Writing


Articles

Erin is a regular contibutor to the Alaska Dispatch News. Erin and other gtt adventurers also publish pieces in magazines and other publications. Check them out on our In the Media page!

Books

Mud Flats and Fish Camps: 800 Miles Around Alaska’s Cook Inlet - by Erin McKittrick
For centuries, the changeable waters of Alaska’s famed Cook Inlet have been the base for explorers seeking furs, fish, fortune, and freedom. Rimmed by active volcanoes, remote fishing camps, oil refineries, acres of untracked forests, and the state’s largest metropolis, Cook Inlet offers a stimulating mix of big wilderness and big money.

Swirling tidal currents draw the family’s rafts into a pod of spouting belugas; endless tidal flats threaten with quicksand, and a cast of colorful characters helps them along the way. Erin weaves her modern-day expedition with the stories of English explorers, Russian fur traders, Native fishermen, and American homesteaders, sharing the larger history of the inlet. This is the journey of an ordinary family stepping into the wild outside their door, an inspiring tale of choosing to walk a more adventurous path.

My Coyote Nose and Ptarmigan Toes: An Almost-True Alaskan Adventure - by Erin McKittrick, illustrated by Valisa Higman. Imagine a miserable blizzard, and you’re stuck hiking through it with a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old. Then the 4-year-old turns to you, and explains that he’s digging in the snow with his tusks. That he’s a mammoth. That he NEVER gets cold. That was my son, on an 800-mile expedition around Cook Inlet. He was the inspiration for this book. This is a rhyming story about a child’s grand adventure, but it’s also a ‘how-to’ book. How to approach the challenges of the great outdoors–and the world–in a childish, imaginative way. I hope kids will learn a little about the animals. More importantly, I hope they will see themselves as powerful explorers of our natural world.

Small Feet, Big Land: Adventure, Home and Family on the Edge of Alaska - by Erin McKittrick. Follow me as our young family treks through the remote corners of Alaska, exploring the intersection of wilderness and industry in America’s wildest state. With two small children in tow, we set out to explore our vast wild home: walking the coast of the Arctic Ocean, living for months on the crumbling edge of Alaska’s largest glacier, visiting remote mines and remote villages, andbuilding a life in a yurt at theedge of the wilderness.

A Long Trek Home: 4,000 Miles by Boot, Raft, and Ski. Book by Erin McKittrick on our year-long human powered journey from Seattle to the Aleutians

Essays on This Site

Reconsidering the “Value” of Gold - by David Coil, October 2010.

Where Threatened Waters Flow - by Erin McKittrick. an essay on our 2006 journey through the watersheds downstream of the proposed Pebble Mine.

The Dead and the Dying - by Erin McKittrick. a short romp through dying glaciers in 2009

Lost Forests on the Lost Coast - by Erin McKittrick. blog post from an expedition to logging’s aftermath

The Fruits of Insanity - by Erin McKittrick. A February odyssey in the Kenai Fjords.

And read trip journals from over a dozen older trips on our old AK Trekking website.