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The Only Kayak: A Journey into the Heart of Alaska
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Product Description
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #74699 in Books
- Published on: 2006-04-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 280 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9781592288946
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Writer and photographer Heacox delivers a genuine, deeply moving account of the past 25 years he has spent living in Glacier Bay, Alaska, "the last wild shore, nine hundred miles north of Seattle and nine hundred years in the past." This work's title comes from the first kayaking trip Heacox took there in 1979. As he explored the bay with a friend, they found themselves the sole kayak in that body of water, "alone, and escaped, left to wonder how long it could last, this wildness and grace." Heacox's ability to use this tension—between the beauty of the Alaskan wilderness and the creeping encroachment of modern life—is the thread that unites his varied observations, and it's what gives the book its uniqueness and keeps it from being another pale imitation of Coming into the Country, John McPhee's late-1970s classic on Alaska. Heacox (An American Idea; Shackleton; etc.)deftly renders highly personal accounts of life with his wife and constant companion—especially a horrific account of her near-death from hypothermia in a winter storm—and the development of his friendship with Michio Hoshino, who became a famed photographer of bears before an untimely death. He also offers a fascinating look at his own development as a conservationist. The combination of these various elements makes for a charming reverie on Alaska's past and a thoughtful look at its future. Map. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
One hundred years after naturalist John Muir made his first trip to Alaska, National Park Service employee Heacox is paddling the waters of Glacier Bay with Richard Steele, a fellow summer recruit. The year is 1979, and their goal is to visit untrammeled wilderness, and to be the only kayak in the bay. Although some 25 years have passed since that summer, Heacox is still enamored of Alaska, and the valuable friendships he made there. He is an intrepid spirit well suited to Alaskan life, and has little patience for those who don't meet his standards. "Make access easy, and a place dies," is his motto, and therein lies the paradox that Heacox tries to resolve in this book. He knows that cruise ships are damaging to the bay's ecosystem, for example, yet he also realizes that it would be nearly impossible for the elderly visitors to enjoy the coastline by kayak as he does. As he wrestles with such conundrums, Heacox creates a nicely balanced environmental portrait of Alaska's ice-cut coast. Rebecca Maksel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Writer and photographer Heacox delivers a genuine, deeply moving account of the past twenty-five years he has spent living in Glacier Bay, Alaska."--Publishers Weekly
"'Make access easy, and a place dies,' is his motto, and therein lies the paradox that Heacox tries to resolve in this book. . . . As he wrestles with such conundrums, Heacox creates a nicely balanced environmental portrait of Alaska's ice-cut coast."--Booklist
"Heacox is a poet, a scholar, a naturalist and a wild man who, in this great book, weaves together the story of the land and the people. The Only Kayak helps us reconnect what the Lakota call the the sacred hoop of life. I want to give this book to a dozen friends and,dear reader, I want to share it with you. Bravo, Kim Heacox."--Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other
"Few have wandered more deeply and thoughtfully through the wilds of Alaska than Kim Heacox. Those who know him best through his extraordinary photographs now have the chance to accompany him in words through some of the wildest and most beautiful country anywhere on earth. The Only Kayak is a delight."--William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"The naturalist expert for National Geographic Expeditions is a talented writer, a good storyteller, and passionate about his state; and he takes [us] through his journey of falling in love, aging and learning when to let go."--Everett Herald (Washington)
"With this powerful book, Kim Heacox enters the first rank of writers on the wild, the human, and the mix between the two. It's set in one of America's most spectacular landscapes, but it's also set in one of its kindest, most open hearts. A real triumph." --Bill McKibben, author The End of Nature, and Wandering Home: A Long Walk Through America's Most Hopeful Region
ri0"Perhaps more than ever before, we need passionate, eloquent voices speaking out for the American land. . . . Kim Heacox's writing evokes the fundamental paradox of our times: the vast, beauty of Alaska shining brilliantly against the dark, encroaching peril of industrial America. Anyone who cares about our remaining wild places, and about the conscience of those who stand in defense of our natural heritage, should read this extraordinary book.--Richard Nelson, author of The Island Within and Make Prayers to the Raven
"The Only Kayak is an important and beautiful book about what it means to fall in love with a place--not just any place, but the wild, dangerous, breath-catching, gorgeous Glacier Bay. And not just any love, but a wistful, sometimes desperate yearning to protect a wilderness even as it melts away. Kim Heacox is what this world needs--a defender of the land as fierce and funny as Abbey or Thoreau."--Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Riverwalking and The Pine Island Paradox
"Heacox's book is both a coming-of-(middle)age memoir and a love story, with Alaska serving as both the journey's end and the beloved. While Heacox writes passionately about his home in Glacier Bay, he also acknowledges the inevitability of change there. In prose that is both lyrical and powerful, he gives the reader a complete picture of the beauty of that wilderness and what will be lost in its deterioration."--Book News
" . . . this book is about learning to walk with purpose. It's about a lot of things, actually--love, community, heartbreak, hope for people and place. It's about how living an unexamined life is far riskier than sleeping on a beach with bears."--Anchorage Daily News
Customer Reviews
Five stars from Alaska
Kim Heacox has outdone himself. This book is funny, sad, erudite, and beautifully written, and an important contribution to Alaska literature. It's a rarity--a book that manages to convey an important environmental message without sliding into self-absorbed intellectualism. Heacox does it all this time around. His voice is relaxed and the prose beautifuly crafted, and the landscape of Glacier Bay, present and past, lives and breathes around the reader. There's plenty of food for thought about the effects of industrial tourism, but Heacox manages not to preach--at least, not any more than he (as an insider who knows and loves Glacier Bay) should. As a student of Alaska literature and a professional writer, I'm grateful for this book.
Pure Poetry, A Profound and Masterful Work
I've followed the fascinating career of writer/photographer/wildlife biologist, conservationist/raconteur/guitarist/singer/teacher/humanist Kim Heacox for several decades now, and I've been as enchanted by the force of his personality as I have been moved by his artistic achievement, astonished at the depth of his knowledge, and informed by his profound ability and desire to communicate what he himself has assimilated in the course of his extraordinary life. I've marveled at what he's written in the past--his brilliant non-fiction works include Alaska Light, In Denali, etc., etc.--and by the photographic vision exhibited in those books as well, but I was positively swept off my feet by The Only Kayak. His latest book, a memoir of sorts, is a literary masterpiece with messages and lessons for all of us, and in addition to the wonderful humor that pervades its pages, it reads as poetically and as poignantly as the the fictional works of the great novelist, Wallace Stegner. Read it, it's a marvelous book.
Dave Finkelstein (Author--Greater Nowheres: Wanderings Across the Outback)
New York City
Everybody should read this book!
This book is about Kim Heacox's love for Alaska Glacier Bay and the people living there. His love affair with the Glacier starts with his kayaking trip with his friend Richard, later with his wife Melanie and lifelong friend Michio. From his book, I see great beauty in glaciers in Alaska, so majestic and beautiful, you hope it will preserved for generations to come. Kim reminds us that it takes great restrain to leave a place such beautiful untouched and admired from afar.
His lifelong friendships with Michio, Richard and Hank are what most people are searching for most of their lifes in vain. Their friendships are like the glaciers, retreating and advancing. Friends going in their seperate path, yet they meet and have sense of closeness that feel like they never seperated.
Reading Kim's book makes me feel like I have kayaked into Alaska Glacier, photographed with Michio, fighted to keep Alaska a wilderness refuge.
This book is philosophical, beautiful and great read for anyone who believes in conserving, preserving the beauty in wilderness. And I believe everybody should.
