Change is Here: Climate Change Alaska Style

Exit Glacier, near Seward, Alaska provides a dramatic view of ice loss.

I grew up with Yupik elders warning about global warming. They were wise enough decades ago to see that something was amiss. They spoke of animal migrations and salmon spawns changing. The earth was warming and changing around them and they didn't need  a bunch of scientific studies to prove it. We should have listened back then. We probably wouldn't have stopped global warming, but we might have mitigated some of the effects by changing how we live or at least thought a bit more about how to prepare for more dramatic changes yet to come.
Now Alaska is seeing those changes in big ways. Not only are the glaciers that I once took our summer guest to visit nearly gone, but salmon aren't returning to our rivers and in some places where the ocean levels are rising, villages are preparing to relocate. (More on that in my forth-coming novel Moving Salmon Bay!)
If you're looking for a recent book on the changes happening here in Alaska check out Nancy Lord's new book Early Warming.  If you want to see for yourself, come visit and I'll point you towards a couple places where you can witness the disappearing glaciers first hand.

A photo I snapped back when you could get right up close to Exit Glacier, just outside of Seward, Alaska

Alaska Summer Reads --- The Official List

So everyone is putting out their summer reading lists, and while I don't normally follow folks off a cliff, I figured I could take this unique opportunity to be the first one to create a list of new Alaskan reads for the summer. And since my list is the first, we'll call it the official list, by the power vested in me to make such a decree. 

Once you read my novel, The Raven's Gift, you can proceed with the other books on this official list of summer books. Click the link above to read the first chapter and see what others have said about this self-declared official read of summer, a novel that was #10 on Amazon (Canada) and has spent over 50 days in the top 100. [Okay, enough for shameless self-promotion, let's get to the list!]

New/Newish Books worth reading (Fiction and Non-Fiction)

The Devil's Share --- Kris Farmen
The Fate of Nature --- Charles Wolforth
Early Warming --- Nancy Lord
The Heart of the Sound --- Marybeth Holleman 
Caribou Island --- David Vann
Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin --- Frank Bailey, Ken Morris, Jeanne Devon


Journals:
Alaska Quarterly --- Ronald Spatz, Editor
Ice-Floe --- Shannon Gramse & Sarah Kirk, Editors

Poetry:
I think Again of those Ancient Poets --- Tom Sexton

Kids:
Lucy's Dance --- Deb Vanasse

(AND on the must read from year's past --- I can't say enough about Seth Kantner's novel Ordinary Wolves.)


Because Alaska is such a small state, I'm too kind, and because I don't want anyone to feel slighted, I have chosen to refrain from numbering the selections or putting them in any particular order. I'm sure I've left out a few, so feel free to add those in the comments or your own Alaska reading list! Feel free to include older books and your own!