Braving It
In Braving It, James Campbell recounts three extraordinary journeys into Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with his teenage daughter, Aidan. What begins as a summer of building a remote cabin with his cousin, Heimo Korth, soon turns into an initiation into one of the harshest wildernesses on earth. Facing swarms of mosquitoes, grizzlies, subzero winds, and the relentless demands of survival, Aidan not only endures but thrives—learning to trap, hunt, and navigate a land few ever see. Their final trek, a daring backpacking and canoe expedition across the Brooks Range to the Arctic Ocean, becomes a profound test of courage, resilience, and the evolving bond between father and daughter. At once a gripping adventure and a heartfelt meditation on coming of age and letting go, Braving It celebrates America’s vanishing wild places and the life lessons they hold.
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"One of the reasons we read books like Braving It [is] to experience what we may never have the particular courage to and share the terror and thrills of those who do….And Aidan is exceptional, choosing to ditch friends and devices in order to rough it. It is invigorating to meet a young woman hellbent on self-sufficiency, to watch her twist the head off a just-shot caribou and bop around the campsite, bear bells jingling around her neck….Mr. Campbell has set his daughter on the hero’s journey and offered her the inviolable obligation of the parent: to show his child that she needs to save her own life and that she can.”
Wall Street Journal
Other Critical Acclaim
An Outside Magazine Best Book of 2017
Silver Winner of the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award—Travel Book
Finalist for the Banff Mountain Book Competition — Adventure Travel
Hear more from James and Aidan Campbell on NPR
"In Campbell’s moving memoir, which doubles as a kind of extreme parenting guide, crisply detailed scenes are stacked with rural perils and pleasures, from treacherous canoeing, solitary fly-fishing and cabin building to grizzly bear threats and emotional nuance between a very loving parent and child."
New York Times
“Campbell, through his descriptions and thoughtful reflection, brings to life the Arctic's great beauty, expanse and values as a wilderness and testing ground — a 'final frontier' for a certain kind of seeker… Braving It is a smart, insightful book that should be read by fathers and daughters everywhere — and by anyone who looks to wild country as ‘part of the geography of hope.”
Alaska Dispatch News
