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John McPhee: Encounters in Wild America

The Pine Barrens | Encounters with the Archdruid | The Survival of the Bark Canoe | Coming into the Country

Edited by David Remnick

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Four unforgettable accounts of America’s untamed lands and the characters who call them home

Overview

Overview

Influences | News My Encounters with the Archdruid
December 18, 2025

From Pulitzer Prize–winning author John McPhee, here are four captivating accounts of remarkable wild places and the people who survive and thrive there. Exploring these endangered natural regions, the acclaimed New Yorker writer encounters a vivid cast of characters whose skills and ways of living testify to human ingenuity and resilience.

In The Pine Barrens (1968), McPhee traverses the byways of an unexpected near-wilderness a stone’s throw from the New Jersey Turnpike, its dwarf forests, cedar swamps, and tannin-brown creeks a world apart from the megalopolis that surrounds them. Here, he meets botanists searching for orchids, berry- pickers looking for work, and longtime “pineys” eager to share the folkways, lore, and local history of their home region stretching back to colonial times, now threatened on every side.

Encounters with the Archdruid (1971) recounts three hiking and rafting expeditions through pristine ecosystems: Glacier Peak Wilderness in Washington’s Cascades, “the most beautiful mountains in the United States”; Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast, home to roughly one resident for every two miles of beach; and down the Colorado River through the majesty of the Grand Canyon. Along the way, McPhee observes the cordial yet high-stakes conversations between environmentalist and “archdruid” David Brower and his expert adversaries—a mining engineer, a resort developer, and a dam builder—that track the American struggle to reconcile preservation and progress.

The Survival of the Bark Canoe (1975) introduces the remarkable New Hampshire craftsman Henri Vaillancourt, who builds new vessels from birch bark using the age-old tools and nearly forgotten techniques of the American Indians. McPhee joins Vaillancourt and a small crew on a grueling 150-mile voyage through the Maine woods—a test of endurance, skill, and temperament—amid scenes of haunting beauty, much as Thoreau saw them a century before.

Hailed as “a species of masterpiece” and an account of “nothing less than the nature of the human condition,” Coming into the Country (1977) is McPhee’s sweeping portrait of Alaska and Alaskans. As he crisscrosses this vast and sublime state—its backcountry still the territory of the bear—he meets newcomers and Alaska Natives; government officials, gold miners, and oilmen; wildlife ecologists, fur trappers, and bush pilots, all of them pitting themselves against the inhospitable elements.

Prepared with McPhee’s assistance, the volume includes a newly researched chronology of his life, detailed notes, and an index, along with the illustrations that accompanied the original editions.

David Remnick, editor, is a former student of John McPhee’s. He has been editor of The New Yorker since 1998. He is the author of many acclaimed books, including Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire (1993), winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and Holding the Note: Profiles in Popular Music (2023), a Financial Times Book of the Year.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

Publication support for John McPhee: Encounters in Wild America was provided by The Giorgi Family Foundation and Edwin S. Matthews, Jr.

This volume is available for adoption in the Guardian of American Letters Fund.

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ISBN: 978-1-59853-842-7 858 pages

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N° 398 Library of America Series

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