{"product_id":"in-darkest-alaska-travel-and-empire-along-the-inside-passage-nature-and-culture-in-america-9780812220483","title":"In Darkest Alaska: Travel and Empire Along the Inside Passage (Nature and Culture in America)","description":"\u003cp\u003eBefore Alaska became a mining bonanza  it was a scenic bonanza  a place larger in the American imagination than in its actual borders. Prior to the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1897  thousands of scenic adventurers journeyed along the Inside Passage  the nearly thousand-mile sea-lane that snakes up the Pacific coast from Puget Sound to Icy Strait. Both the famousincluding wilderness advocate John Muir  landscape painter Albert Bierstadt  and photographers Eadweard Muybridge and Edward Curtisand the long forgottena gay ex-sailor  a former society reporter  an African explorer  and a neurasthenic Methodist ministerreturned with fascinating accounts of their Alaskan journeys  becoming advance men and women for an expanding United States.  In Darkest Alaska explores the popular images conjured by these travelers tales  as well as their influence on the broader society. Drawing on lively firsthand accounts  archival photographs  maps  and other ephemera of the day  historian Robert Campbell chronicles how Gilded Age sightseers were inspired by Alaskas bounty of evolutionary treasures  tribal artifacts  geological riches  and novel thrills to produce a wealth of highly imaginative reportage about the territory. By portraying the territory as a \"Last West\" ripe for American conquest  tourists helped pave the way for settlement and exploitation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45648013000757,"sku":"ByrdShop_081222048X","price":32.75,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780812220483.jpg?v=1781706357","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/in-darkest-alaska-travel-and-empire-along-the-inside-passage-nature-and-culture-in-america-9780812220483","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}