Beautifully illustrated with photographs from a virtual who's who of underwater/nature photography -- Wolcott Henry, David Doubilet, Frans Lanting, Gary Ellis, Stephen Frink, Norbert Wu ...

From the slow-moving Manatee in the caribbean waters off Florida to playful sea lions in the Channel Islands off the California coast, this book takes you on a whirlwind journey through what may be America's last and greatest wild places. Sylvia Earle's unique perspective as America's foremost underwater explorer makes her the ideal tour guide for this sweeping journey.

There's something here for everyone -- armchair travelers, experienced divers, nature lovers, adventurous spirits. The one book you really ought to own if you have an interest in exploring the vast wealth and staggering diversity of our national underwater heritage. More mysterious, more alluring, even more diverse than our National Park System, the National Marine Sanctuary System is the adventureland of tomorrow.

I thoroughly enjoyed every page and often find myself reaching to the bookshelf to "go back" to places that one day I hope I'll have a chance to visit. This book gets my highest recommendation.

Henry David Thoreau :: _Walden_ :: _The Maine Woods_
John Muir :: _My First Summer in the Sierra_ :: _Travels in Alaska_

The analogy is almost perfect. Each of these writer-naturalists is most often identified geographically with the setting of his best-known work (i.e., Walden Pond or the Sierra Mountains). Each was intrigued by a vastly different habitat located north of his usual stomping ground -- and was so enticed by that wilderness region that he made multiple visits and took copious notes on everything he saw. For Thoreau, it was the forests and mountains of Maine, while Muir delighted in the glaciers of Alaska. Both made their trips by water with native guides but also with at least one old friend along for companionship. They later produced travelogue essays and / or lectures about their journeys, both describing miles and miles of terrain and the very few residents they encountered along the way. Both _The Maine Woods_ and _Travels in Alaska_ chronicle the discoveries made during three separate trips: Thoreau's adventures occurred in 1846, 1853, and 1857; and Muir's happened in 1879, 1880 and 1890. Both men died of a lung disease (tuberculosis, pneumonia) before making final edits on the third portion, the last journey, of each book. Both of the resulting books were put together by surviving relatives and were published posthumously. Eerie, isn't it?

That being said, my advice to the reader of Thoreau is the same as written in my review of Muir's _Travels in Alaska_: Don't read this one first if you haven't read anything else by him. Read _Walden_ and some of the shorter travel pieces before moving on to _The Maine Woods_. Here Thoreau is at once fascinated by the thickness of the forests and appalled by the devastation caused by the lumber industry. You'll follow him up Mount Katahdin and canoe along with him on lakes and down rivers. You'll learn about the kind of true camping that could be done only in the wilds of sparsely-inhabited country. You'll see lots of trees and plants and animals and hear some of Thoreau's opinions about nature and mankind. And you'll be pleased to know that everyone returns home safely in the end.

Thoreau was asked on his deathbed if he had made his peace with God. His retort was, "I did not know we had ever quarrelled." Even though he told a friend that he would die without regret, these kinds of last-minute questions must have forced him to take quiet mental stock of the events of his life in search of something that didn't quite fit with his philosophy. It is said that his final words were "moose" and "Indian." I believe that, with those utterances, he had finally realized his sole regret in life: that he had witnessed the killing of several Maine moose -- the last one, by his Indian guide -- and had done nothing to stop the slaughter. Whenever the hunters were thus engaged, Thoreau retreated to his botanizing and documenting the plant life in the area. He deliberately put blinders on at a time when he could have prevented the animals' deaths. And perhaps his own rationalizing behavior was not made clear to him until the end. For as he says here in the "Chesuncook" chapter, "Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine-trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it." That statement could be a personal chastisement, a reminder to himself. If that's the only wrong performed during your lifetime, Henry, then you did pretty well.