In Search of Wildness

An English teacher's Alaskan sojourn
Funded in part by a William C. Friday Foundation Fellowship Grant

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Location: Juneau, Alaska


From mid-June through late July 2006, I posted my thoughts and photos to this blog in journal fashion. Unlike Chris McCandless, though, I welcomed the opportunity to engage in dialogue across thousands of miles. While blogging from the edge of the Tongas subarctic rainforest in Alaska, I encouraged readers to drop me a line using the comment function. Mail from home is always welcome, and I relished messages from family, friends, students, colleagues, and total strangers.

I traveled to Alaska to further understand and experience nature without human influence. I read literature about the wild as I explored nature in a purer form than we normally can. Alaska, despite its development has not been tamed. In such an environment, we can learn a lot about nature, ourselves, and our society. We all share a common root in the wild and a common future relationship with the natural world as we together choose to sustain it.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Glacial Succession

Today, Alaskan naturalist and birder Matt Brooks took the Wildness class on a walk through glacial succession land uncovered by Mendenhall Glacier (2.5 miles away) a hundred years ago. It was amazing to see 60 year-old coniferous trees stunted to the size of a 15 year-old Christmas tree due to an abundance of water in the detritus slowly becoming soil as nitrogen gets fixed by red alder growing from nutrients deposited by moss and lichens.

For this entry, I've decided to narrate the journey in a series of photographs, commenting and reflecting on the experience through the caption sequence.

Click here and scroll up to join me.

posted by Palmer Seeley | 4:48 PM

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