NOVEMBER 9, 2017 // 19
Authors paddle through
the Northern Pacific coast
Over the past week,
your faithful book critic
has paddled through more
than 500 pages of words
about journeys along the
inland waters of the North-
ern Pacific coast.
Erin McKittrick’s
book, “Mud Flats and Fish
Camps,” details a trek
she and her young family
undertook by pack raft and
on foot around 800 miles
of Alaska’s Cook Inlet.
In another book, “Pad-
dling with Spirits,” Irene
Skyriver marks her 40th
birthday by launching on
a solo kayak journey that
follows the water routes
her coastal ancestors plied
from Alaska to the San
Juan Islands.
Let’s begin with McK-
ittrick. This is not the first
time the Seattle-born trans-
plant to Alaska has tackled
epic journeys and written
about them. But in this age
of push-button convenience
and screen-mediated life-
styles, how remarkable it is
to follow her young fami-
ly’s four-month immersive
trek along the saltwater
fringes of big wilderness.
McKittrick, her husband
and their 4-year-old son
and 2-year-old daughter
take to this life like otters
to mudslides — and is
there ever a lot of mud! At
one point her son gleefully
yells, “Our goal is to get
more muddy!” He and his
sister take “immersive
adventure” literally.
The author’s ability to
describe mud in a hundred
different ways is notewor-
thy, but where she really
excels is in examining the
interface between human
activity and Alaskan geog-
raphy. The state’s biggest
city, Anchorage, is situated
on Cook Inlet. So are sea-
sonal fish camps, offshore
oil platforms and a whole
lot of wilderness.
McKittrick combines
present-day observations
with reflections on the
records of earlier explorers
and settlers who came to
this cold saltwater coastline
of seemingly endless bays
and estuaries and inlets.
She asks of everyone they
meet along the way what
they think the future holds
for this place.
At the beginning of
the 21st century, McK-
ittrick’s family is still able
to pursue an adventurous
life away from highways
and shopping plazas, if not
entirely off the grid. But
readers will detect the au-
thor’s underlying concern
that Alaska’s wilderness is
as vulnerable as it is vast.
In “Paddling with
Spirits,” Irene Skyriver
may adopt a similar mode
of travel, but her journey
is more about connecting
spiritually with the places
her forebears came from
than about what will be-
come of those places in the
future.
In contrast to McK-
ittrick’s careful prepara-
tions, Skyriver approaches
her quest by mailing her
itinerary to a psychic for
guidance. This free-spirit-
ed, “fringe of the fringe”
style — the author never
wears her lifejacket —
guarantees that surprises
will crop up along the way.
Her travel agenda may
seem disconcertingly spon-
taneous, but Skyriver’s in-
tentionality becomes clear
in the way she weaves the
stories of her ancestors into
the landscapes and water-
ways she passes through.
Anecdotes passed down
through the generations in
her family, richly recreat-
ed, take up the bulk of the
book and are bracketed by
the author’s breezy con-
temporary travelogue.
“Paddling with Spirits”
BOOKMONGER
Mud Flats and Fish
Camps
By Erin McKittrick
Mountaineers Books
224 pp
$18.95
is set to be published Fri-
day, Nov. 10.
The Bookmonger is
Barbara Lloyd McMichael,
who writes this weekly col-
Paddling with
Spirits
By Irene Skyriver
Green Writers Press
292 pp
$21.95
umn focusing on the books,
authors and publishers
of the Pacific Northwest.
Contact her at bkmonger@
nwlink.com.
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