Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

This week's book review comes from my "outdoor adventure and environmental studies" pile.    Title : North to the Future: An Offline Adventure Through the Changing Wilds of Alaska Au thor: Ben Weissenbach. Read by the author Publication info : Grand Central Publishing, 2025. 11 hours. Hardcover same, 320 pages. Source : Library Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads) : At the age of twenty-one, college student Ben Weissenbach set out into the Alaskan wilderness armed with little more than inspiration from his literary heroes and a growing interest in climate change. What meets him there is a landscape both stark and awe-inspiring—a part of the world seen by few outside a small contingent of scientists with big personalities. There’s Roman Dial, the larger-than-life field scientist who leads him on a five week journey into the Alaskan backcountry. There’s Kenji Yoshikawa, the isolated researcher who leaves Ben alone for eleven days to care for his remote cabin, whe...

This is the 3rd and final post from my  backpacking trip into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness last August.  Here's the report on the  first two days   and here's the 2nd report, on days 3 and 4. Day 5: Oly Lake to Rough Lake This day started with another beautiful sunrise.  For those of you who wonder, this is a big part of why I haul a heavy load into the mountains and sleep on the ground--because it's darned hard to see sunrise at a remote lake on a dayhike. Early light reflected in Oly Lake. Sunrise reflections in Oly Lake. Our route leads up that cleft in the rocks across the lake. It was a relief to wake to calm winds and mostly clear skies, because we'd had a pretty impressive storm at bedtime the night before. Little did we know, that was just the warm-up.    We had a short hike before us, though we knew it wouldn't be fast, so we didn't leave camp until 8:15. We were heading up the creek and over the mountain (back across the divide anyway)...

It took a little patience, but I was finally able to get the library's audiobook of Adam Shoalts' latest, Where the Falcon Flies , which won in the "Journeys" category of the 2024 National Outdoor Book Awards .  I have a bunch of others still on hold!   Title: Where the Falcon Flies: A 3,400 Kilometre Odyssey From My Doorstep to the Arctic Author: Adam Shoalts. Read by the author. Publication Info : Penguin Canada, 2023.  10 hours. Original hardcover by Allen Lane, 2023, 364 pages Source: Library Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads): Looking out his porch window one spring morning, Adam Shoalts spotted a majestic peregrine falcon flying across the neighbouring fields near Lake Erie. Each spring, falcons migrate from southernmost Canada to remote arctic mountains. Grabbing his backpack and canoe, Shoalts resolved to follow the falcon’s route north on an astonishing 3,400-kilometre journey to the Arctic. Along the way, he faces a huge variety of challenges an...

Title: Braving It: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey into the Alaskan Wild Author: James Campbell. Read by Roger Wayne Publisher: Tantor Audio, 2017. Original by Crown Publishing, 384 pages Source: Library digital resources Publisher's Blurb: The powerful and affirming story of a father's journey with his teenage daughter to the far reaches of Alaska Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to only a handful of people, is a harsh and lonely place. So when James Campbell's cousin Heimo Korth asked him to spend a summer building a cabin in the rugged Interior, Campbell hesitated about inviting his fifteen-year-old daughter, Aidan, to join him: Would she be able to withstand clouds of mosquitoes, the threat of grizzlies, bathing in an ice-cold river, and hours of grueling labor peeling and hauling logs? But once there, Aidan embraced the wild. She even agreed to return a few months later to help the Korths work their traplines and hunt for c...