Coming Into the Country (association copy with related photo)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977. First edition. Hardcover. A great Alaskan association copy, inscribed on the half-title page: "For Bob Belous, of the wandering range -- with all best, and highest regards, John." Also signed in full by McPhee on the title page. Robert Belous was an important figure with the National Park Service in Alaska in the run up to the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which Jimmy Carter signed into law in 1980, more than doubling the size of the National Park System. Belous began his career as a freelance wildlife photographer based in Jackson Hole, where he befriended and worked with wilderness leader and icon Margaret Murie. His association with her and the wilderness movement soon tipped him toward Alaska. He joined the NPS’s Alaska Task Force in 1972 first as a photographer, and included also is an elegant press photo taken by Belous in Alaska, an example of his advocacy for its public lands via his art. Belous then became the “keyman” for the planning of the Cape Krusenstern and Kobuk Valley areas (eventually a National Monument and National Park, respectively, totaling more than 2 million acres), and in 1975 began serving as the Alaska Task Force’s public programs and liason officer. In essence, he had an important and varied hand in the preservation of Alaskan lands. See this tribute for more about his career and influence. As liason officer for the NPS in Alaska, he would have been a key source and guide for McPhee in the writing of Coming into the Country, published in 1977 amid (and about) the push for the ANILCA. The book is in part about the Kobuk Valley, which McPhee canoes down in the first part "The Encircled River." They remained friends over the years (as other inscriptions attest), visiting each other. Later he worked in Redwood National Parks before ending his career as the superintendent of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Louisiana. Green cloth with a stamped lookout tower on the front board, yellow top stain. A very good book with a little sunning to edges and one bump to the rear board at top edge. In a very good jacket with a small tear to the top of the rear edge (that same bump) and some wear to spine crown and rear lower corner. Front panel quite clean. A nice copy and exceptional Alaska association. Very good / Very good. Item #2154
ISBN: 0374126453
More about the book:
"Coming into the Country is an unforgettable account of Alaska and Alaskans. It is a rich tapestry of vivid characters, observed landscapes, and descriptive narrative, in three principal segments that deal, respectively, with a total wilderness, with urban Alaska, and with life in the remoteness of the bush.
"Readers of McPhee's earlier books will not be unprepared for his surprising shifts of scene and ordering of events, brilliantly combined into an organic whole. In the course of this volume we are made acquainted with the lore and techniques of placer mining, the habits and legends of the barren-ground grizzly, the outlook of a young Athapaskan chief, and tales of the fortitude of settlers-ordinary people compelled by extraordinary dreams. Coming into the Country unites a vast region of America with one of America's notable literary craftsmen, singularly qualified to do justice to the scale and grandeur of the design."
Price: $950.00 save 5% $902.50