Tip of the Iceberg

<b>**The National Bestseller**<br><br>From the acclaimed bestselling author of <i>Turn Right at Machu Picchu</i> a fascinating wild and wonder-filled journey into Alaska America's last frontier</b><br><br>In 1899 railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman organized a most unusual summer voyage to the wilds of Alaska: He converted a steamship into a luxury floating university populated by some of America's best and brightest scientists and writers including the anti-capitalist eco-prophet John Muir. Those aboard encountered a land of immeasurable beauty and impending environmental calamity. More than a hundred years later Alaska is still America's most sublime wilderness both the lure that draws one million tourists annually on Inside Passage cruises and as a natural resources larder waiting to be raided. As ever it remains a magnet for weirdos and dreamers.<br><br>Armed with Dramamine and an industrial-strength mosquito net Mark Adams sets out to retrace the 1899 expedition. Traveling town to town by water Adams ventures&#160;three thousand miles north through Wrangell Juneau and Glacier Bay then continues west into the&#160;colder and stranger regions of the Aleutians and the Arctic Circle. Along the way he encounters dozens of unusual characters (and a couple of very hungry bears) and investigates how lessons learned in 1899 might relate to Alaska's current struggles in adapting to the pressures of a changing climate and world.