Edge of Tomorrow: An Arctic Year

From the last great wilderness, in the Brooks Range of Alaska, one hundred miles inside the Arctic Circle, Sam Wright speaks to an emerging view of nature as an interconnected, dynamic whole. Living in a hand-built, 12'-by-12' cabin, Wright records seasonal changes and his own thoughts as he and his wife live a year in isolation and contemplation. Here, nature truly seems to be a part of the emotion of daily life. With humor and insight, philosopher-ecologist Wright details an almanac of human experience and arctic allegories that uncover many of life’s paradoxes.

During a sabbatical leave in 1968, Sam Wright and his new wife, Billie, moved into the wilderness of Alaska. They wanted to experience intimately the traditional, Native American way of life by emulating it as much as possible. Billie Wright’s award-winning book, Four Seasons North: A Journal of Life in the Alaskan Wilderness, was her account of their first year in the cabin which they named Koviashuvik, an Eskimo word for “living in the present moment with quiet joy and happiness.” Billie died in December 1987. In 1988, Sam published Koviashuvik as the second volume in their library of nature philosophy. Edge of Tomorrow is the third in the Wrights’ series.

When first out of college, author Sam Wright assisted Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project. He later completed theological training and taught at a University of California, Berkeley seminary. Vocal opponents of the Alaskan pipeline, he and his first wife, Billie, became California “drop outs” in 1968 and moved to Alaska, where they built a cabin they named Koviashuvik. Billie died of cancer in 1987. Now a part-time Unitarian minister, he and his wife, Donna Lee, divide their time between Alaska and Arizona.