Word: mcphee
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Describing the river trip, McPhee is superb. His eye for detail is acute, yet never excessive. He treats the use of detail, not as an end in itself, but as a means of making the country real, of placing the reader in its midst. In his opening lines, McPhee writes...
...important one--part of disturbing trend of sacrificing the Alaskan wilderness to economic and political exigencies--the various interest groups pushing for one location over another are all too familiar. This section of the book does not measure up in fascination or majesty to the other sections and unfortunately, McPhee treats them a little too thoroughly...
...People in the region of the upper Yukon refer to their part of Alaska as 'the country' "McPhee explains at the start of the final section, which shares the book's title. "A stranger appearing among them is said to have 'come into the country."' The fact is, almost every white person in the country has been such a stranger at one time or another. In Eagle (population 100), the town McPhee focuses on in the last half of the book, you can count on one hand the adults who are native born. The rest have arrived at some point...
...MCPHEE SPENDS TIME with many of these people. He finds them highly competent, individualistic men and women who meet the challenges of the wild in their own way, people who endlessly find fault with all ways that are not their own. McPhee takes them all at their word, leaving critical comments about a man to his neighbors. The neighbors willingly supply them...
This last section of the book is the least structured. The narrative jumps back and forth from the people of Eagle, to McPhee's solo trek one night across the grizzly-infested tundra to an Indian village adjacent to Eagle. McPhee has at times been criticized for being too organized, too refined, and the freedom he allows himself here is particularly impressive, is warm, human journalism and McPhee's style is an acknowledgement that Alaska cannot be organized into tidy, easily digested sections...