Rock, Water, Wild
An Alaskan Life
Format:Hardback
Publisher:University of Nebraska Press
Published:1st Sep '09
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
A collection of essays that explore Alaska, the environment, and the interaction between humans and nature
For Nancy Lord, what began as a yearning for adventure and a childhood fascination with a wild and distant land culminated in a move to Alaska in the early 1970s. Here she discovered the last place in America “big and wild enough to hold the intact landscapes and the dreams that are so absent today from almost everywhere else.” In Rock, Water, Wild, Lord takes readers along as she journeys among salmon, sea lions, geese, moose, bears, glaciers, and indigenous languages and ultimately into a new understanding, beyond geographic borders, of our intricate and intimate connections to the natural world. Vast and beautiful, and much more than a mere place, Alaska is nonetheless inescapably a land of natural extremes and exquisite subtleties. In Lord’s explorations, “the country” of Alaska evokes reflections on the importance of place and space in our lives; arguments over roads carved in the wilderness; musings on the role of location and landscape in the Dena’ina Athabascan language; accounts of sport fishing in the Russian Far East in the first days of perestroika and of climbing in the Arrigetch Peaks of Alaska’s Brooks Range; and considerations of the politics of whaling. In the tradition of naturalists John Muir and John Burroughs, Lord proves an excellent guide to the challenges and pleasures of making oneself at home on this Earth.
“[Nancy Lord] brings an impressive awareness to this collection of essays . . . . The author patiently waits for the landscape and its many stories to reveal themselves to her. Lord is also politically adept and sensitive. . . . She closes with an ample display of her writing chops, allowing readers to take her measure as a well-rounded person—a baseball fan, the daughter of a father with Alzheimer’s, and a believer in the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker, confided in a lovely staccato piece as jumpy as the bird’s alleged sighting. A protective love story of a place of vast, otherworldly beauty.”—Kirkus Reviews
"These essays connect like the webs of a fishing net, linked by the writer's belief in a 'right place,' a place where lives can find their true shapes. Luckily, Lord has found hers."—Michael Engelhard, High Country News
"In Rock, Water, Wild, Lord takes readers along as she journeys among salmon, sea lions, geese, moose, bears, glaciers, and indigenous languages and ultimately into a new understanding, beyond geographic borders, of our intricate and intimate connections to the natural world."—Sandy Amazeen, MonstersAndCritics.com
“Throughout this collection, Lord brings to each image, each sentence, the sharpness of seeing with love, as did Muir and Burroughs before her. . . . How we live our lives matters—to us, to our community, to wild creatures and to the world. This book matters too—for its vision, its fascinating perspectives, its good sense, its powerful and evocative prose.”—Peggy Shumaker, author of Just Breathe Normally
“Nancy Lord says that for her, living and writing are stones that she turns over and over in her hands, all through her thinking life. For me, her books have been bright reflections from those well-polished stones—clear messages from a life lived well, out of doors, in the North. . . . . You will read this book with pleasure and wonder—and afterward, the world will be a larger, better place.”—Robert Michael Pyle, author of Sky Time in Gray’s River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place
"Rock, Water, Wild is the perfect book for anyone (resident, government official, historian, or tourist) who wishes to be carried into the heart of Alaska's perpetual struggle with itself."—Ray Hudson, Alaska History
ISBN: 9780803225152
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 454g
248 pages