2007 books

65) John Muir, Stickeen, 1909
My only previous encounter with the inspirational John Muir was with A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, his long trek across America. This is an altogether different adventure and one I'm glad I discovered. Stickeen is not just another story about an errant dog: Muir's 1880 adventure while lost on an Alaskan glacier with an independent crossbreed also affected his own thinking on nature, at a time when respect for animals was beginning to increase alongside acceptance for Darwin's The Origin of Species. As dog stories go, this is a small but important one.

2007 books

66) Velma Wallis, Two Old Women, 1993
A long and graceful retelling of an Athabaskan legend of two old women, Ch’idzigyaak and Sa’, who are abandoned by their tribe and left to fend for themselves in the Alaskan wilderness. Velma Wallis, an Athabaskan herself, has kept to straightforward traditional storytelling even though this is a centuries-old, octogenarian version of Thelma and Louise.