Land of Bear and Eagle: A Home in the Kodiak Wilderness

by Tanyo Ravicz

Overview

At loose ends in his private life, at odds with society, Tanyo Ravicz persuades Martina, his wife, to join him in a reset, a new beginning. Before long, they and their children are living in a wilderness cabin on Alaska's Kodiak Island, outnumbered by the brown bears.

A celebration of nature and of the peculiarities of the Alaskan bush, Land of Bear and Eagle: A Home in the Kodiak Wilderness builds from personal experience to a rounded, loving portrait of a place, Cottonwood Homestead, and a way of life. In these essays and sketches, by turns humorous, meditative and lyrical, the author goes beyond the challenges and triumphs of wilderness living to explore his environment and to examine the relationships among the plants and animals and the people he meets. Along the way, he wrestles with his doubts and reconsiders his assumptions about life.

The testament of one of Alaska's last homesteaders, this book offers a vision of what it means to be wedded to a place and fully alive to the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780888397034
Publisher:	Hancock House Publishers
Publication date:	12/15/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

An award-winning novelist and essayist, Tanyo Ravicz was born in Mexico and grew up in California. After attending Harvard University, he settled for many years in Alaska, a place which continues to inspire his work.

Table of Contents

A Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Alaska Highway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Bird & Birdsong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Boats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Brown Bear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Bush Planes & Pilots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Cabin Fever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Cannery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Cottonwood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Deer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Dividends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Eagle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Fireweed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Golden-Crowned Sparrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Grief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Gull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Happiness Stew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Hermit Thrush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Hippy Rig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Insects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Joy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Kids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Lord of the Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Magpie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139

Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141

Neighbors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145

Otter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .158

Outhouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

The Petersons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165

Pride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Quiet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178

Rabbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Rain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185

Salmonberry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Sea Lion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .190

Squirrel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Thoreau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201

Tide & Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Tidepool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214

Tools & Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Editorial Reviews

“A disenchanted truth seeker in his youth, Tanyo Ravicz with his young family, eschewed lives of quiet desperation by settling a hard heaven of 16 acres accessible only by sea or by air. In language unflinchingly honest, graceful, precise, tender, flashing with humor, and sounding Thoreauvian notes, Land of Bear and Eagle offers a kaleidoscope of seasonal reflections and observations. Treading lightly, fully aware on the land, Ravicz met deer “masters of the quiet” and eagles with “the imperial disdain of centurions.” Where lesser writers employ a journal's chronology, he has assembled topical essays in a structure that deepens our understanding of decades of returning to Cottonwood Homestead, sojourns that bestowed on this indweller a profound, long-term perspective. This collection derives its freshness and poignancy from the author's frequent skipping between worlds: an urban, mainland or even Californian one and a wild insular one where the world's largest brown bears outnumber and mingle with people and the nearest phone was a five-mile boat ride away. Ravicz' memories cut to the core of the Alaska experience—not since John Haines has this state's literature seen a homesteading poet like him."

— Michael engelhard, author of Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon and Where the Rain Children Sleep: A Sacred Geography of the Colorado Plateau

From the Publisher