Alaska Days with John Muir

John Muir's arrival by steamboat at Fort Wrangell in 1879 starts a friendship that draws Samuel Hall Young into the mountains of southeastern Alaska. Young recalls following the naturalist on a climb above Glenora, pushing through brush and dwarf evergreens to reach pastures filled with flowers. Muir's delight in each plant becomes a lesson in observation, while Young gives the landscape a spiritual meaning through his own religious outlook.

Canoe voyages bring a different set of challenges: shifting icebergs, autumn rain and a maze of glacier crevasses. Young describes Muir returning to camp full of enthusiasm for the shapes and colors he has seen inside the ice. Elsewhere, a guide's concern for the party's safety forces them to turn back from a bay Muir wants to explore. This travel memoir offers readers a close view of an adventurous friendship, combining natural history with the practical decisions that govern travel through unfamiliar waters.