Deep Journalism : WANDERINGS OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALIST IN ALASKA AND THE AMERICAN WEST, <i> By Philip L. Fradkin (University of New Mexico Press: $24.95; 288 pp.)</i>

Philip Fradkin’s essays form a scintillating mosaic of some of the remotest, most ravaged and most wondrous corners of North America. As the author explains in the preface, he was lucky to work for editors at the Los Angeles Times (1964-1975, as the paper’s first environmental reporter) and Audubon magazine (1976-1981) who stayed out of his way and allowed him to practice what he calls “deep journalism” or “ecohistory.” Indeed, the articles have the layering, texture and depth that these terms imply. They nonetheless retain the freshness and immediacy that distinguishes journalism from history. Most important of all, they remain, almost without exception, remarkably relevant.

I marveled at the prescience of Fradkin’s coverage of issues ranging from the hazards of shipping oil from the Alaskan port of Valdez to the unbridled exploitation of the open space and mineral resources of Colorado. One after the other, the reports provide a 10-year preview of issues that are still generating headlines today: the conflict between the Hopi and Navajo over land in the Southwest; the debate over grazing private cattle on precious public lands; the cycle of drought in California. His description of the brutal drought of 1977 illustrates just how short human memory is. Lessons unlearned back then have just been relearned in the extended California drought of the last seven years. No doubt, they will be forgotten again now that the state’s water woes have temporarily eased.

In the first half of the book, which deals with Alaska, it is not the reporting on human abuse of the land that resonates the most, but Fradkin’s descriptions of the land itself. Alaska is revealed as a place in which the enduring forces of nature have only recently felt the tweak of human intrusion.

My scalp bristled as Fradkin described a visit to Lituya Bay, Alaska, and recalled how on July 9, 1958, the region was hit by an earthquake and a resulting 1,740-foot wave. “The earth shook and the land was torn apart at 10:16 p.m. Mountains swelled, one peak rising 50 feet in an instant. The tip of an island in Yakutat Bay surged 20 feet into the air and then slipped 100 feet underwater, sucking three berry pickers to their deaths. All that was left of their outing were the paper plates that floated upon the roiled water.”

The second half focuses on the modern American West, a land much more crowded and offended. There is a fascinating ramble along the 1,072-mile-long California coast, which, Fradkin notes, “begins in a rainforest environment and ends in the desert.” He points out that 85% of the state’s population lives within 30 miles of the shore, thereby adding to the pressures on fragile estuaries and beaches.

Fradkin effectively describes how tourists and hikers have crowded and trampled “the Range of Light,” the High Sierra. “Two battleship gray outhouses were recently airlifted by helicopter to the 14,495-foot summit of Mount Whitney” to accommodate the thousands of hikers who need to relieve themselves each weekend. Nearby, Fradkin came face to face with a marmot. “The small furry creature did not give ground. Showing no fear, the marmot advanced slowly from a distance of 15 feet. Rabies? A wave of fear swept me followed by a wave of foolishness. The marmot veered away. I was the alien in that environment where animals should have the right of way.”

Fradkin’s unadorned prose effectively conveys images that are variously distant and timeless, or achingly intimate. The reader can almost hear the muffled wing beats of a snowy owl exploring an overgrown World War II battlefield in the Aleutians. A smile cannot be stifled on reading about the system Fradkin and his 10-year-old son devised for rating cherry pies on a summer-long trip across Alaska.

His essay about that trek with his son, the first extended time he had spent with this child from a fractured marriage, is the most personal and moving piece. Even in describing a father’s love, Fradkin retains the understated, trenchant style that makes this book unusual: “We celebrated Alex’s 10th birthday camped on the shores of Adams Inlet with porpoises, seals, and rafts of seabirds for company. . . . Dessert was chocolate pudding with a match stuck in the middle of it for a candle. I wrote descriptions of the presents waiting in the parked car at the Juneau airport on slips of paper that surrounded Alex when he awakened the next morning.”

In a useful epilogue that provides brief updates for each story, Fradkin remarks that the piece about his trip with Alex generated more mail than any other book or article he has ever written. This reader was not surprised.