The Island Within

North Point Pr, 1989. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Inscribed extensively on the title page in blue ink: "For Anne--I hope these stories will reflect some of your own experience here in the Island Country of Southeast Alaska, and that they will help to keep memories of this wild, beautiful place bright in your heart. It's been such a pleasure to share a bit of my home with you during these weeks on the Clipper Odyssey, retracing the voyage of the 1899 Harriman Alaska Expedition. Let's hope that travelers a centiury from now will find the same richness and wonder that we've been privileged to see. With my very best wishes, Richard Nelson, Aboard the Clipper Odyssey, July 28, 2001." A unique copy of a book that won the John Burroughs Medal for natural history writing, and uncommon signed. About the expedition on which this book was inscribed, from the expedition's PBS website: "In 1899, the railroad tycoon Edward Harriman assembled an elite crew of scientists and artists and took them on a two-month survey of the Alaskan coast. In 2001, nineteen scientists, writers and artists retraced the expedition, observing anew the sites visited by Harriman's scouting parties century ago. The 2001 expedition, a project of the Clark Science Center of Smith College, took place aboard the M/V Clipper Odyssey, a 340-foot ocean-going vessel. Travelers on this trip followed the same route as the 1899 expedition, and used the 13 volumes of Harriman Expedition information as benchmarks for measuring change along the Alaska coast." The adventure was turned into a documentary film, and a book "The Harriman Alaska Expedition Retraced: A Century of Change, 1899-2001" was published by Rutgers University Press in 2005. Anne is not listed among the participants on this voyage, but clearly she was along for the ride. A near fine book with just a hint of rubbing to extremities in near fine jacket with rubbing and gentle creasing to a few edges.