This book was a challenge for me. McPhee divided his exploration of Alaska into three sections--the first, stage-setting section on the northern tree line; the second, uses the search for an ideal site for a new state capital to explore urban Alaska; and the final section, on "the bush," really focuses on the motives and lifestyles of in-migrants to the state. I breezed through the first two parts; the relocation of the state capital (which never happened) in particular was literally a bird's eye view of Alaskan cities and their inhabitants. The third part, however, desperately needed editing: descriptions of grizzly dangers, gold-sluicing methods, and conflicts among resource-hungry and cabin-fevered Yukon inhabitants became monotonous and overly repetitive. McPhee clearly became enamored of the rugged individualists who chose to leave the Lower Forty-eight behind to build lives based on subsistence and skills-building. While his book does not gloss over their less admirable qualities--a tendency toward paranoia, chaos, alchoholism, and particularly misogyny--he comes down firmly for their willingness to pit themselves against nature. Surveying the environmental effects of one gold-mining team's efforts, he writes, "This pretty little stream is being disassembled in the name of gold.... Am I disgusted? Manifestly not.... This mine is a cork on the sea. Meanwhile (and, possibly more seriously), the relationship between this father and son is as attractive as anything I have seen in Alaska--both of them self-reliant beyond the usual reach of the term, the characteristic formed by this country." (410) This celebration of masculine triumph over nature is nothing new, and is disappointing from a writer who can be such a subtle thinker.