A modern-day retracing of the 1899 Harriman Alaska Expedition.. In 1899, railroad tycoon Edward Harriman assembled a company of exceptional characters including John Burroughs, John Muir, Edward Curtis, William Dall, George Bird Grinnell, and Louis Agassiz Fuertes. They cruised glacial fjords, collected specimens, and photographed Alaska's native peoples. Almost one hundred years after the original voyage Nancy Lord follows in Harriman's steps, seeking to understand this century's attitudes toward nature, landscape, and culture.