The Book of the Tongass (The World As Home) [Paperback]

Carolyn Servid (Editor), Don Snow (Editor)

Book Description

Series: The World As Home | Publication Date: August 24, 1999

In the southeast corner of America's most rugged state lies the last contiguous expanse of temperate rain forest on the planet, much of it within the Tongass National Forest. With Glacier Bay at its northern end, the Tongass lies on a maze of islands and along a coastal strip protected by a range of mountains. The Tongass lives up to its state's reputation for wildness, natural beauty, and battles over how the land has been and will be used. In The Book of the Tongass, 13 Alaskans describe the region's spectacular forest and wildlife, its economic opportunities, and in two pieces by Tlingit storytellers, its oral history.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lacing across the cold fjords and salmon streams of southeastern Alaska, the Tongass is America's largest national forest, larger than the state of West Virginia. It is also little known beyond the immediate region, and its obscurity has been of much use to the timber companies that, operating with the federal government's permission, have for years been clearing huge sections of the old-growth rainforest--and, it seems, for trivial ends. "Think of the stately Sitka spruce and you think of Chopin and sounding boards in the world's finest pianos," writes coeditor Don Snow, "but in the same thought you must also make room for the cellophane that wraps packages of cigarettes. Think of the soft-needled western hemlock and the strength it offers to hold a house together, but at the same time, consider rayon." It is possible, Snow and his fellow contributors maintain, to work this vast forest without wide-scale destruction, to log it in sustainable ways; so the native people of the Tongass have been doing for generations. But it is necessary, they add, to think of the Tongass and other old-growth forests for what they have to offer the future, as vast libraries of biological information, instead of a resource for short-term profits. This book takes readers deep inside the forest, giving an account of its natural wealth. It also guides them through the thickets of law and economics surrounding the public-lands forestry industry. Activists will find it of much value for its clear explication of the ongoing debate surrounding how the Tongass is to be used. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Home to immemorial beauty, ancient and valuable timber and longstanding environmental disputes, the southeast Alaskan forest region called the Tongass has attracted Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes, lumber companies, eco-tourists and environmental activists. These 13 essays pay homage to its beauty and assess its controversies. In "Heart of the Forest," Juneau-based biogeographer Richard Carstensen coaxes clear accounts of the area's soil and flora from his journey through it. Ecologist Paul Alaback places the Tongass in the context of other rain forests, and describes how it rebounds after winds and fires, in "The Tongass Rain ForestAAn Elusive Sense of Place and Time." Former fisherman Brad Matsen offers a fish's-eye view in "Salmon in the Trees." Lawyer David Avraham Voluck, in "First Peoples of the Tongass," explains Native peoples' "subsistence way of life," which is inadequately protected, he argues, by federal legislation that governs the region. In "Glacier Bay History," Tlingit storyteller Amy MarvinAone of two Native contributors, whose work is printed as verseAtells "how things happened to us/ at Glacier Bay." Daniel Henry presents the uncomfortable populace of Haines, Alaska, as the town's economy shifts from a past of logging to a hopeful future of tourism in "Allowable Cut." And PI/mystery writer John Straley (The Angels Will Not Care) explains with drama and sympathy, in "Love, Crime, and Joyriding on a Dead End Road," who commits crimes in southeast Alaska and why. Servid and Snow (editor of the magazine Northern Lights) have assembled a worthwhile book. Never dryly technical, rarely shrill, these original pieces often go no deeper than good daily newspaper journalism, but most will reward nonspecialists interested in Alaska's forests, foresters, fish, First Peoples and the eco-economic issues that affect them all. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions; 1st edition (August 24, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571312269
• ISBN-13: 978-1571312266
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #557,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #43 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Alaska

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, April 10, 2000

By 

pullrich "pullrich" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of the Tongass (The World As Home) (Paperback)

Very good reading. Because it is a collection of essays, you can gets lots from this book: natural history of the region, politics, sociocultural issues. Picking a nit, this gave the book a scattered feel. Also, some chapters far superior to others, I found myself skimming thru a few aimless chapters.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful collage of history and ecology of the Tongass, April 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Book of the Tongass (The World As Home) (Paperback)

For those who would be more than casual visitors to this spectacular landscape, this collection of writings from various authors offers up pointed insight into man's relationshionship with the Tongass. From the best (and concise!) overview of the legal issue of subsistance in Alaska I've ever read to the quietly fantastical Tlingit story, the book contains the multi-faceted viewpoints of modern inhabitants and the issues shaping how we view this incredible place.

3 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't always believe what you read., May 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Book of the Tongass (The World As Home) (Paperback)

This book is a sad compilation of environmental propaganda. To speak of timber harvests in the "billions" of board feet when the industry is vertially extinct is just wrong. The Tongass region is the home of thousands of hardworking, resource-based individuals who don't want their lives to be misportrayed as this book has done. Alaskans have managed the resources of the state responsibly and the author does an injustice by not honestly explaining this fact.