Into the Savage Land: The Alaskan Journal of Edward Adams - Paperback

by Ernest Sipes (Author)

An annotated journal of Edward Adams. The young Victorian-era doctor was part of an expedition sent to Russian Alaska in 1850 to search for fellow countryman and explorer John Franklin and his crew. As the expedition's naturalist, Adams made observations, recordings and drawings of the excursion, particularly the customs of the local Natives and their interactions with members of the Russian American Company. Adams' writings offer a first-person account of travels into interior Alaska and the inherent dangers involved, including freezing cold temperatures, suspicious Russians and warring Natives.

Author Biography

Ernest Sipes was born, raised and lives in Alaska. He has always had an interest in history, particularly the colonial period of Alaska's past. Additionally, his experiences growing up in Alaska with Natives have impacted his perceptions perhaps as much, if not more, than the formal training in anthropology he received from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and Brigham Young University. In terms of his practical understanding of first peoples, his travels in remote areas of northwest Brazil have given him particular insight into interpreting the journal of Edward Adams. Over the course of sic years, he observed Indians of the Amazon at varying levels of assimilation undergoing the sometimes-painful process of dealing with outsiders. While the climate is quite different between the two areas, Alaska in 1850 and the present-day Amazon appear to be somewhat similar in that some primitive Indian tribes take to contact with less resistance than others. The construction of this work was based upon many sources and several years of research.