One must follow the role of an uninvited visitor—an intruder—rather than that of an aggressive hunter, and one should go unarmed to insure this attitude.

We were in Newfoundland a year ago, a lovely holiday and upon the world's most uncomfortable couch I found reruns of Northern Exposure. I loved the show back in its heyday. It appeared apt, especially the episode where on Thanksgiving the First nation people through tomatoes at the white people. A few months after that, we returned from Serbia to discover that Amazon Prime now had all of Northern Exposure in its content vault. I then viewed every episode. Thus, I was intrigued by McPhee's description of the eccentrics who leave the "Lower 48" and venture north. There are three sections, the first dealing with a canoe and kayak trip rife with conversation about conservation and bear attacks. The second details urban Alaska and political tensions; this crystallized in ballot measure to move the state capitol. The final section is a series of portraits which in juxtaposition create an Alaskan mesh, forever in disunion.

Was I ever disappointed! Perhaps the blame should rest with me, if only partially. I just recoiled from the arrogance, intentional or not. I enjoyed the sections detailing bush pilots but disliked nearly everything else.

This man has written so many good books and guided so many contemporary writers I want to go back in time and attend Princeton where he teaches and just sit in and listen to him.

2023 - ‘70’s Immersion Reading Challenge

Coming Into the Country: A remarkable voyage of spirit and mind into America’s last great wilderness - Alaska by John McPhee (1976; 1979 ed.) 417 pages.

If you are from Alaska, then you are definitely going to want to read this book. Alaska was going through huge progressive changes in the 1970’s. The author smoothly interweaves a bit of history and politics with interviews of the natives, especially in and around Eagle, which was the first incorporated town of interior Alaska situated on the Yukon River. In the ’70’s, Alaska was in its third gold boom and now the oil boom. The U.S. government was moving in and changing the climate in Alaska. The author, from New Jersey, traveled to Alaska to feel and experience the last wild piece of America, and to interview these locals and natives to get their feelings about the changes taking place. This book is divided into three sections: The Encircled River, What They Were Hunting For, and Coming Into the Country.

(1) The Encircled River

McPhee and four other guys, who worked for the U.S. government, began a canoe and kayak expedition at the head of the 60 mile long Salmon River in the Brooks Range that runs through the Baird Mountains in Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska. It is the most northern river above the Arctic Circle. Their purpose was to study the river as a national wild river that Congress would be voting on the following year, 1978, to become part of the Kobuk Valley National Monument, along with 15 other millions of acreages they were to vote on for national parks. The natives would soon have to accept the idea of now owning property and having boundaries; whereas, before they were roamers, following the herds of moose and caribou. The legislation passed under Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980.

McPhee learned from his adventuring guides, that it takes money to go into the bush to hunt and fish. These men moved to Alaska only to find their dreams of hunting or fishing squashed because the reality of it is you need lots of money to charter planes out to areas where the fish, moose and caribou even exist.

(2) What They Were Hunting For

What they were hunting for back in the 1970’s was a new place to move the capital from Juneau, which had been the state capital since 1906. There were no roads into Juneau. One had to hire a bush pilot and fly in. McPhee flew around with the committee in charge to scout out the three possible sites for the new capital: Lake Larson, Mount Yenlo, and Willow, which all three would have been more centrally located between the two rival cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks, but much closer to Anchorage. Willow won the vote and construction was supposed to begin in 1980. (p. 169) The author didn’t know at the time, when the book was published in 1977, that the capital of Alaska would not be moved in 1980 because here it is year 2023 and Juneau is still the capital, and, by the way, you still have to charter flights into the city. This section of the book gives interesting insight into the steps the Alaskan government took to try and change it….and the expense, into the millions of dollars spent, just to try and find a suitable place that never panned out.

(3) Coming into the Country

The upper Yukon is referred to as “the country”. A stranger arriving up there is said to have “come into the country”. (p. 175)

This part of the book is the longest and is all about the native locals who live and survive on the Yukon River, in and around Eagle. The author stayed at the homes of these natives and participated with them in gold digging, hunting and hiking expeditions, while getting their views on the progressive changes taking place in Alaska. He gives great insight into the lives of these people and their environment, with a little history, on Eagle.

The hard truth about living “in the country” of Alaska…

A lot of these people who keep coming into the country don’t belong here. They have fallen in love with a calendar photo and they want to live under a beautiful mountain. When they arrive the reality doesn’t match the dream. It’s too much for them. They don’t want to work hard enough; they don’t want to spread out – to go far enough up the streams. (Richard Okey “Dick” Cook, came into the country in 1964 from Lyndhurst, Ohio, p. 253)

Page 410 tells of the authors own struggles to pick sides. He enjoys the beautiful national parks and wildlife refuges….and I do too. I’m so glad we have them. At the same time, I do realize that progress, and even just the preservation of land, comes with a double-edged sword, putting an end to one way of life for another. Many of the natives are implementing, and prefer using, modern tools and equipment (aluminum boats with their Evinrude motors, ski-doos, fuel, guns, purchased rations, and, of course, government subsidies). And because of this, they are forced into taking jobs in the bigger cities, away from their families, for a season to make money to pay for those conveniences they have come to depend on. That’s part of the payoff!

———————————————

INTERESTING FACTS

ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT OF 1971

Alaska was purchased from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867, but didn’t become a state until 1959. It wasn’t until 1971 when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act gave the natives (Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts) one billion dollars and 44 million acres of land. A lot of this land, as we now know today, contained gold, silver, other minerals and oil and gas rights, which they were and would be able to profit from. (p. 145) A much different situation compared to how the natives were treated previously in the lower 48.


HOMESTEADING IN ALASKA

In the 1862 Homestead Act, homesteaders were given 160 acres, free of charge, for coming to Alaska. They had to live on the property for three years, build a dwelling to live in and grow a crop on an eighth of the land (p. 161), but that deal ended in 1974…according to this author. But, another source online states the 1862 Homestead Act officially ended on October 21, 1976 with a 10-year extension for Alaska. The last free, 160-acre homestead was claimed on October 21, 1986. (U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management: “History of Alaska Homesteading”, )

But, even after the homestead act ended, it appears people would still go and build small cabins deep into the interior Alaska, believing they had staked a claim to a piece of Alaska, and little was ever mentioned. But, if oil was discovered on the land, or even nearby, the U.S. Government would send officials through the area on helicopters to dish out eviction notices, and it didn’t matter how long you had been established there. (p. 232-33, 236) The State of Alaska had until 1984 to finish choosing its 103 million acres, which much was in the way of parks, government forests, wildlife refuges, huge petroleum reserves in the north, and the 44 million acres appropriated to natives. There wasn’t much land left for squatters, or want-to-be-homesteaders, to sneak in a cabin anywhere. (p. 234)

GOLD IN ALASKA

(1) 1890’s - $17/oz.
(2) 1934 - Government set price at $35/oz.
(3) 1970’s - for first time gold was allowed to float with the market and Americans were allowed to buy and keep gold. It rose to nearly $200/oz., settling to $150/oz. (p. 219)

Today, n 2023, the price of gold is $1,832/oz., fluctuating with the daily market (Forbes Advisor at Forbes.com online website). Recreational gold panning is still allowed on public lands, such as national forest, wildlife refuges, some state parks, national parks (higher restrictions), lands administrated by the Bureau of Land Management and the State of Alaska.

To determine if an area is open to mineral entry and if there are legal mining claims in an area, contact the state Division of Mining or, for claims on federal lands, the Bureau of Land Management. Once you have determined land status, know that it is public land, that it is open to mineral entry, and that it has no legal claims, check with the managing agency to determine what restrictions might be in force. (Recreational Gold Mining in Alaska @ myalaskan.com, accessed 3/3/2023)

For gold panning on private property, you must have owners permission. For the use of any heavy equipment, you must have a permit.

This book was recommended to me by a colleague when he heard that I was looking at making a television programme in Alaska.  He told me that it would give me a valuable insight into the country and the people that live there & WOW, was he right!

It's ever so readable, although infuriating in places as John McPhee paints a brilliant picture of the characters that he meets in the narrative, begins wonderful tales around their lives and then, on occasion, veers off on another fascinating strand leaving you wanting to find out more about those that have just left.

That said though, I really would recommend  this book whether you are visiting Alaska in person, from your armchair, or planning on Coming Into  the Country yourself.  I for one will be looking out for more of his books.

John McPhee's Coming into the Country is a stunningly marvelous book about Alaska, its people, and its wilderness. The book is well written and very readable.

The book was written in 1977, and I presume Alaska was more of a frontier than it is today. However, the descriptions of the wilderness--and the people who live there--are breathtaking. I felt like I was there.

McPhee's Annals of the Former World won the Pulitzer Prize. Coming into the Country is almost as good.

An entertaining and astute observation of Alaska and it's peoples. Fiercely independent vs the predatory personalities and attitudes are marked here with adroit humour. For those of us who are unable to traverse this land of staggering beauty, McPhee takes us there to see, hear, and smell the sounds of the rivers, the majesty of the mountains, the wildness of the bush and it's animals, both human and not. This is a wonderful read and we are all the richer for his contribution to the allure of Alaska. As my son, who lives in Anchorage says, " You see it all here as Mc Phee describes it".. No better review could be stated.

I have been reading McPhee since i was 12  and after 51 years he’s the best . Haven’t read this since 1979 , and I still have a thrill reading it .

This is the kind of book I love most: one that carries you into the wilderness, makes you feel like you're really there, up in wild Alaska, as McPhee goes into depth describing the land, the people, the way of life in rural Alaska, with eloquence and lovely evoked imagery and phrases that allow you to almost feel you're there smelling the fragrance of the forest.

I like reading about this rural, outback way of life that I would be unsuited for in so many ways...I feel like I get a chance to live that life to some extent through reading about it in detail.

I didn't care for the chapter "What they were hunting for", which I thought did not fit in with the rest of the book.  I loved reading about the day to day lives of the settlers, trappers and miners.

By the end of the book, though, as much as I admired their ability to live in such wild lands, I also found I was depressed by the settlers' reliance on mining and trapping, extractive methods of living on the land.  I would not have difficulty with small-scale mining and trapping operations, but I was disturbed by the description of mining in wild Alaska using large Caterpillar machinery, in fact the largest bulldozers that the Caterpillar company makes, and tearing up enormous acreage in a search for gold.  Similarly, I began to feel depressed by the number of wild animals killed, not for food, but just to sell their pelts.

It's the story of human destruction of the planet, that people think their actions are irrelevant given the scale of their surroundings.  They'll argue that they are only working a very very tiny area of a huge wilderness.  Well, the oceans of the planet are vast, and yet we've managed to overfish them to the point where some are saying we have come to the point of threatening all life in the oceans.  As well, all life on the planet is interconnected, and it's not possible to destroy one area without impacting other areas, as we are learning perhaps all too late about the destruction of the earth's forests.

So while in 1976, 43 years ago when this book was written, the life of these miners and trappers may have seemed more romantic and idyllic, in the context of the problems we face today with destruction of the planet, I think that one can no longer view these people as romantically "living off the land" when they are ruining landscapes with giant Caterpillar tractors and killing hundreds of animals a year to sell their fur.

Liked the mix of characters, the honesty of the writing, my mate in our South Island would enjoy it to. I like the factual nature of the story too.

John McPhee tells his story of Alaska in three parts – and, to my mind, it’s the third part that matters.  The second we could really do without.

The book begins with McPhee’s travels with federal land managers surveying options for national parks, national wildlife refuges, and other federal lands as part of the great land settlements of the 1970s. As a man from New Jersey who is comfortable with the outdoors, here McPhee learns to see Alaska as a recreationist, in the company of scientists and recreation specialists taking the measure of the land. It’s a reasonable introduction, but I’m not sure it’s an essential one.

The second part recounts the political battle over moving the capital from Juneau. That must have seen important in 1976, but we now know that nothing came of it. Even in 1976, it’s not clear how it would have fit with the first or third part. It’s an interesting story, full of the kinds of characters that populate McPhee’s journalism, but it seems expendable in the book as a whole.

The third part is the meat of the book, the stories of people living in the upper Yukon. Most live on the tributaries of the Yukon from Eagle and Circle down to Fairbanks, or they live in one of those towns. These are interesting people, and McPhee naturally sympathizes with their problems.

In fact, that empathy defines his conclusions – McPhee sides with the small-scale devastator of Alaska’s environment, the pioneer looking to escape the crowded Lower 48 in hopes of crowding a new frontier. Indeed, those pioneers have already succeeded in crowding Anchorage and the Matanuska Valley, with Palmer and especially Wasilla just chain restaurants, chain hotels, Safeways, and suburban developments.

McPhee had hoped that Alaska would remain “the last place in the United States where the pioneer impulse can leap from confinement,” but he seems not to have realized that his impulse would do to Alaska what it has done to New Jersey, or Los Angeles, or Missoula.