Alaska, the early 1960s. Darkness covered the land. The latest winter storm, which by then had already lasted half a century, still showed no sign of ending. The cold and the snow were beginning to wear the proud Alaskans down. Then Russia invaded. Again. The fledgling state was unprepared for war, and so the Alaskan Militia fell back before the forces of the Dark Lord Stalin, and the Red Army of Moscow reached the walls of Juneau. For two days and nights the city was bombarded by communist orcs. On February 11, 1964, the third day of the seige, a light appeared on the horizon. It was the sun! After fifty years of endless night, dawn finally broke over Alaska! Rousing the defenders, the mighty wizard Ted Stevens the White led the final charge and drove the Red Army into the sea. Alaska won the day.Ten years passed.In the early 70s, the Prophet McPhee came to Alaska. He had had visions since the Great Dawn, terrible, awe-inspiring visions of a woman in red riding a war-grizzly. The priests he spoke to all agreed: it was the Mother of Grizzlies, Daughter of Alaska, the great Messiah-Queen of the prophecies who would restore the mighty Alaskan Empire to glory and lead Her armies out of the North to conquer the Lower 48. The Return of the Sun had marked the hour of Her birth, but none had seen sign of Her since. And so the Prophet McPhee vowed to find Her. Assembling a party of shamen, slaves (bearing gifts of gold, jewels, and newspapers), and mages from the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, the Department of Fish and Game, and other government agencies, McPhee set out into the widerness. Questions arose: was the Mother of Grizzlies also Daughter of Grizzlies, or was She merely a feral child, raised and educated in the ways of the bear? Would they find Her feasting on fish and berries, or did She hibernate in the caves of bears, sleeping until Alaska needed a savior? Russia had been silent for many years, but would surely invade again. The expedition failed; most of the party was eaten by wolves or lost in skirmishes with the National Park Service, so they returned to Juneau. It was clear that, wherever the Queen of Alaska was, She would not reveal Herself until the time was right. So Alaska waited, and prepared. And the question was asked: where would Her Capital be? Juneau was not grand enough, and Anchorage and Fairbanks still lay in ruins from the war, so the Prophet McPhee again set out into the wilderness, again with his shamen and slaves and government bureaucrats, to find a suitable place to build Her Palace. And again the shamen were eaten by wolves, and the bureaucrats bickered, and the slaves revolted, so McPhee went back to Juneau.The quest seemed hopeless. McPhee had not found the Chosen One or built Her City, and all his shamen were dead. But, inspired by rumors of a secret messiah breeding program, he set off alone, on a third expedition, following the elusive trail of a powerful sisterhood of sorceress-nuns. Here the narrative grows sketchy, as McPhee’s accounts of interviews of dozens of gold miners, hermits, holy men, ice-mages, and the occasional talking bear led him in dizzying circles, endlessly searching for a treasure that chose to remain secret. McPhee apparently never found the Mother of Grizzlies, and left Alaska in disgrace. There are rumors, however, that he drank himself to death, only to be resurrected by an unidentified hirsute girl, but those stories remain unverified. Even McPhee’s account must be questioned. Were his visions true? Did he truly foresee the birth and rise of Alaska’s savior? If so, She remains hidden, and perhaps none will know the hour of Her coming. Where is the bear and the rider? Where is the voice that is grating? IA! IA! SARAH PALIN FHTAGN!
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.
What do You think about Coming Into The Country (1991)?
Another wonderful book by McPhee. Introducing the reader to a side of Alaska that I doubt many people think about, at least I did not. There is more going on there than snow and salmon fishing. And yes, Sarah Palin was governor, but don't let that dissuade you from plunging in. I think it takes a while to get used to McPhee's style and this book tends to roam, but by the end it is all tied together quite nicely. The characters are as unique as the geography and geology, many of them are beyond comprehension in my estimation, but then, I don't live there.
—Stephen
John McPhee on bears:There is an old adage that when a pine needle drops in the forest the eagle will see it fall; the deer will hear it when it hits the ground; the bear will smell it.Coming Into the Country is a rambling, three part book about Alaska. It doesn't try to be an encyclopedia or a reference work, but simply the story of The Country, as told through the minds and hearts of people who live there. The first part recounted the author's journey via canoe and kayak on the Salmon river in the Bear Mountain range, and it was good, solid travel adventure. I liked very much.But the rest of the book didn't agree with me so well. It was stories of people, mostly--little natural history but a lot of human stories about life and living and death and walking a razors edge in a cold, lonely country. What kind of person builds a cabin on a stream a thousand miles from the nearest outpost, and lives there through the arctic winter? What people come to live in the town of Eagle, population 300 or so, and why do they stay?Usually I love this sort of storytelling (Blue Highways and Travels With Charley are two of my favorite books to re-read) but this one just seemed to go on and on, dragging without power to charm or amuse. Possibly it's my fault, not the book's. I just got tired of it.
—Cindy Dyson Eitelman
This book took a while to finish. The first two sections were very interesting and I read through them quickly. In fact, I wish they were longer - especially since they gave the read more of a historical context for the book. The third section of the book (which account for 1/2-2/3 of the pages in the book) gets somewhat tedious by about the first 50 pages in. McPhee spends a lot of time describing the details of what seems like almost everyone who lives in the small village of Eagle, AK. He describes how their life brought them to the 'country,' how they make their living, their politics, how they feels about others in the village. While this is interesting at first, 250 pages of this sort of description wears thin quickly. It would have been very hard to sit down and try to plow through this section of the book. Instead, I picked it up and read 15-20 pages at a time to take a break from other books I was reading. McPhee is a great writer, but this would have been a more compelling book had the last section been more direct, and perhaps more connection to the first two sections of the book.
—Johanna
