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The Valley of 10,000 Smokes: Revisiting the Alaskan Sublime Photographs and text by Gary Freeburg with essays by John Eichelberger and Jeanne M. Schaaf On June 6, 1912, an unforgettable natural event occurred: the largest volcanic eruption on Earth during the twentieth century. In size comparable to Indonesia's Krakatau (Krakatoa) in 1883, one must go back 2,000 years to the north island of New Zealand to find as large a release of rhyolite magma. The actual eruption took place about 100 miles west of Kodiak in the Aleutian Range on the Alaskan Peninsula. In three days, a new volcano—Novarupta—was born. More than five cubic miles of ash and debris flew 100,000 feet into the atmosphere, and heavier deposits filled an adjacent forty-four-square-mile valley in depths up to 1,000 feet. The dense, superheated waves of magmatic spray incinerated all living organisms, leaving a hot bed of igneous material that, when mixed with water from the surrounding glaciers and snowfields, produced tens of thousands of steam vents known as fumaroles. Thus was born the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. Native villages, some thousands of years old, were abandoned and never reestablished. The eruption was of such consequence that the National Geographic Society sent Robert F. Griggs to direct a four-year expedition to the site, beginning in 1915. After seeing "the steaming valley" for the first time, Griggs exclaimed: "The first glance was enough to assure us that we had stumbled in another Yellowstone Park..." Today, scientists from around the world consider the Valley of 10,000 Smokes to be the Holy Grail of volcanology, because of the size, complexity, and composition of the 1912 eruption. Following in the footsteps of Griggs, Gary Freeburg has traveled to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes five times (from 2000 to 2011) in pursuit of photographing one of Earth's most raw and remote wild places. Although the 10,000 fumaroles are largely gone, in Freeburg's stunning photographs one can still feel the steam-filled air, sense the deafening noise of the eruption, and grasp the incredible physical forces that created this alluring landscape. Now preserved as part of the 4.7-million-acre Katmai National Park and Preserve, the Valley of 10,000 Smokes continues to inspire—not just esteemed volcanologists such as John Eichelberger and expert archeologists such as Jeanne M. Schaaf, who contribute essays to the book, but also great artists such as Gary Freeburg who seek out Nature's secrets in the Alaskan sublime. Click here to read President Carter's letter to Freeburg. It was during Carter's presidency that Katmai and the Valley of 10,000 Smokes were designated as a National Park and Preserve. Click here to listen to an interview by Martha Woodroof at WMRA with Gary Freeburg. |
$50.00 U.S. (trade discount) No e-book has been authorized. Published in Fall 2012 Distributed by Casemate/IPM Gary Freeburg Photography About the Author and the Essayists Exhibitons and Book Events:
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