"Travels in Alaska," by John Muir, reflects Muir"s exuberance for life and almost everything he encountered in his many travels. In addition to being an ecologist and traveler, John Muir was a botanist and geologist, a fact which readers will be reminded of through his contemplations of the southeast Africa flora and the activity of glaciers."Travels in Alaska" is John Muir"s journal of his 1879, 1880, and 1890 trips to southeast Alaska"s glaciers, rivers, and temperate rain forests. For Muir, the wilderness was a medicine or spiritual tonic. Physical impediments and frailties faded into the background when he was alone in the wilderness. Much of "Travels in Alaska" is given to glaciers, including their descriptions, their influence on the landscape, their geological record, the discovery of new glaciers, and other characteristics of these moving rivers of ice. When describing glaciers, John Muir offers descriptive powers unequaled among authors on nature, Time and space almost have no medium in this publication, utterly lost when gazing upon a glacier. If you are looking for a dramatic journey, a travelogue, or a field manual for the Alaskan bush, this book may not be for you. But if you are a nature lover who wants the ranges and glaciers of Alaska to come alive in print, read John Muir"s "Travels in Alaska." This was John Muir"s last book-he died while preparing it for publication.