Kim Heacox | |
---|---|
Born | June 26, 1951 |
Occupation | Writer |
Genre | Memoir, biography, fiction |
Spouse | Melanie Heacox |
Website | |
kimheacox |
Kim Heacox is an American author, photographer, musician, and environmental activist living in Gustavus, Alaska, at the entrance to Glacier Bay National Park. [1] [2] He was born in Lewiston, Idaho and grew up in Spokane, Washington. [1] Heacox is best known for two of his books, The Only Kayak, a memoir (2005, [3] [4] 2020 [5] ), and Jimmy Bluefeather, a novel (2015), both winners of the National Outdoor Book Award, and for his opinion pieces in The Guardian [6] that focus primarily on the climate crisis, global biodiversity loss, and threats to U.S. public lands. His most recent book, On Heaven’s Hill, is a literary novel author Kimi Eisele praised as “the kind of story the planet needs right now.”
Heacox first arrived in Alaska in 1979 as a park ranger in Glacier Bay National Monument (today Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve). [7] His memoir, The Only Kayak (a PEN USA Western Book Award finalist), [8] describes that first summer in Alaska. Heacox has authored 17 books, including five published by National Geographic . [9] [10] His novel, Jimmy Bluefeather (2015), was the first work of fiction in over 20 years to win the National Outdoor Book Award. [11] [12] He has written opinion-editorials for The Guardian , [13] the Washington Post , [14] the Los Angeles Times , [15] the Anchorage Daily News , [16] and the Juneau Empire . [17] [18] He appears in the 2009 Ken Burns film The National Parks [19] and has been featured on NPR's Living on Earth (discussing his biography, John Muir and the Ice That Started a Fire). [20]
In 1985 he began writing for National Geographic Traveler, a new magazine, where his 1987 article on Mount St. Helens won the Lowell Thomas Award for excellence in travel journalism. (He won the same award a second time, in 1990, for a feature article on Alaska’s ABC Islands – Admiralty, Baranof & Chichagof – in Islands magazine). His first full-length National Geographic book, Visions of a Wild America (1996), explores the writings of John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Robert Marshall, Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, and the landscapes that inspired them.
Heacox was a professional nature photographer from 1984-2013. His images were sold around the world by the photo stock agencies Getty, DRK Photo, Peter Arnold and Accent Alaska. In 2000 he won the Daniel Housberg Wilderness Image Award for Excellence in Still Photography from the Alaska Conservation Foundation. In 2001 he served as the official photographer on the Harriman Alaska Expedition Retraced, organized by Smith College. Heacox’s photography, and his essay, “The Politics of Beauty,” appear in a book about that expedition, published by Rutgers University Press (2005). His photographs have been published in Audubon, Orion, Outside and Sierra magazines, in National Geographic and Smithsonian books, and in The Guardian and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications.
A 2021 newspaper article argued that political systems must become long‑sighted if humanity is to face any kind of reasonable future. [21]
Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190 m) above sea level. It is the tallest mountain in the world from base-to-peak on land, measuring 18,000 ft (5,500 m), With a topographic prominence of 20,194 feet (6,155 m) and a topographic isolation of 4,621.1 miles (7,436.9 km), Denali is the third most prominent and third-most isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua. Located in the Alaska Range in the interior of the U.S. state of Alaska, Denali is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.
Galen Avery Rowell was a wilderness photographer, adventure photojournalist and mountaineer. Born in Oakland, California, he became a full-time photographer in 1972.
The National Outdoor Book Award (NOBA) was formed in 1997 as an American-based non-profit program which each year presents awards honoring the best in outdoor writing and publishing. It is housed at Idaho State University and chaired by Ron Watters. It is sponsored by the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Idaho State University and the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education. As of 2021, awards have been presented in 13 categories, although not all categories are awarded in any given year.
Denali State Park is a 325,240-acre (131,620 ha) state park in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough adjacent to the east side of Denali National Park and Preserve, along the Parks Highway.
Mark Twight is an American climber, writer and the founder of Gym Jones. He rose to prominence as a mountaineer in the late 1980s and early 1990s with a series of difficult, dangerous alpine climbs in various ranges around the world. His radical, light-weight approach to alpinism has seen him regarded as an influential figure in the single-push movement.
Bruce Kirkby is a Canadian adventurer, photographer, and writer. Recognized for expeditions to remote wilderness areas, his achievements include a 40-day, 1000-kilometre crossing of Arabia's Empty Quarter by camel (1999) and the first contiguous descent of Ethiopia's Blue Nile Gorge from source to the Sudanese border. The author of three best-selling books, Kirkby's writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The Globe and Mail, Canadian Geographic and The New York Times. National Geographic Channel featured his photography in the documentary Through the Lens (2003). An Ambassador for Mountain Equipment Co-op and member of the Starboard SUP Dream Team, Kirkby makes his home in Kimberley, British Columbia.
David Stuart Roberts was an American climber, mountaineer, college professor, and author of books and articles about climbing and the history of the American Southwest. He was particularly noted for his books The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative, chronicling major ascents in Alaska in the 1960s, which had a major impact on the form of mountaineering literature.
Elizabeth Peratrovich was an American civil rights activist, Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, and a Tlingit who worked for equality on behalf of Alaska Natives. In the 1940s, her advocacy was credited as being instrumental in the passing of Alaska's Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, the first state or territorial anti-discrimination law enacted in the United States.
Viad Corp provides experiential leisure travel and face-to-face events in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Iceland, and the United Arab Emirates via two divisions: GES and Pursuit.
Lynn Schooler is an American novelist, nonfiction author, photographer, an outdoorsman, and Alaskan wilderness guide living in Juneau, Alaska. He wrote The Blue Bear, The Last Shot and Walking Home.
Michio Hoshino was a Japanese-born nature photographer. He originally hailed from Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. Considered one of the most accomplished nature photographers of his era and compared to Ansel Adams, Hoshino specialized in photographing Alaskan wildlife until he was killed by a brown bear while on assignment in Kurilskoye Lake, Russia, in 1996.
Chris Duff is an American expedition sea kayaker, who is most notable for his large-scale projects and world-record breaking attempts. Since 1983, he has kayaked over 14,000 miles.
The Banff Mountain Book Festival is an annual book festival held at the Banff Centre in Banff, Canada.
Evrard Wendenbaum is a French outdoor photographer, filmmaker, geologist and explorer.
Adolph Murie, the first scientist to study wolves in their natural habitat, was a naturalist, author, and wildlife biologist who pioneered field research on wolves, bears, and other mammals and birds in Arctic and sub-Arctic Alaska. He was also instrumental in protecting wolves from eradication and in preserving the biological integrity of the Denali National Park and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 1989 Professor John A. Murray of the English Department at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks received an NEH grant to inventory the extensive Adolph Murie written and slide archives at Rasmusson Library in the Arctic and Polar Collection. He wrote a forty-page report and biographical narrative of Adolph Murie, which remains unpublished but which is in his papers.
Virginia Hill Wood was an American environmental activist and a pioneer in the Alaskan conservation movement. Ginny Wood co-founded the Alaska Conservation Society in 1960 with her then husband, Morton "Woody" Wood.
R. T. "Skip" Wallen is an American artist based in the state of Alaska. He is best known for his stone lithographs of Alaskan wildlife and native peoples and for his monumental bronze sculptures. His original prints, watercolors, and small bronzes are found in museums and private collections around the world. His monumental bronze sculptures are found in major institutions and public spaces in the U.S. and Europe. He was one of only two living artists included in the landmark New York Kennedy Gallery exhibit, Alaskan Masters, in 1976. and has had one-man exhibitions of stone lithographs in Europe. He was recognized with an honorary doctorate in the arts in 2006.
QT Luong is a French-Vietnamese born American photographer known for his work in the U.S. National Parks, as well as for work in the theory of computer vision. In 2022, Luong received the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography from the Sierra Club.
James Rushforth is a British photographer, mountaineer, climber, and travel writer, especially known for his two guide book series, on Iceland and the Dolomites. He is also known for his travel, nature, landscape, and extreme sport photographs, many of which have been recognized at the International Photography Award, the Siena International Photo Award, and the Px3 – Prix de la Photographie. Rushforth's photos have been displayed in national newspapers, travel magazines, and other media.
Lance X̱ʼunei Twitchell is an American scholar, poet, and language revitalization advocate. He works as an associate professor of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast. He has written for "Molly of Denali".