Passage to Juneau

With the same rigorous observation (natural and social), invigorating stylishness, and encyclopedic learning that he brought to his National Book Award-winning Bad Land, Jonathan Raban conducts readers along the Inside Passage from Seattle to Juneau. The physical distance is 1,000 miles of difficult-and often treacherous-water, which Raban navigates solo in a 35-foot sailboat. But Passage to Juneau also traverses a gulf of centuries and cultures: the immeasurable divide between the Northwest's Indians and its first European explorers-- between its embattled fishermen and loggers and its pampered new class. Along the way, Raban offers captivating discourses on art, philosophy, and navigation and an unsparing narrative of personal loss.

Jonathan Raban is the author of Old Glory, Hunting Mister Heartbreak, and Bad Land (all available from Vintage Books), Coasting, and the novel Foreign Land; he also edited the Oxford Book of the Sea. He has received the Heinemann Award for Literature, the Thomas Cook Award, and the Governor's Award of the State of Washington. Bad Land's other prizes include the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Pen West Creative Nonfiction Award. In 1990 Raban moved from London to Seattle, where he lives with his daughter.