2007 books

[peteryoung]

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.