In this meditative account, the author journeys from Cook Inlet along the Alaskan coast to the Aleutian Islands in the wake of the 1899 Harriman Expedition. She mixes a deep appreciation for nature and history with scholarship, some ruminations on colonialism and good old-fashioned ecological outrage at the changes wrought since 1899 in this extraordinary part of the world.  (ALA77, $13.00)