Braving it: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey Into the Alaskan Wild

James Campbell

Crown Publishers, 2016 - Biography & Autobiography - 359 pages

The powerful and affirming story of a father's journey with his teenage daughter to the far reaches of Alaska

Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to only a handful of people, is a harsh and lonely place. So when James Campbell's cousin Heimo Korth asked him to spend a summer building a cabin in the rugged Interior, Campbell hesitated about inviting his fifteen-year-old daughter, Aidan, to join him: Would she be able to withstand clouds of mosquitoes, the threat of grizzlies, bathing in an ice-cold river, and hours of grueling labor peeling and hauling logs?

But once there, Aidan embraced the wild. She even agreed to return a few months later to help the Korths work their traplines and hunt for caribou and moose. Despite windchills of 50 degrees below zero, father and daughter ventured out daily to track, hunt, and trap. Under the supervision of Edna, Heimo's Yupik Eskimo wife, Aidan grew more confident in the woods.

Campbell knew that in traditional Eskimo cultures, some daughters earned a rite of passage usually reserved for young men. So he decided to take Aidan back to Alaska one final time before she left home. It would be their third and most ambitious trip, backpacking over Alaska's Brooks Range to the headwaters of the mighty Hulahula River, where they would assemble a folding canoe and paddle to the Arctic Ocean. The journey would test them, and their relationship, in one of the planet's most remote places: a land of wolves, musk oxen, Dall sheep, golden eagles, and polar bears.

At turns poignant and humorous, Braving It is an ode to America's disappearing wilderness and a profound meditation on what it means for a child to grow up--and a parent to finally, fully let go.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - nancynova - LibraryThing

An ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Told in three parts as three different trips, Father and teen daughter head to Alaska near the arctic circle for adventure. In their first ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Twink - LibraryThing

This is the kind of thing I wish I could have done when I was younger. Seeing more of the world, being a little more adventures and taking chances. But, at this stage, I am just as happy to read about ...

Contents

• INTo The Wild: 3
• Bugs BEARs AND THE BATH Room PRocedure: 11
• PEELING Poles with MARcus MUM Ford: 22
• FIRst THE River Giveth: 33
• Down River: 47
• NEw Rituals AND THE Ridgepole: 62
• FERN web: 93
• lo The Pull: 105
• BAck to THE Bush: 113
• THE REAL World: 125
• Wolver INE AND WHALE: 137
• Tha Nksgiving: 154
• The LIFE They LovE: 167
• WildERN Ess G1 RL: 180
• BIRTHDAYs AND BEAver TAIL: 195
• PART III: 205
• Its IN THE GENes: 207
• TRUst: 220
• SAY GoodBye to SUMMER: 232
• Pš: 237
• BE Still My HEART: 249
• MR GRIz: 259
• WHERE THE Wolves SING: 275
• At the HEADwaters: 283
• A Box y River INDEED: 291
• PADDLE AND PRAY: 307
• GRIT AND THE Go Roe: 316
• Hypother MIA: 324
• The WAY Distance Goes: 335
• GoodBYE ALAskA: 344
• AcKNow LEDGMENTs: 356

About the author

JAMES CAMPBELL is the author of The Final Frontiersman and The Ghost Mountain Boys. He has written for Outside magazine, National Geographic Adventure, Men's Journal, Audubon, and many other publications.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Braving it: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey Into the Alaskan Wild
• Author: James Campbell
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Crown Publishers, 2016
• ISBN: 0307461246, 9780307461247
• Length: 359 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Adventurers & Explorers; Biography & Autobiography / Environmentalists & Naturalists; Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs; FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS; FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Fatherhood; NATURE / Ecosystems & Habitats / Polar Regions