AJ 12 • Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading

A 4,000-mile Alaskan journey, four centuries of Black nature poetry, and a grizzly’s last season

Issue 12
The Sun Is a Compass by Caroline Van Hemert
The Sun Is a Compass: A 4,000-Mile Journey Into the Alaskan Wilds
Caroline Van Hemert · Little, Brown Spark · 2019

“Inside Passage: Row north along the Pacific coastline. Start early spring. Pat must finish boats. Scoters feed on the herring spawn. Hummingbirds cruise north… Brooks Range: 1,000 mile traverse. Maps hang crooked on the wall—Pat claims he’s not going crazy.” Caroline Van Hemert’s gentle observations can lead you to forget she and her husband are backcountry badasses, up until they’re struggling against a wild river current and you remember they’re venturing 4,000 miles from Bellingham, Washington, to Kotzebue, Alaska, by way of foot, rowboat, ski, and packraft. Van Hemert, a bird biologist, reminds us that big, epic treks are an elemental part of nature: for many species, there is no question of migration—it is instinct, and to

400 words to go

You’re just getting to the good part.

This story — and 42 issues of them — opens with a subscription.

Either one picks up right where you left off.

Join 7,000+ readers · Independently owned · Since 2008

Adventure Journal — Print Quarterly
Stories like this, in your hands four times a year.

42 issues. 11 years. Independently owned. Printed on 70lb uncoated paper with a soft-touch cover, solar-powered, and shipped in a brown paper envelope. Free domestic shipping.

Subscribe — $80/year Or try a single issue for $25

There is nothing else like it. — AJ subscriber