Walking Home: A Traveler in the Alaskan Wilderness, a Journey into the Human Heart

The wilderness is appealing to most people. At least, most appreciate its beauty and its unknown qualities, if not its danger and isolation. But few of us could walk into the actual wilderness and survive. Lynn Schooler did. And in this book, he promises to chronicle not just another tale of a professional guide leading others along the Alaskan coastline, but the story of a lone traveler on a personal three-week expedition, intent on using the experience to find himself.

Schooler, from the beginning, primes the pump by referring to this personal journey as one of the best experiences of his life. He seemed to need the isolation of the tundra and the cold salty spray in his face to clear his head, to help him deal with his own midlife crisis, and to make some decisions about how the second half of his life would be spent. Schooler obviously has a deep understanding of the Alaskan wilderness, its history, and its people, but his ability to share his inner journey, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired.

The most prevalent theme he does address is estrangement. Schooler feels as though his marriage is dissolving, his dreams are not on track, his time is slipping away. During the trip, he fluctuates between showing human emotions of fear, uncertainty, and courage—which have the potential to connect him to readers—and a stronger, parallel drift detouring into historical facts somehow connected to the areas he is walking through.

When he faces a raging river or an unpredictable grizzly, one grasps what the experience must have been like. However, when he gives more details about early French explorers, native Alaskans, or scientists exploring the Alaska of yesterday, he veers away from his core path and the reader can get lost. At exactly the time when one might expect to understand more of how these real experiences relate to the man’s inner journey, there is somewhat of a void.

In the end, Schooler keeps his readers too often outside, looking in, trying to see through a fog into the process of healing and resolution that he seemingly wanted to gain from this trip. If a history lesson and a travelogue were his aim, he has satisfied those. But if his intent was to allow readers to mentally “walk home” with him, to craft the story in a way that readers grasp something of his process and his internal struggles in hopes of finding insight into their own private challenges, he has for the most part been unsuccessful.The wilderness is appealing to most people. At least, most appreciate its beauty and its unknown qualities, if not its danger and isolation. But few of us could walk into the actual wilderness and survive. Lynn Schooler did. And in this book, he promises to chronicle not just another tale of a professional guide leading others along the Alaskan coastline, but the story of a lone traveler on a personal three-week expedition, intent on using the experience to find himself.

Schooler, from the beginning, primes the pump by referring to this personal journey as one of the best experiences of his life. He seemed to need the isolation of the tundra and the cold salty spray in his face to clear his head, to help him deal with his own midlife crisis, and to make some decisions about how the second half of his life would be spent. Schooler obviously has a deep understanding of the Alaskan wilderness, its history, and its people, but his ability to share his inner journey, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired.

The most prevalent theme he does address is estrangement. Schooler feels as though his marriage is dissolving, his dreams are not on track, his time is slipping away. During the trip, he fluctuates between showing human emotions of fear, uncertainty, and courage—which have the potential to connect him to readers—and a stronger, parallel drift detouring into historical facts somehow connected to the areas he is walking through.

When he faces a raging river or an unpredictable grizzly, one grasps what the experience must have been like. However, when he gives more details about early French explorers, native Alaskans, or scientists exploring the Alaska of yesterday, he veers away from his core path and the reader can get lost. At exactly the time when one might expect to understand more of how these real experiences relate to the man’s inner journey, there is somewhat of a void.

In the end, Schooler keeps his readers too often outside, looking in, trying to see through a fog into the process of healing and resolution that he seemingly wanted to gain from this trip. If a history lesson and a travelogue were his aim, he has satisfied those. But if his intent was to allow readers to mentally “walk home” with him, to craft the story in a way that readers grasp something of his process and his internal struggles in hopes of finding insight into their own private challenges, he has for the most part been unsuccessful.The wilderness is appealing to most people. At least, most appreciate its beauty and its unknown qualities, if not its danger and isolation. But few of us could walk into the actual wilderness and survive. Lynn Schooler did. And in this book, he promises to chronicle not just another tale of a professional guide leading others along the Alaskan coastline, but the story of a lone traveler on a personal three-week expedition, intent on using the experience to find himself.

Schooler, from the beginning, primes the pump by referring to this personal journey as one of the best experiences of his life. He seemed to need the isolation of the tundra and the cold salty spray in his face to clear his head, to help him deal with his own midlife crisis, and to make some decisions about how the second half of his life would be spent. Schooler obviously has a deep understanding of the Alaskan wilderness, its history, and its people, but his ability to share his inner journey, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired.

The most prevalent theme he does address is estrangement. Schooler feels as though his marriage is dissolving, his dreams are not on track, his time is slipping away. During the trip, he fluctuates between showing human emotions of fear, uncertainty, and courage—which have the potential to connect him to readers—and a stronger, parallel drift detouring into historical facts somehow connected to the areas he is walking through.

When he faces a raging river or an unpredictable grizzly, one grasps what the experience must have been like. However, when he gives more details about early French explorers, native Alaskans, or scientists exploring the Alaska of yesterday, he veers away from his core path and the reader can get lost. At exactly the time when one might expect to understand more of how these real experiences relate to the man’s inner journey, there is somewhat of a void.

In the end, Schooler keeps his readers too often outside, looking in, trying to see through a fog into the process of healing and resolution that he seemingly wanted to gain from this trip. If a history lesson and a travelogue were his aim, he has satisfied those. But if his intent was to allow readers to mentally “walk home” with him, to craft the story in a way that readers grasp something of his process and his internal struggles in hopes of finding insight into their own private challenges, he has for the most part been unsuccessful.The wilderness is appealing to most people. At least, most appreciate its beauty and its unknown qualities, if not its danger and isolation. But few of us could walk into the actual wilderness and survive. Lynn Schooler did. And in this book, he promises to chronicle not just another tale of a professional guide leading others along the Alaskan coastline, but the story of a lone traveler on a personal three-week expedition, intent on using the experience to find himself.

Schooler, from the beginning, primes the pump by referring to this personal journey as one of the best experiences of his life. He seemed to need the isolation of the tundra and the cold salty spray in his face to clear his head, to help him deal with his own midlife crisis, and to make some decisions about how the second half of his life would be spent. Schooler obviously has a deep understanding of the Alaskan wilderness, its history, and its people, but his ability to share his inner journey, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired.

The most prevalent theme he does address is estrangement. Schooler feels as though his marriage is dissolving, his dreams are not on track, his time is slipping away. During the trip, he fluctuates between showing human emotions of fear, uncertainty, and courage—which have the potential to connect him to readers—and a stronger, parallel drift detouring into historical facts somehow connected to the areas he is walking through.

When he faces a raging river or an unpredictable grizzly, one grasps what the experience must have been like. However, when he gives more details about early French explorers, native Alaskans, or scientists exploring the Alaska of yesterday, he veers away from his core path and the reader can get lost. At exactly the time when one might expect to understand more of how these real experiences relate to the man’s inner journey, there is somewhat of a void.

In the end, Schooler keeps his readers too often outside, looking in, trying to see through a fog into the process of healing and resolution that he seemingly wanted to gain from this trip. If a history lesson and a travelogue were his aim, he has satisfied those. But if his intent was to allow readers to mentally “walk home” with him, to craft the story in a way that readers grasp something of his process and his internal struggles in hopes of finding insight into their own private challenges, he has for the most part been unsuccessful.