Everything They Wanted: Muz and Joe, Reid Inlet, and Glacier Bay

Everything They Wanted: Muz and Joe, Reid Inlet, and Glacier Bay, is a memoir about place: how the ice in Glacier Bay shapes the landscape and how a place shapes the people who live near it. Beginning with the story of Joe and Muz Ibach, who lived over a period of more than twenty summers in a tiny cabin near Reid Glacier, it is one woman's exploration of Glacier Bay and of what was so special about these two people. In a landscape where everything changes, where nothing is stable and fixed, and where transformation is visible, Everything They Wanted tells the story of what can be learned from a place such as this, and of an older woman coming to see her younger self.

WHAT OTHERS SAY

“When you watch a standing wave in the river, its shape holds a restless poise the current moves through. This book enacts that performance: here is a distinctive place, Glacier Bay–restless, active, changing, but also settled deep in its character. And through this place move human stories, ways of observing, remembering, wondering, and telling. Like the Buddhist notion of ‘steadfast character, supple spirit,’ this book's narrator is persistent to understand the power of Glacier Bay, but ready to range freely in pursuit of that understanding: many visits, memories of trauma and escape, history, oral history, ground-truthing adventures in becoming local, lesson by lesson. ‘I spent most of my time up there,’ she says, ‘gazing.’ Savoring this book, you will do the same. A reader of such a book will be informed about Glacier Bay in myriad ways and may become a student in this spirit of local places far and wide.”
Kim Stafford, author of The Muses Among Us:
Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer's Craft

“This is a story about listening, loving and remembering; about finding the sacred and nourishing the soul. Read it at the peril of your own enrichment.”
Kim Heacox, author of The Only Kayak and Jimmy BlueFeather

“Judith Aftergut's lyricism carries the reader along on her journeys to Glacier Bay. She sees not only deep inside herself but also makes the reader see deep inside as well. This is the book to take when going out into any wilderness.”
Abigail B. Calkin, author of The Soul of My Soldier and The Night Orion Fell

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Judith Aftergut is a poet, speaker and life coach. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Her focus is the idea of honoring, of making the best choices in any situation. She gives readings around the world.

A percentage of proceeds from this book will be contributed to the Inian Islands Institute, whose mission is to inspire tomorrow's rising environmental leaders through experiential living and learning in the wilderness of Southeast Alaska. Visit www.InianIslandsInstitute.org for more information.