cover image Southeast Alaska

Southeast Alaska

Nancy Silvermann, Price Stern Sloan Publishing, Nancy Simmerman. Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, $39.95 (160pp) ISBN 978-0-932575-65-4

Southeast Alaska, called the Panhandle, is between British Columbia and the Pacific Ocean. In this sumptuous book of photographs, Simmerman (Alaska II, Alaska's Parklands) documents the environment (gorgeous sunsets, awesome mountains, glacier-carved fjords, lush forests, wildflowers); the people (Tlingit Native Americans and their carvings, fishermen, loggers, tourists on cruise ships); animals and sea life (bears, mountain goats, salmon, sea lions). Eppenbach (Alaska's Southeast: Touring the Inside Passage) describes, in short essays, the lives of the residents and the natural pleasures of the Panhandle, which include the 16.8-million-acre Tongass National Forest and the bountiful Alaskan wildlife. In a personable foreword, Michener lightheartedly compares the weather of Sitka, where he researched his forthcoming novel Alaska, to that of Philadelphia, commenting that it snows more often in Philly. (June)