Where Mountains Are Nameless: Passion and Politics in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

by Jonathan Waterman and John Waterman

Book Overview

Adventurer Jonathan Waterman braves polar bears and frigid waters in a journey through the heart of the Alaskan wilds--and into the heated political debate surrounding the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. A... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393052192
• ISBN13: 9780393052190
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

If you have to read one book this year, this is the one.

I happened to hear a John Batchelor ABC radio interview of the author after I finished reading this book and Jonathan came across just as eloquently in person as he does in the book. The narrative is not bound by traditional time constraints (on August 2, I went here, and the next day...) and this technique seems to allow a greater sensory awareness versus a more journalistic approach. In fact, I wasn't even aware of it until another reviewer here carped that he didn't know the date! I mean c'mon, are we as reviewers allowed to take potshots at a book that will is destined to be remembered as great literature? The reason the book is great is that Waterman concurrently, in between his own fascinating encounters in the Arctic, tells the story of the Muries, who created the Refuge. Their sense of romance allowed the author to open up a saga that was about something bigger than himself and ultimately, to show the tastes and textures and true meanings of the Arctic Refuge. A beautiful and stunning book.

Far From a Wasteland

Of course the prospect of drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be fought over forever by know-it-alls from far away who have never been there. The main point of this book by Jonathan Waterman is that the ANWR is far from the barren and lifeless wasteland described by oil proponents, while environmentalists should also learn more about the true nature of the landscape before making big statements. In the end, Waterman certainly comes down on the side of conservation, but he mostly keeps the oil politics and environmentalism to a minimum as he describes his own adventurous journeys to the Arctic North. Threaded into Waterman's travelogues is the story of the longtime champions of the wildlife refuge, Olaus and Mardy Murie. Olaus was a groundbreaking field biologist and explorer throughout the first half of the 20th century, while his wife Mardy was a hugely influential conservationist and lecturer who died at age 101 while this book was being written. Unfortunately the book has some problems with readability. Waterman's main point, about how you really have to experience the refuge firsthand to understand it, is spread out very thinly across at least a dozen concurrent narratives and storylines. Segments covering various portions of the Muries' lives, several of Waterman's different trips, a history of Alaska, oil business economics, the biology of the caribou herds and other animals, environmental politics, and naturalist philosophy are all mixed together haphazardly and in no particular chronological order. Waterman also gets a bit maudlin in his attempts to conjure up the appropriate language to describe the wonders of the refuge, with occasional croakers like "letting my body become the universe in which it walked." The nonlinear construction of the book really saps the energy out of Waterman's potentially powerful insights about communing with nature overall, and the fate of the ANWR specifically. But he still manages to convey the feeling of the potential loss of a tremendous national treasure in favor of miniscule economic and political gains. [~doomsdayer520~]