“Stickeen” by John Muir

 

I never have held death in contempt, though in the course of my explorations I have oftentimes felt that to meet one's fate on a noble mountain, or in the heart of a glacier, would be blessed as compared with death from disease, or from some shabby lowland accident. But the best death, quick and crystal-pure, set so glaringly open before us, is hard enough to face, even though we feel gratefully sure that we have already had happiness enough for a dozen lives.

This 1909 short story by noted American naturalist, John Muir, has the merit of the author’s grand way with describing Nature [with a capital N] in all its glory.

Nature here being a glacier in Alaska.

The location of the story and it being a dog story, as Stickeen is the name of the loyal hound here, unfortunately brings immediate comparisons with other Yukon dog stories, notably those by Jack London.

Where Muir is, indeed, emphatic with his eye for landscape, he lacks the vigor, the immediacy, the hunger for blistered raw life that London has.

While not a bad story, the shadow of London loomed so large while reading that I could never shake the thought, “Brother Muir, I dig your life and love of the outdoors, but Jack beat you to this realm and he wins with two-fisted brio.”