Flutterby™! : More Alaska

I held off for nearly two days. Nearly two! So... Finished Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings by Jonathan Raban. An account of his taking a 35 foot sailboat from Seattle to Juneau, with many stops and excursions in between, interspersed with George Vancouver's expedition along the same route. Beautifully written, but somehow that writing got in the way of the tale he was telling. When he docks the boat in a hidden harbor and grabs a floatplane to civilization to go see his dying father in England we discover things about him that, while entertaining, seem like an extraneous tale to the one I was hoping to read about.

I have a wonderful new appreciation for the challenges of the region, feel like I'm wiser for having made the journey with him, but also like I got snippets here and there, missing too much to give myself a full story. So while I look forward to context of the huge whirlpools, at times 10 feet deep, and rapids in sea level saltwater, and I appreciate his insights into what happened to the native American cultures with the influx of the European, I feel like I've gotten only a small taste, and now I want more.

It is with that in mind that I hope I can get a copy of Following the Alaskan Dream: My Salmon Trolling Adventures in the Last Frontier from Marilyn Frink Jordan George. My local bookseller couldn't get it, although their suppliers claim they once had it, and she self-published it, so I'm hoping I can get a copy from her. The PDF of the first chapter makes it sound like one of those family stories I want more of.

Update: Marilyn tells me she's got copies as the web page says. Check goes out today.