Going to Extremes by Joe McGinniss

Going to Extremes by Joe McGinniss

So I'm leaving for Alaska in two days. I'll be salmon fishing from 11 May to 11 October under the lash of Tamie's uncles. In order to prepare for this ordeal, I decided to read a book about Alaska. It was recommended to me by one of my coworkers in Flagstaff. Thank-you Daniel Becker.

Joe McGinniss is an NYC journalist who decides to travel around Alaska for a year in the late 1970's. He starts in the middle of winter on a ferry sailing from Seattle up along the coast toward the Alaskan panhandle. To put it mildly, it seems like everyone on the ferry aside from the author, is a stark-craving lunatic. But they are also very vivacious people. His ferry ride sets the scene for what will become a never-ending series of meetings with very eccentric people living in a very eccentric climate. McGinniss travels via plane, boat, car, foot and train all over the Alaskan wilds, from Barrow to Nome, to Juneau, to Anchorage, to Valdez, to Fairbanks and to Mt. McKinley - the tallest peak in North America.

The book reads like a highly polished travel journal and could be picked up and started, without much loss of understanding, in the middle of the book. The writing style is similar to Michael Perry's Truck: A Love Story. for those have read or heard of this book about small-town life in northern Wisconsin. McGinniss mixes humor, description, casual conversation with locals, and irony in his writings. Perhaps it is tinged with a bit of exaggeration, but this, if it does occurr, only adds to the reading pleasure. Going to Extremes is an entertaining and informative read about what makes Alaskans tick - whether it be the search for personal freedom or a get-rick-quick mentality that so often goes hand in hand with the economy surrounding the then recently built Trans-Alaskan Oil Pipeline. The only chapter that falls short is the dragging final chapter, when McGinniss backpacks through the Brooks Mountain Range with some US Park Service employees. He is clearly awestruck by the ruggedness and beauty of this faraway land, but his attempt to translate this to prose results in him repeatedly sounding like a broken record in regards to his descriptions of his majestic surroundings. I really enjoyed this book, but the last chapter could have been both shortened and reworked. (285 pages). (Reviewed by Rob Jach).