Book Review: "Chasing Alaska" by C. B. Bernard

 I don't write too many book reviews on this blog. Those I do write, I write to etherspace – which means maybe my wife, brother, and sister might read it. When I do enjoy a book enough to write a review, I believe it is the connection between the author and myself: maybe the subject matter, the great story that I imagine myself in, maybe just the links between us, or even a similar mindset. This is certainly the case with C.B. Bernard in “Chasing Alaska: Portrait of the Last Frontier Then and Now.”

Like C. B. Bernard, ML and I moved from the east coast to Alaska (but in 1979). (In fact, he lived in Sitka while we lived there too. I remember him falling asleep at School Board meetings.) In 2009, we started spending time in Tampa, ML's ancestral home. I had one hell of a time adjusting – and to be honest, I still have difficulty even though we go back for a third of a year. Why? There's no excuse!

I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and what Alaska is and means, but C. B. nails it. But I'm not going to tell you about it. You'll have to read it and figure out that part of it yourself.

I will make some overall generalizations about the book. One, I really like the organizational structure surrounding himself and his relatives, Joe and Peter Bernard – who were arctic explorers around the turn of the century. Secondly, I thought it was very well written – great details and description. Thirdly, the author didn't try to make it something it wasn't. In my opinion, it is absolutely impossible to write a book about all of Alaska and C. B. didn't try.

OK, you're it!  Read the book and tell me what you think Alaska is and why you love it or might love it. We'll see if C.B and I are right. One way or another, you'll have a much greater understanding of what Alaska is all about.

Great job, C. B. I loved it.

Atka

Atka is a village on Atka Island almost to Adak on the Aleutian Chain in Alaska.  It has a latitude just above 52 degrees north and 174 degrees longitude west- 280 miles south of Ketchikan.  It is WAY out there - closer to Japan or Russia than the continental United States.

I read a fascinating book by Ethel Ross Oliver.  Here she is on the book cover.

 

For the most part, it is her journal record when she and her husband, Simeon Oliver, helped rebuild Atka Village after World War II in 1946 and 1947.  The reason it needed to be rebuilt is that our own military burned the village to the ground so that Japan could not occupy it.  I can understand that but I think it might have been nice to allow the villagers a half hour to get their packed suitcases out of the houses before they had to get on the boat to Southeast Alaska.  (The conditions that they faced there is another story for another time.  Suffice it to say the conditions were awful.)

Ethel Oliver was a renaissance woman: teacher, collector of local flora for 5 botanical museums, excavator of several archeological sites, recorder stories of inhabitants, nurse/doctor, and writer.  The journal style gives a glimpse into the people and the day to day life that they all shared.

The book is organized into chapters that are also the 12 months that the Olivers were on the island.  Here is a picture of the newly "rebuilt" village.  


Ms. Oliver was also not only respectful and understanding of Native Aleut culture, but appreciated the people and culture and tried to integrate culture and language into her classroom.  This was quite unusual at the time.

While Ms. Oliver was there, she meets two Aleut prisoner of war survivors who were captured and transported to Japan in 1943: Mike Lokanin and Alex Prossof.  These unedited stories, in the book Appendix, were fascinating all by themselves.  


The whole Alaskan war theatre is interesting in its immensity and complexity and its notorious bad weather.

BOOK REVIEW: The Boy, Me and the Cat

 I'm not a bibliophile (although I did spell it correctly before I looked it up), but I do love books. Mostly, I love the telling of a great story. Last year at Christmas, Bob and Glenda gave me a variety of nice things (Glenda is a great gift giver) that included the book on the right.

 WARNING: This is a little longer post than usual . . . .

It is hardback with a woven cover. There was no title on the front or back, no pictures, no logo, just the stippled feel of an old cloth cover. The title was on the spine: “The Boy, Me And The Cat – Henry M. Plummer.” And the aroma: the smell of heavy paper, a whiff of cloth bound with glue, and just a hint of mustiness – maybe almost a touch of mold. It reminded me of our Grandfather's “library” in his West Grove, PA house, books lined on the shelves – shelves completely covering three walls, the slight musty smell of them, maybe a sneeze of dust – where the cousins “hid the thimble” and disturbed the sanctity of them.(see note #1 below)   I had also known about the book from other sailboat cruising references – and it was reputed to be a great sailing story. And it is. 1912-1913, an engineless  30 year old 24.5 foot catboat, a 15 foot dory with a 3 horsepower engine, a son, a cat, the East coast from New Bedford to Miami, and lots of time – can dreams turn out any better?

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Mr. Plummer, 

    “The Author

      The Illustrator

      The Editor

      The Publisher

      The Printer

      The Binder

       and the Captain of the Mascot,” (Preface, page X) 

tells the story through his logbook. He writes who he is: genuine, honest, and with an understated sense of humor.   If you were sitting on the porch on a warm summer's day drinking a beer and telling stories with Mr. Plummer, time would pass so fast that dinnertime would arrive before you were hungry – and you would have to listen very carefully to know when to laugh. You might even get a few good recipes for your next meal.

 

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I'll just give you a little teaser of the author's writing style. On the third log entry on page 2A, Mr. Plummer writes:

“October 14^th. Mighty busy cup o'tea this morning. Tumbled all the “last things” on board. Crawled under the shed, caught the cat rubbed her full of flea powder, and dropped her into a gunny sack to moult. Will have troubles enough without fleas.”

As cited above, Mr. Plummer is also the illustrator.  I just love the drawings.  Here is his drawing of the cat.

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I won't ruin the mystery by telling you how it was originally published.  Just pop on over to amazon.com - quick – there are only 6 left!! Or, better yet, ask for it through “interlibrary loan” at your local library. You won't get the cloth bound edition like mine, but at least it won't be on your kindle.

Note #1: It could be that our Grandfather read some or all of the books in his library, but I think he was more well known in family lore when he was in his 80's, for having to use a cover for his paperback books to hide “scantily clad” women.

Book Review: The Voyage of the Schooner Polar Bear

 Kettleson Memorial Library, our local library, has a great Alaskan section which is great fun to browse.  I found a book of which the full title is "The Voyage of the Schooner Polar Bear: Whaling and Trading in the North Pacific and Arctic, 1913-1914" by Bernhard Kilian.

The text is a journal kept by the author, Bernhard Kilian.  Bernhard (Ben) and his brother were trained machinists and saw a job advertisement to be the engineers for the Polar Bear.  They were instructed to be at the boat at 6 a.m. on the day of the hiring.  They were, and despite the fact that no-one else was there except the watchman who clocked them in - including the owner/captain, they got the job on the merit of having been there at 6.   Let that be a lesson to all of us!

Ben Kilian also learned to take and develop pictures.  Neither the pictures and the text aren't fancy or WOW(!)  or anything, but both of them are an honest depiction of what went on during the trip.  I found it fascinating.

On the left is a picture of the schooner after a bit of snow.  I often think about what is not in the picture.  Ben Kilian behind a large format camera, loading film and taking the picture in the cold.  Then developing it later in the cold with no running water.  Hmmm.  He's a lot tougher than I am.

The voyage took the better part of two years.  The boat was frozen into the ice on the northeast coast of Alaska.  The men moved off the boat and built a shelter with sailcloth and driftwood.  I love this picture of the men building the winter shelter and the camera (which might be a "movie" camera) in the picture over on the right.

This looks like it might be hard to see, but it is a map of the voyage.  The boat started out from Seattle, then all the way out the Aleutian Chain (which ends up being closer to Japan than the continental USA), goofed around the Kamchatka Pensinsula and visited Russia a number of times, then through the Bering Strait, the Arctic Ocean, and on into the Beaufort Sea.  The voyage was a mixture of trading, whaling, and a "charter" for east coast hunters.

The excitement of northern experience doesn't stop there!  The Captain of the boat and a few others decided that they needed to take care of some business in Seattle over the winter.  So they took off on some dog sleds in early November, up the Kongucut River, across the pass to the Yukon River, and made their way south to Cordova where they got a boat.  This is approximately 1000 miles during the dark of winter with no freeze dried food, goretex, down jackets, or toilet paper.  In fact, the notes in the book said they lost their compass after a week and dead reckoned most of the way across the Brooks Range until they discovered some Alaska Natives to give them some directions!

My guess is that this book will not be in your local library.  But, if you like this kind of stuff, request it from interlibrary load.  You'll be glad you did.

P.S. All pictures are digital representations from the actual book.  I hope I haven't transgressed copyright law.

Ruminations on the Brooks Range - Robert Marshall

This was our day to pack and repack gear, return the bear barrels, buy a Brooks Range Aviation hat, and generally scurry around.  When we got on the plane to leave Bettles on the way to Fairbanks, I asked the pilot when drinks would be served.  He said, "No drinks served. Do as I do and have a couple before the flight."

It's always fun to discover interesting people, whether past or present.  Although I had heard about Robert Marshall related to conservation and nature, I hadn't read any of his work.  When I got home, I read "Alaska Wilderness, Exploring the Central Brooks Range." 

It was a fascinating description of the area that we had just experienced ourselves.  But much of the reason that we were able to enjoy it was due to Bob Marshall recognizing how unique the Brooks Range is and that it should be preserved for all generations.  

I'm getting ahead of myself.  Mr. Marshall was fascinated with blank areas of maps in the United States.  His training was in forestry.  He did much of his Alaskan exploration in the 1930's.  And he did it without goretex or capilene.  

He's not a great writer, but he's real.  He writes about mosquitoes:

"I also made the acquaintance  of arctic mosquitoes while boring spruce trees.  These insects were terribly thick; at one time I counted forty three between my waist and neck including my arms.  With hat and mosquito net rendering my head, face, and neck inaccessible to them, and gloves and gauntlets protecting my hands and wrists, and all the rest of me covered with normal clothing, I really was not bothered except when I occasionally had to remove my gloves; but I could see that anyone caught in this country for several days at the height of the mosquito season without special protection would surely be killed." (p. 7)

On the next page, he writes about tussocks:  "There we had our first taste of arctic sedge tussocks.  These curses are tufts mostly of cottongrass which gradually build up out of the swamp, the younger plants growing out of the dead remains of the earlier ones.  As they grow larger, they also grow wider so that they are much bigger on top than below, becoming more or less mushroom shape.  They get to be eighteen inches high, some even higher.  They are very topheavy, and when you step on them they are almost certain to bend over and pitch you off into the swamp.  When you try to walk in the  swamp, you have to step over these high humps, and sometimes they grow so close together your foot catches in between.  Three quarters of a mile of this seemed like five, and at one place we were afraid we could not get the horses through.  We were to find out later that this was easy compared with some places on the North Fork."

Bob Marshall mapped most of the Central Brooks Range in various trips, which filled in the blank spaces on the map.  Among many other credits, he was a founding member of the Conservation Society.  Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack at the age of 38.  I can't wait to read Arctic Village and some of his other works.

Book Review: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Read it.

What could be better than a book that surrounds you with sports, love, failure, and hope?  But I better correct myself.  Mr. Harbach doesn't just surround you, he makes you a part of it - feeling the confusion of Henry's fielding,  Mike's groping for meaning when he's sitting on it, and Pella's confusion on who she really is and whether she'll figure it out. 

Is it perfect?  No, there are lots of complaints.  Shoot, just read a selection of Amazon reviewers  - 342 of them on this date, as a matter of fact.  Most of the reviewers have legitimate complaints - if Mr. Harbach was Mark Twain or William Faulkner or Leo Tolstoy.  But, I had fun reading it - and it's not always easy for me these days to find something that is fun to read and has something to say, too. 

I won't ruin it for you.  But I loved the burial scene.  When I die, I'd like to pay for a big party with friends and relatives and a big bonfire to throw me on after everyone is drunk or high or both.  But it might be like my mom and dad, no-one will be alive by then to stoke the fire.    This is the second best.

I hope you try it and have a good time reading it.  If not, blast me in well thought out comment! (Maybe it will be my first comment ever!)

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, or do like I do, and borrow it free from your library.