In Search of Wildness

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

About Me

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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.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Cruising the Web and the Sea

I woke up this morning to a flooded inbox. You see, I receive email notification when someone posts so that I can pick up the thread of conversation. This morning, I received notification that a cruise line whose reputation I will not tarnish publicly defaced this blog with the online equivalent of grafiti: a tag of its name hyperlinked to its site. This has forced me to moderate the blog. I have effaced that which I do not endorse puzzeled at how unthinking the perpetrator considers the American public. Why would a company plaster its information on a site which points out how glaciers are melting (in large part due to cruises of the region). I have been on a cruise. We saw many Greek Isles. They are beautiful. I had a good time. At the age of 15, I had no notion of the environmental impact of my actions. I urge my readers to be more wise than I. Why get on a ship so big, so stable, so polluting that it seems no different than a four or five star hotel on land. If you prefer urbanized land, stay there. If you enjoy the open water, paddle or sail.

posted by Palmer Seeley | 8:46 AM | 0 comments