The plane is a great temptation; but to learn anything of the land, to have any sense of the relevancy of the pertinent maps, you must walk away from the planes. You must get off into the country and sleep on the ground, or take an afternoon to take a tussock apart. Travel on the schedule of muskoxen. Camp on a seaward point and watch migrating sea ducks in their days of passage. You need to stand before the green, serpentine walls of the Jade Mountains north of the Kobuk River, or walk out over the sea ice to the flaw lead in winter to hear the pack ice grinding and scraping, a noise like
...more