Small Feet, Big Land

Adventure, Home, and Family on the Edge of Alaska

* Sequel to 2009’s top-selling A Long Trek Home: 400 Miles by Boot, Raft, and Ski
* Unique narrative combination of thrilling adventure with the challenges of bringing small children along
* An accessible window into life on America’s “Last Frontier”

Small Feet, Big Land follows the expeditions and daily life of a family of four: Erin McKittrick and her husband, Hig, lifelong adventure trekkers, set out to explore the vast and remote wild corners of Alaska with their two young children in tow.

After trekking thousands of miles through harsh and beautiful wilderness together, Erin and Hig must adjust to the short attention span — and short legs — of a toddler and the weight of a newborn baby, as they walk Alaska’s rapidly changing coastline. While visiting remote Arctic villages, touring a zinc mine, and exploring for two months on one of Alaska’s largest glaciers, Erin sees the dramatic effects of climate change on the landscape around her, and considers the very different world in which her children may live one day.

Whether huddling in the pelting rain, facing a curious grizzly bear, eating whale blubber with new friends, or picking berries on the sunny tundra their unconventional adventures draw Erin’s family — and readers — closer together as they explore the intersection of wilderness and industry in America’s wildest state.

Erin McKittrick and her husband, Hig, have walked over 7,000 miles through Alaska’s trackless wilderness. Their journey from Seattle to the Aleutians is chronicled in Erin’s first book, A Long Trek Home: 4,000 Miles by Boot, Raft, and Ski. In between expeditions, they are raising their children a stone’s throw from the wilderness in a yurt in Seldovia, Alaska. They are the founders of ground truth trekking, a nonprofit that uses science and adventure to further the conversation about Alaska environment issues: www.groundtruthtrekking.org/blog.