Kluane Pinnacle of the Yukon, edited by John B. Theberge with the assistance of George W. Douglas. Line drawings by Mary Theberge. Garden City, New York, Doubleday and Co., Inc. 1980. 175 pages. Profusely illustrated with 32 pages of color and numerous black and white photographs, plus maps, diagrams and end papers.

This story of Kluane National Park (8500 square miles) in the extreme southwest corner of Yukon Territory, Canada, is not a climbing book but it should delight anyone with a love of mountains. The park is unique. It takes in most of the St. Elias Mountains including massive Mount Logan (19,525 feet), the highest peak in Canada, 19 others over 14,000 feet, and lower ones still unclimbed, as well as the largest and longest glaciers outside the polar regions. Within this coastal region there is tremendous diversity of climate from winter to summer and even within the space of a day, so that some areas near the Pacific may be pounded by blizzards driving in from the ocean at the same time that semi-arid areas not far away on the eastern side of the range and at a lower altitude are sweltering in the sun. The glacier systems and the rivers that spring from them are a tremendous stimulus to plant and animal life. One hundred eighteen kinds of birds have been seen there, while grizzlies, wolves, moose, mountain goats, occasional caribou and some 4000 of the graceful Dall sheep roam the slopes. Yet much of the park is infrequently visited.

The book has been organized in an unusual way, with 16 scientists writing parts on their special interests. One major section deals with rock, glaciers, and climate, another with living things and a third with man's activities in the range. The book is full of information and John Theberge has been skillful in pulling it all together. Photographs are an important part, many of them by Walter A. Wood, our former president, who between 1935 and the present has done more than anyone to explore this region in a scientific way. His efforts have been basic to the preservation of this special mountain environment as a national park.

Among those taking particular pleasure in the book will be four club members (Adams Carter, Ome Daiber, Bradford Washburn and I) who still vividly recall entering this region with a dog team in the winter of 1935, under Washburn’s leadership, to explore what was then largely a blank on the map.

Robert H. Bates