What the River Knows: Essays from the Heart of Alaska - Paperbackby Michael Engelhard (Author) "Full of humor and humility about the human condition. This is Alaska as only someone who knows it deeply can give us a deliciously readable encounter with the place beyond the myths." BATHSHEBA DEMUTH, author of The Floating Coast Edward Abbey, who never much liked Alaska, called it "our biggest, buggiest, boggiest state." To others, it has been a cure for despair. When the author moved to Fairbanks more than three