story, or perhaps many unarranged pieces, and begins to fit the pieces with others so that after a time a picture
A writer comes upon a piece of a story, or perhaps many unarranged pieces, and begins to fit the pieces with others so that after a time a picture emerges. Maybe the author knows early on where the puzzle is taking him or her. Maybe not. What’s important…is that the puzzle takes the writer somewhere while he or she is collecting the pieces, contemplating them, arranging them. “Discovery through puzzlement,” she called it. I always liked that idea.
[image] Todd Lewan - image from HarperCollins
A Perfect Storm meets the arctic. Facing eighty-foot waves, hurricane strength winds (110 mph) and golf-ball sized hail, and worrying about deadly icing, three Coast Guard crews risk all in the north Pacific to try to save a crew of five, floating in the frigid water after their boat sank. Award-winning writer Todd Lewan, a veteran AP reporter, lets us in on the desperation of the men, offering insight into why they were willing to take so great a risk to try fishing in such perilous conditions. He points out that the owner’s greed played a role in the condition of the boat they went out in. This is an engaging and exciting read. The rescue sequence would be a natural to grace the silver screen at some point, although the film The Finest Hours offers some wintry, albeit not Alaskan, oceanic rescue horrors, so it may be a while before another film-maker will want to weigh anchor on making this one. In the meantime, if you are casting about for an exciting true-life fish(ing) tale, you could do worse than to reel in The Last Run....more
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