The Accidental Explorer: Wayfinding in Alaska

by Sherry Simpson

Alaska is a place of great adventure and exploration. After having lived in the Great Land for nearly all of her life, Sherry Simpson realized that she had not scaled mountains, trekked across wild tundra, or blazed trails through virgin forests. Did that fact make her less of an Alaskan? In the series of essays that comprise The Accidental Explorer, Sherry Simpson recounts the experiences of an ordinary woman confronting the great expanses of water and untracked land in Alaska, as she makes her best efforts to map her sense of place and her sense of self in a land that seems to require exploration of its inhabitants. While undertaking arduous treks into the backcountry, she falls into a glacial river and nearly drowns. On an archetypal epic solo hike, she ruminates constantly on when and whether she should abandon that folly. She writes with both humor and humility, harnessing great powers of observation of the natural world. In a downright scary encounter with a mildly aggressive bear, Simpson shrinks from any supposed Alaskan larger-than-life persona to assume her place on the food chain: an urbanized human who is appropriately afraid of big bears. Simpson also offers up the (less reverent) Alaskan view of Chris McCandles, the wanderer who perished in an abandoned bus near Denali, subject of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Can an ordinary, not especially heroic, person be an adventurer? If she sets out, in a wild place like Alaska, what will she find out there, and what will she learn about the place back home? Throughout this compelling and probing book, Sherry Simpson illuminates the act of exploration as both a feat of extraordinary effort and as an everyday experience.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Outdoors, Nature, Travel

240 pages, Hardcover

First published February 5, 2008

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

I read this compulsively, and it was almost cathartic. The author was somehow everything and nothing like me at the same time, but the questions she was tackling are the same ones I am posing at this particular moment in life. Sometimes you read something that pushes back at your pre-held notions and you see it but you're not sure you are ready to update them. This was the rare book that made me go "huh. yeah, I think I'll change my plans and not go to ANWR because there are wildernesses that need to just be left to themselves" - so, thank you, Sherry. I'd like to think it would make you happy to know you are influencing people beyond the bounds of your physical life on this planet.

[Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simpson's book turned out to be much more than I thought. Rather than an Alaska resident's dismissive rantings about the follies of hiking and camping (as the jacket description seemed to be), this book is actually a very deep and personal meditation on what motivates people to go outside and explore.

Her story starts with a description of her early attempts to become "outdoorsy", and this is the most light and entertaining part of the book. There are memorable passages that irreverently describe all the current hot topics in the environmental discourse. She describes John Muir as "delusional, a fraud, or one hell of a kidder" as she follows his footsteps through Glacier Bay doing double takes between his journal entries and the impossible terrain surrounding her. I've felt the same way coming over the Cacheco Pass and reading Muir's description of seeing the Sierra Nevada across the Central Valley, and deciding to walk there.

Her accounts of her first bumbling attempts to stage kayak trips and multi-day backpacks continue, but the tone changes when it comes time to write about Christopher McCandless. She visits the bus with other Alaskans, all cracking jokes about the idiot outsider who perished for no good reason. However, by now Simpson has thought about this stuff long enough to truly consider what was motivating him - and others - to come to Alaska in search of some kind of answer to their troubled lives. Her conclusions surprised me, and they softened my own opinion of McCandless.

Simpson is more interested in those who went into the wilderness and actually survived. She weaves these stories through the rest of the book, and includes many details on the traditions and practices of Native Alaskans which allowed them to make it in the North.

By the end of the book, Simpson's husband calls her "an "around-the-bender," compelled to go just a little farther, and then a little farther still, if only to see what lies beyond." I think this is true for most anyone who hoists a back and sets of down the trail in this age of modern conveniences and comfortable homes.

Simpson asked the tough questions, and came up with good answers. I'd recommend this to anyone whose wondered why they are drawn to being outside.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Different readers are looking for different things in books, of course, but this book was exactly what I was looking for. It's an intriguing recounting of various adventures in Alaska (her own and others'), but more than that, it's a lyrical and philosophical exploration of the very concept of wilderness, nature, and how we navigate our lives within and without "nature." She doesn't idealize nature and outdoor trips, writing honestly of the hardship and the "slog." She is also honest about her own life, her restlessness, the benefits and costs of that. I also appreciated her discretion, such as the chapter where she wrote of the struggles in her marriage without going into too many details--it was a light but honest touch that is not often seen.

But is is mostly the writing where I found myself! Sometimes books just meet you where you're at...

"… the way it feels to stand alone beneath some big sky, part of an unsparing landscape that unaccountably enlarges you, knowing that miles and days separate you from some other life you used to lead, some other person you used to be.” (p. 10-11)

"Every couple of hours I stirred long enough to peer outside [my tent]. Close to dawn, the quiet was liquid, something you’d have to push against to move through.”

"We do not find our homes. We map them inch by inch, story by story, day by day." (p. 191)

I could keep going, but in short, I appreciated the honesty and beauty of this book. It was just what I needed.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the straightforward writing of opinions, many that I share with her!

[Ginna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always enjoy Sherry Simpson's writing, and in this book of essays, I particularly liked revisiting essays I'd read in Alaska publications and noting things that seemed a little different. "Impediments," in particular, seemed a bit meatier here than when I read it in the Press. My favorite essay was a new one, the last one, which explores the concept of what we do when we find our way -- and what we actually "mark" (or notice) on the land -- from physical landmarks to emotional or historical ones.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were times in this book when I felt like she had hit the nail on the head and really meshed with my own feelings about travel and Alaska. Written in essay form there were some expeditions I wanted to hear MORE on and others I had to resist skimming. A bit flowery in places but frank in others. Enjoyable.

[Deb Weina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy and relaxing book to read. Enjoyed it tremendously. Author gives one some food for thought.

[Inara Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lyrical, heartfelt tour of Alaska's backcountry by a woman who doesn't pretend to be a bad-ass superhero. Plenty of musing about life and the meaning of wilderness. Beautiful and touching.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful read! I highly recommend it to anyone who has accidentally found their way to AK, or continues to wayfind there today.