DENALI JOURNAL by Tom Walker (Stackpole...

DENALI JOURNAL by Tom Walker (Stackpole Books: $16.95, illustrated). A free-lance journalist and nature photographer, Walker combines entries from 20 years of diaries into an informal commentary on the flora and fauna of south-central Alaska. Denali, the Athabascan name for Mt. McKinley, is a national park and nature preserve approximately the size of Massachusetts that boasts large populations of moose, bears, wolves, caribou, eagles, snowshoe hares and beavers. Walker is fascinated by the ongoing struggle for survival that surrounds him as he watches goshawks feed their fledglings, a wolf pack attack a pair of bear cubs or a beaver struggle to repair a dam. He also notes the effects of the growing number of tourists on the wildlife (more than 600,000 people visited the park in 1989), and reports the dismaying attitude of a man on a tour bus who got bored watching a grizzly bear and asked to be awakened “at the next attraction.” Perversely, nothing the author discusses is shown on the small map included in the introduction.