Snow

Alaska's literature holds very few high points. In fiction we have had nothing to cherish since Jack London drew some inspiration from the north, unless Rex Beach's novels on Nome and the Copper River railroad are included. In history, biography, autobiography--indeed, in the entire realm of nonfiction, excepting exploration and gold rush personal narratives, there are few books deserving of consideration as literary classics.

Without pondering the mighty question of why the literary landscape is so barren, we can cheer at a recent book. Its publication proves that a fine writer can create enduring Alaskan literature even when focusing on contemporary events. The book is, of course, John McPhee's Coming Into the Country. For good reasons, it has received considerable critical attention Outside. Alaskans who read it understand its beauty and sensitivity. Somehow we are all elevated by the experience. And this, after all, is what literature is supposed to do.

Take snow, a common substance in Alaska. Examine it any way you like. Analyze its physical characteristics, explain the relationship of its climatic origins to the ecology, and assess its disruption of highway traffic. All this is useful and meaningful, but we need to feel McPhee's snow as in the following passage:

"The spruce in their millions are thick with snow, but not heavy snow--a light dry loaf on every bough, with frost as well, in chain crystals. Just touch one of these trees and all the burden falls, makes craters in the snow of the ground. The loaf is so delicately poised a breath can break it, a mild breeze denude the forest. Day after day, the great northern stillness will preserve this Damoclean scene, while the first appearance of each February dawn shoots pink light into the trees, and colors all the blanketed roofs, the mushroom caps on barrels and posts. Overhead, sometimes, a few hundred feet above the ground stillness, the wind is audibly blowing."

There are many other such enriching descriptive passages. The writer charms and compels. In such gracefulness there is no polemic, no arguments in passionate espousal of this or that solution to Alaskan conflicts. We may just think of the beauty of snow, of the times we have stopped and looked, and had known that a moment of reflection is not a bad thing.

We have so much snow in Alaska. And so many conflicts. But very little literature.