Alas­ka Book Week is almost here! Octo­ber 8 – 15; more info here. Join Hooked in cel­e­brat­ing ABW from wher­ev­er you are, by cozy­ing up with one of Alaska’s many tal­ent­ed authors. This is a review of one of my favorites.

Pack­ing for hal­ibut fish­ing last May was pret­ty sim­ple. Longlining’s fast pace and gru­el­ing hours equate to min­i­mal down time that is best spent sleep­ing. Prac­tic­ing great restraint for some­one who usu­al­ly packs more read­ing mate­r­i­al than cloth­ing, only one book went into my sea bag: Walk­ing Home, by Lynn Schooler.

Win­ner of the 2010 Banff Moun­tain Fes­ti­val John Whyte Award for Moun­tain Literature

As soon as the gear was set, we retired to our bunks for a 2 hour nap. I nes­tled into my sleep­ing bag, book in hand. If I’d want­ed to pri­or­i­tize sleep, this was a mis­take: Walk­ing Home cap­ti­vat­ed me from the first page.

The back flap reads, “Lynn School­er has recent­ly lost a dear friend and feels his mar­riage slip­ping away when he sets out into the wilder­ness to clear his head. His per­ilous solo expe­di­tion – first by boat, then on foot – takes him along one of the world’s wildest coast­lines, being bat­tered by the ele­ments, ford­ing a swollen riv­er, and, for sev­er­al har­row­ing hours, becom­ing a griz­zly bear’s quarry. 

But this bar­ren land­scape is also rich with human sto­ries – of trap­pers, explor­ers, marooned sailors, and her­mits, as well as the myths of the regions Tlin­git Indi­ans. Pay­ing trib­ute to these lives at a lone­some turn­ing point in his own, School­er aspires to under­stand what it means to be not only part of nature’s web, but also a mem­ber of a human com­mu­ni­ty in the flow of history.”

Though School­er “set off into the wilder­ness,” Walk­ing Home is no Into the Wild. Alaskans have lit­tle patience for Hol­ly­wood-ized sto­ries of poor­ly-planned jaunts into nature. True to his forty years’ expe­ri­ence in Alas­ka, Schooler’s pre­cau­tions were metic­u­lous and hum­bling. This is some­one I’d leave the dock with, I thought. That trust in the indi­vid­ual allowed me to trust the author, los­ing myself in his gor­geous prose.

School­er’s geo­graph­i­cal sub­ject, Lituya Bay, is a favored oasis of fish­er­men, a place par­tic­u­lar­ly close to my heart. Close in phys­i­cal prox­im­i­ty, too: at the time of my read­ing, we were 40 miles off­shore, gaz­ing east­ward to the very coast­line he trekked. His his­tor­i­cal research was as exten­sive as his per­son­al prepa­ra­tion, weav­ing sev­er­al cen­turies of sto­ries with his own.

Though the region’s his­to­ry and his adven­ture are fas­ci­nat­ing, it was Schooler’s inter­nal jour­ney that tru­ly res­onat­ed with me. His voice sound­ed famil­iar – the tone of so many men in this fleet, an entire gen­er­a­tion self­less with their knowl­edge and time, keep­ing inner tumult as firm­ly guard­ed as a hot fish­ing spot. Fol­low­ing his unflinch­ing gaze, insights absent of self-pity or blame, I found myself won­der­ing if oth­er fish­er­men had processed their own mid-life loss­es sim­i­lar­ly. As bold a ven­ture as Schooler’s solo hike was, the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of expos­ing his inter­nal process seemed a far more coura­geous act.

Through­out the sea­son, I raved about Walk­ing Home to fel­low fish­er­men who know and love this coast­line. One frowned at my sum­ma­ry. “His mar­riage was in trou­ble, so he just left? Huh.”

Well… Yes. I under­stood my friend’s dis­ap­proval. But I also recalled my own reac­tion to deeply trou­bled times, when I fled to the sea with­out a back­wards glance to the loved ones left behind. Hav­ing need­ed to walk out on my own life a time or two, I rec­og­nized the neces­si­ty of movement.

Death and decay are con­stants in this ecosys­tem, as they are in our lives. Out of loss comes new growth; as nature repairs her­self, so do we. Fol­low­ing 1958’s great wave – the largest tsuna­mi ever record­ed, world­wide — Lituya Bay’s rav­aged tree-line reasserts itself. The remains of ship­wrecked ves­sels van­ish from the coast­line, as loved ones exit our lives. We grieve their depar­tures, search for the lessons of our shared time, and con­tin­ue on.

Book lovers all have favorites that we return to, over and over, for famil­iar com­fort and new insights among well-worn pages. When I fin­ished Walk­ing Home and imme­di­ate­ly began to read sec­tions to my ship­mates, strug­gling to see the print through thick­en­ing twi­light, I knew this would be one of mine. For any­one who’s spent time on the water or in the woods, who craves the wild spaces around and inside of them­selves and knows the echo of their own com­pan­ion­ship, Schooler’s work is utter­ly relat­able. It’s an ide­al read for Alas­ka Book Week.

Those of you in/near Anchor­age, mark your cal­en­dars for Feb­ru­ary 10 – 18, when Per­se­ver­ance The­atre will per­form a stage adap­ta­tion of School­er’s 2003 mem­oir, The Blue Bear. Stay tuned via Face­book, where you can sub­scribe to Lynn School­er’s dai­ly pho­to posts — stun­ning med­i­ta­tions on life in South­east Alaska.

Prayer flags fly­ing, July 4^th in Lituya Bay

And you, sweet read­er? What’s on your read­ing list for Alas­ka Book Week?