Synopses & Reviews
"I live in the sunshine of friends and the shadows of glaciers. I suppose I will die there too, if all goes well. No hurry though. The hardness of water, the ebb and flow of ice, the once and future glaciers of America, they created my home and they will destroy it. My winter is only a heartbeat to them. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't born in a cave or raised by wolves. I grew up on pavement and the soft seat of a Schwinn Red Racer, gripping the handlebars with everything I had. Then I let go. Somewhere along the way I let go and found something new, but also something ancient. I moved to Glacier Bay, Alaska, the last wild shore, nine hundred miles north of Seattle and nine hundred years in the past, and I never came back." --from
The Only Kayak
So begins a coming-of-middle-age memoir by Kim Heacox who writes in the tradition of Edward Abbey, John McPhee and Henry David Thoreau, his voice at times tender, irate, funny,and deeply humane. What he finds in Alaska is a land reborn from beneath a massive glacier (one hundred miles long, five thousand feet thick), where flowers emerge from boulders, moose swim fjords, and bears cross crevasses with Homeric resolve. In such a place Heacox finds that people are reborn too. Friends become family in a land of risk and hope. Lives begin anew with incredible journeys, epiphanies, and successes. All in an America free of crass commercialism and over-development.
Braided through the larger story are tales of gold prospectors and the cabin they built sixty years ago, a cabin that refuses to fall down; plus tales of John Muir and his intrepid terrier, Stickeen; and a dynamic geology professor who teaches earth science "as if every day were a geological epoch."
Nearly two million people come to Alaska every summer, some on large cruise ships, some in two-seater planes, some in single kayaks--all in search of the last great wilderness, the Africa of America. It is exactly the America Heacox finds in this story of paradox, love and loss, the conflict between idealism and learning to accept that some things can never quite stay the same.
Review
"Writer and photographer Heacox delivers a genuine, deeply moving account of the past 25 years he has spent living in Glacier Bay, Alaska. . . . Heacox's ability to use this tension—between the beauty of the Alaskan wilderness and the creeping encroachment of modern life—is the thread that unites his varied observations, and it's what gives the book its uniqueness and keeps it from being another pale imitation of
Coming into the Country, John McPhee's late-1970s classic on Alaska. . . . A charming reverie on Alaska's past and a thoughtful look at its future." --
Publishers Weekly“A long-time resident of Alaskas Glacier Bay reflects on and explores human accountability toward the area. . . . Heacox offers great descriptions of the regions elemental beauty: light like green apples, monarch yellow cottonwoods, bruised clouds and long rains. [It is a] tender chronicle of a miracle in process, with glints of its rarity thrown by the handful from these pages.” --Kirkus Reviews
"'Make access easy, and a place dies,' is his motto, and therein lies the paradox that Heacox tries to resolve in this book. . . . As he wrestles with such conundrums, Heacox creates a nicely balanced environmental portrait of Alaska's ice-cut coast." --Booklist
"Heacox is a poet, a scholar, a naturalist and a wild man who, in this great book, weaves together the story of the land and the people. The Only Kayak helps us reconnect what the Lakota call the the sacred hoop of life. I want to give this book to a dozen friends and,dear reader, I want to share it with you. Bravo, Kim Heacox." --Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other
"Few have wandered more deeply and thoughtfully through the wilds of Alaska than Kim Heacox. Those who know him best through his extraordinary photographs now have the chance to accompany him in words through some of the wildest and most beautiful country anywhere on earth. The Only Kayak is a delight." --William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"With this powerful book, Kim Heacox enters the first rank of writers on the wild, the human, and the mix between the two. It's set in one of America's most spectacular landscapes, but it's also set in one of its kindest, most open hearts. A real triumph." --Bill McKibben, author The End of Nature, and Wandering Home: A Long Walk Through America's Most Hopeful Region
"Perhaps more than ever before, we need passionate, eloquent voices speaking out for the American land. . . . Kim Heacox's writing evokes the fundamental paradox of our times: the vast, beauty of Alaska shining brilliantly against the dark, encroaching peril of industrial America. Anyone who cares about our remaining wild places, and about the conscience of those who stand in defense of our natural heritage, should read this extraordinary book. --Richard Nelson, author of The Island Within and Make Prayers to the Raven
“The Only Kayak is an important and beautiful book about what it means to fall in love with a place—not just any place, but the wild, dangerous, breath-catching, gorgeous Glacier Bay. And not just any love, but a wistful, sometimes desperate yearning to protect a wilderness even as it melts away. Kim Heacox is what this world needs—a defender of the land as fierce and funny as Abbey or Thoreau.” -Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Riverwalking and The Pine Island Paradox
"Heacox's book is both a coming-of-(middle)age memoir and a love story, with Alaska serving as both the journey's end and the beloved. While Heacox writes passionately about his home in Glacier Bay, he also acknowledges the inevitability of change there. In prose that is both lyrical and powerful, he gives the reader a complete picture of the beauty of that wilderness and what will be lost in its deterioration." --Book News
"...this book is about: learning to walk with purpose. It's about a lot of things, actually--love, community, heartbreak, hope for people and place. It's about how living an unexamined life is far riskier than sleeping on a beach with bears." --Anchorage Daily News
--"The naturalist expert for National Geographic Expeditions is a talented writer, a good storyteller, and passionate about his state; and he takes [us] through his journey of falling in love, aging and learning when to let go." --Everett Herald (Washington)
Review
In praise of An American Idea: The Making of the National Parks:"With all the drama and color of a good novel, An American Idea is a compelling presentation of the long and difficult journey that resulted in one of our nation's most significant accomplishments." --Robert Redford
In praise of the novel, Caribou Crossing:
"This book is superb in many ways, refreshingly original, well-plotted, with interesting characters who are richly imagined. Caribou Crossing is our new Monkey Wrench Gang, and Kim Heacox our northern Edward Abbey." --Jonathan Waterman, author of Arctic Crossing and In the Shadow of Denali
"With Grisham-esque pacing, Heacox adroitly combines political intrigue with poisonous ideologies [surrounding the proposed drilling of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge], taking the reader on a high stakes game of cat and mouse that reaches from the summit of Capitol Hill to the depths of a wilderness ice flow." --Booklist
"A novel doesn't get much closer to the headlines than this one--or much closer to the truth about what counts in this economy. Kim Heacox provides a great read--and a great service--in this fine book." --Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
"The intrigue is compelling, the passion inspiring, but the moral heart of this book is as powerful as the ancient rivers of the north." --Sherry Simpson, author of The Way Winter Comes
In praise of Alaska Light:
"Kim Heacox sneaks up on you. His essays start like lazy rivers that recall pleasant times and places. Then the water gets swifter and the rocks begin to poke up and you have to pay attention. His message about Alaska says it straight: There's no where else to run to. It's the last ridge of many we have crossed, guarding the last uncluttered horizons left to us." --William E. Brown, historian and author of This Last Treasure
In praise of Shackleton: The Antartic Challenge:
"Those who read this excellent book cannot be overwhelmed by a story of remarkable character." --Sir Edmund Hillary
Synopsis
Kim Heacox is a writer and photographer whose works have won the
BenjaminFranklin Nature Book Award and the Lowell Thomas Award. He has written
nine books, some of which have been endorsed by Robert Redford, President
Jimmy Carter, and Sir Edmund Hillary. He lives in Gustavus, Alaska.
Synopsis
An exploration of community and environmental consciousness, by an award-winning writer and photographer.
Synopsis
"I live in the sunlight of friends and the shadows of glaciers."
So begins The Only Kayak, a coming-of-middle-age memoir by Kim Heacox, who writes in the tradition of Edward Abbey, John McPhee, and Henry David Thoreau, with a voice at times tender, irate, funny, and deeply humane.
What does it mean to fall in love with a place that cannot stay the same? When do you hold on? When do you let go? As Kim discovers in this provocative story, we need to be better students of change rather than the instruments of change. Born in Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains and raised in Spokane, Kim moves to Alaska as a young park ranger and discovers a land and sea newly reborn from beneath a retreating glacier. "People are reborn here too," he writes. "This place is that powerful. In Glacier Bay you don't inherit, you create. You practice resurrection because the land and sea show you that anything is possible. Moose swim across fiords. Bears traverse glaciers. Flowers emerge from granite boulders. Inlets fill with glacial silt. Shorelines shift and nautical charts become obsolete as the land - the actual crust of the Earth - rebounds after the immense weight of glacial ice (of just a few hundred years ago) has been lifted."
In this tale of friendship, risk, and hope, we find a story of coming home and learning to live gracefully among the deep blue glaciers of Alaska, a place Kim calls "the Africa of America." His words offer us a chance to look into our own selves and ask how we might live with greater deliberation, purpose, and thankfulness for the wild places we still have.
Synopsis
In this coming-of-middle-age memoir award-winning author Kim Heacox ponders the question "What does it mean to fall in love Z99 a place that cannot stay the same?" His tale written in the tradition of Edward Abbey John McPhee and Henry David Thoreau
Synopsis
Finalist for the 2006 Pen Center USA Western award in creative nonfiction.