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Reading the River: A Voyage Down the Yukon
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17 new or used available from CDN$ 0.15
Average customer review:
(5 )
Product Description
“John Hildebrand sets out in a canoe . . . to explore the great riverway of northwestern Canada and Alaska. . . . The geography is closely rendered and the characters especially sharply drawn. The country is filled with mad dropouts at river fish camps, good-hearted girls in the towns, sullen natives in tumbledown villages, cranky old-timers, terrible drunks and worse moralizers who live off the wild landscape and its abundant resources. . . . This is a fine work, and Hildebrand is a fine writer.”—Charles E. Little, Wilderness
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #499236 in Books
- Published on: 1997-02-15
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: .1 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 260 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In a sense, this recounts a journey of expiation: Hildebrand and his wife had gone to Alaska in the early 1970s, hoping to homestead and be self-sufficient. The death of a child and breakup of the marriage forced a change of plans. Ten years later, Hildebrand returned alone, to set to rest the ghost of his dream by canoeing the length of the Yukon. He particularly wanted to meet people who had gone to the wilderness and remained. In his three-month, 2000 mile journey, Hildebrand met trappers, aging hippies, biologists, dog mushers, fishermen, Athabascan Indians, Eskimos, missionaries and politicians. He camped in abandoned cabins during rainy weather. As he approached the Delta, he was beset by wind, rain and rough water; 90 miles from the sea, he left the river, sold the canoe and flew home to Wisconsin. His book is more than an adventure story; it is a fine portrait of individual people and communities in a rugged environment. Illustrated.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In the early Seventies, dreaming of the simple life, the author wandered to Alaska, built a cabin, and taught English to Indians and Eskimos at the the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. But the dream collapsed, and he left the area. Ten years later he returned, seeking the "North that had eluded" him. He canoed the length of the Yukon River, drifted into other peoples' lives, and sought how life there used to behow for some it continues to be. The result is a vivid, sometimes lyrical picture of the Alaska of homesteaders, fishers, woodcutters, and small town people, who live off the land in a way the author could not. It also is a finely written account of coming to terms with one's self, of the realities of one's dreams. Recommended for anyone who would follow Thoreau into the woods, even now.Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“For many of us the North has been the one place where a certain elemental experience—of land, water, and people—can still be had. John Hildebrand’s personal account of this experience has a particular freshness and poignancy. It is the record of a journey, as much inward as it is outward, and all the better for that.”—John Haines, author of The Stars, The Snow, The Fire
“A finely written account of coming to terms with one’s self, of the realities of one’s dreams. Recommended for anyone who would follow Thoreau into the woods, even now.”—Library Journal
“Hildebrand has every skill of mind and craft to enfold us in his experience.”—The New Yorker
