Alaska Images of the Country [Hardcover]

John McPhee (Author), Galen Rowell (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 12, 1982

This compelling portrait of modern Alaska pairs excerpts from John McPhee's classic, Coming Into the Country, with the incomparable images of wilderness photojournalist Galen Rowell.
Chosen from more than 10,000 images taken by Rowell on nine separate expeditions to the Yukon State, the 112 full-color photographs featured here seamlessly complement McPhee's vivid prose. Together, text and images capture the overwhelming beauty and variety of America's last frontier - from the rapidly expanding city of Anchorage to the heights of Mount McKinley to the vast expanses of Alaska's frozen tundra.
McPhee's text includes profiles of a diverse collection of Alaska residents, providing fascinating glimpses of the people who thrive in the desolation and freedom of the Arctic: the self-proclaimed "weird characters" inhabiting the remote town of Eagle; 114-year-old Liza Malcolm, whose only language is an Indian tongue understood by less than a dozen living people; and violinist Frances Randall, who practices while working at a landing site on the Kahiltna Glacier.
This classic book offers readers an incomparable portrait of the complex and dramatically beautiful land that is Alaska. Indeed, as the Conservationist declared, "For those who have longed for years to visit America's last frontier, the purchase price of the book may be the least expense incurred in furthering a deep and abiding interest."

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

First published in 1981 and now available in this distinctive edition, a compelling portrait of modern Alaska pairs excerpts from John McPhee's classic "Coming into the Country" with photojournalist Galen Rowell's breathtaking images of the lands and peo

About the Author

Galen Rowell (1940-2002) was one of the world's most celebrated nature photographers. His many books include Bay Area Wild, Mountain Light, My Tibet (with H.H. The Dalai Lama), and Galen Rowell's Vision. He lives in Bishop, California. John McPhee is the best-selling author of more than twenty books, including Basin and Range and Giving Good Weight. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 146 pages
• Publisher: Sierra Club Books; First Edition edition (June 12, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871562901
• ISBN-13: 978-0871562906
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 9.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #183,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Travel > Specialty Travel > Travel with Pets
  • #77 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Natural History
  • #96 in Books > Travel > North America

More About the Author

Galen Rowell, internationally renowned photographer and mountaineer, is the author of such acclaimed books as My Tibet (with His Holiness the Dalai Lama) and Mountains of the Middle Kingdom. His work regularly appears in Life, National Geographic, Outside, and Sports Illustrated.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing Images, June 3, 2003

By 

Conrad J. Obregon (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Alaska Images of the Country (Hardcover)

Galen Rowell was one of the great outdoor photographers and most of his books are full of spectacular pictures of mountain scenery. But if you are expecting a normal picture book about Alaska, this isn't it. Instead this is a look at a place that is full of ambiguity.

The book is structured around John McPhee's book "Coming into the Country". In that book McPhee gives an insightful description of Alaska as a place, and its inhabitants. The Alaskans seem torn between preserving the wilderness and developing it and the extracts contained in this volume capture that spirit. For example, McPhee provides admiring character studies of a number of people who came to Alaska because they just didn't fit in back in the lower 48 states. Even his descriptions of travels in the wilderness have an overlay of the politics of the state, where the federal government, which once owned most of the land, is distrusted by most citizens.

Rowell decided that he wanted to take McPhee's writing and illustrate it with his own pictures. The preface makes clear that McPhee didn't offer a lot of cooperation. In fact he warned Rowell not to overprint his verbal pictures with Rowell's. The text selection was made by Rowell and the pictures included are not directly related to the words but have a close connection to their spirit.

As I noted, this is not any ordinary Rowell book (if there is such a thing). There are far more pictures of human beings and their artifacts then one usually finds in such a book, and I sometimes felt that the pictures were gritty and dark. At first I thought that this was a shortcoming of the photographs but then I realized that Rowell had specifically selected these pictures because he believed that they reflected the spirit of McPhee's words. Oh, there are some grand landscapes like a picture of snow-covered Mount McKinley across isolated Nugget Pond, but there is also a picture of the same snow-covered peak taken across a dark, intruding asphalt highway into the wilderness.

The final pages capture the essence of this book. McPhee describes the role of the 55 gallon steel drum in the Alaskan landscape, and tells how his view has gone from considering them ugly to finding them almost blooming. Opposite these words Rowell has placed a picture of a long line of rusty drums curving sinuously out of the frame into the Arctic Ocean.

This book is more than 20 years old and the McPhee book almost 40 years old. Alaska may have changed since then, although everything I've read about it recently makes me believe that the same forces are still at work out on this frontier. But for a person interested in Alaska this book provides a feeling for the place and its people that has the ring of authenticity.

If you want to see Alaska as a work of art, then I would recommend Art Wolfe's recent book of photographs "Alaska". But if you want to understand how a bright place can still have a dark soul, "Images of the Country" is a good place to start.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a fantastic book about a fantastic state, April 19, 2000

By 

mr. hip (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alaska Images of the Country (Hardcover)

"Alaska" is one of those books that, after teh first few pages lets you forget the world around you and fly to other places. His pictures are breathtaking, and it is true : a picture sas more than a thousand words; rowell manages it to tell you more about Alaska with a couple of photographs than 100 professors could tell you. He shows the reader that there is still some pure wilderness out there and that it is worth to preserve it. rowell is someone who loves the wilderness and the beauty of nature and he makes you love it too.