Koviashuvik: A Time and Place of Joy (Sierra Club Nature and Natural Philosophy Library) - Hardcover

Sam Wright

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871566885 ISBN 13: 9780871566881

Publisher: Sierra Club Books, 1988

Synopsis

The author describes the twenty years he and his wife spent living in Alaska's Brooks Range and shares his observations on nature.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

For two decades, biologist Wright and his wife Billie made their home 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle, in the Brooks Range of Alaska. This memoir contains vignettes of life in the wilderness, occasional visits to the "Lower 48" (and one to the British Museum) and observations on the natural world interspersed with philosophical reflections. Wright uses a technique of repetition that is more irritating than useful to the reader, i.e., "Being helpful usually makes things worse. Nearly always it is anything but helpful to be helpful without being asked. Yes, it is." But there are engaging stories about wildlife; especially, one about a family of terns and another about a journey to plant spruce seedlings beyond timberline. Though he was opposed to the Alaska pipeline, Wright became a counselor for the workers. He notes that they had security, but not freedom; to him, freedom is responsibility. He examines the myths that guide our lives and calls for a renewal of faith--toward Koviashuvik , an Eskimo word meaning time-and-place-of-joy in the present moment.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is not so much a travelogue of life in Alaska as a philosophical approach to the wilderness. The author's trout fishing becomes an example of the connections between man and nature: "In spring when the ice goes, lake trout rise to the mouths of creeks to feed on graylings and other smaller fish, which eat the larvae of mosquitoes, who need our blood to mature their eggs, so larvae feed graylings and graylings feed the trout, which feed us, whose blood the mosquitoes need . . . . At the edge of the deep water he grabbed the lure. I set the hook and we were connected. Yes, we were connected by ten thousand years, we were connected by blood . . . ." Recommended for informed laypersons who have an interest in philosophy of nature.
- Mary J. Nickum, Fish and Wildlife Reference Svce., Bethesda. Md.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sierra Club Books
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0871566885
• ISBN 13: 9780871566881
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214