Exploring the great wilderness of the Alaska Brooks Range was Robert Marshall's joy and delight during the decade between 1929 - 1939. Marshall traveled this spectacular country - from the Upper Koyukuk drainage to the Gates of the Arctic wilderness and on to the Arctic Divide - making maps, recording scientific data, and above all exalting in the beauty of that exceptionally pristine landscape. Although his death at thirty-eight ended a remarkable life too early, he left journals and letters to describe his favorite place on earth. These were edited by his brother, George Marshall, to create this classic of environmental literature, nearly fifty years in print and now in its third edition with a new foreward by Rick Bass.