Tide, Feather, Snow: A Life in Alaska

"Miranda Weiss's Tide, Feather, Snow is beautifully poetic, her observations are expansive, and the pace and rhythm in which she writes are perfect.” — Lynne Cox, author of Grayson and Swimming to Antarctica

"Tide, Feather, Snow is about the resplendence and subtleties of coastal Alaska, and about one woman’s attempt to be fully present in them. Weiss serves as a skilled and poetic witness to a place undergoing incessant change." — Anthony Doerr, author of The Shell Collector

A memoir of moving to Alaska—and staying—by a writer whose gift for writing about place and natural beauty is reminiscent of John McPhee (Coming into the Country) and Jonathan Raban (Passage to Juneau).

Alaska is a place where know-how is currency and a novice's mistakes can kill you. An extreme landscape in both its beauty and challenges, the state is nicknamed "The Last Frontier" with good reason: Here is a paradoxical landscape where boundaries—between community and isolation, bounty and deprivation, conservation and exploitation—are constantly in flux.

But the state has also always been a place for reinvention, a refuge as much for those desperate to escape something as for those on a quest for something else. In Tide, Feather, Snow, Miranda Weiss, a young woman who grew up landlocked in well-kept East Coast suburbs, moves with her boyfriend to Homer, Alaska, where the days are quartered by the most extreme tides in the country, where the years are marked by seasons of fish, and where locals carry around the knowledge of fish, tides, boats, and weather as ballast. At first, she struggles to make a place for herself in this unfamiliar country. But ultimately, Weiss learns the skills to survive on her own, from setting a fishing net to befriending the locals, from jarring rosehip butter to skinning a sea otter.

Weiss's keenly observed prose introduces readers to the memorable people and peculiar beauty of Alaska's vast landscape and takes us on her personal journey of adventure, physical challenge, and culture clash. In the tradition of John McPhee's Coming into the Country, this elegant and affecting memoir is nature writing at its best.

“Tide, Feather, Snow is about the resplendence and subtleties of coastal Alaska, and about one woman’s attempt to be fully present in them. Weiss serves as a skilled and poetic witness to a place undergoing incessant change.” - Anthony Doerr, author of The Shell Collector

“Miranda Weiss’s Tide, Feather, Snow is beautifully poetic, her observations are expansive, and the pace and rhythm in which she writes are perfect. Miranda is reflective about the life she makes in Homer, Alaska, and her connection to the people and environment. The story is beautiful —like slow cooking, the fullness of flavor comes out in slow simmering. For anyone who is drawn to Alaska, beauty, water, or the poetic, this is a book they will love.” - Lynne Cox, author of Grayson and Swimming to Antarctica

“Deeply honest . . . Weiss reflects on her first seasons living in coastal Alaska, serenely recording the stunning unpredictability of the place and people.” - Publishers Weekly

“Exceptional . . . an intimate look into the lives of Alaskans living in small coastal communities. Unlike most “life in” memoirs, which leave the reader viewing from the outside, Weiss takes us there with her delightful prose style, giving us the feel of the people, the place, and the kind of life that draws nourishment from the land and sea. . . . Alaska is a captivating land, and this book does justice to it.” - Library Journal

“Humbly sends its roots down into the soil of the Kenai Peninsula. . . . [Weiss] deftly spins her quiet narratives out of the smallest details and anecdotes, and spices them with the richness of texture seldom seen in non-fiction.” - Krestia DeGeorge, Anchorage Press

“Weiss is fearless. . . . Over the course of her story . . . she faces herself, and what she finds is both transcendent and troubling. . . . Each phrase [is] as surprising as the tide pool or moose track it describes. You’ll want to don your rubber boots, your chest waders, your spray skit. You’ll want to savor each word, the way she does.” - Eva Saulitis, Orion magazine

“Tide, Feather, Snow is a lovely, feathery book indeed—a labor of love and a pleasure to read.” - Edward Hoagland, author of Notes from the Century Before