The Only Kayak: A Journey Into The Heart Of Alaska

Kim Heacox

Feb 2023 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Matthew Josdal

About this audiobook

Winner of the 2020 National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Classic! In this coming-of-middle-age memoir, Kim Heacox, writing in the tradition of Abbey, McPhee, and Thoreau, discovers an Alaska reborn from beneath a massive glacier, where flowers emerge from boulders, moose swim fjords, and bears cross crevasses with Homeric resolve. In such a place Heacox finds that people are reborn too, and their lives begin anew with incredible journeys, epiphanies, and successes. All in an America free of crass commercialism and overdevelopment. Braided through the larger story are tales of gold prospectors and the cabin they built sixty years ago; John Muir and his intrepid terrier, Stickeen; and a dynamic geology professor who teaches earth science "as if every day were a geological epoch." Nearly two million people come to Alaska every summer, some on large cruise ships, some in single kayaks-all in search of the last great wilderness, the Africa of America. It is exactly the America Heacox finds in this story of paradox, love, and loss.

About the author

Kim Heacox is an award-winning author, photographer, and motivational speaker. He is the author of several books, including John Muir and the Ice that Started a Fire and the novel Caribou Crossing. His feature articles have appeared in Audubon, Travel & Leisure, Wilderness, Islands, Orion, and National Geographic Traveler.

Originally from a small town in southwest Saskatchewan, Matthew Josdal is a voice-over and theater artist who has narrated titles in a wide range of genres, including historical nonfiction and contemporary fantasy. He obtained his BFA in drama from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, where he currently resides.