Jonathan Raban is one of the two greatest travel writers working today – the other being Paul Theroux. Passage to Juneau is a very personal account of a trip Raban made in his ketch from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska, via the Inside Passage.

The unique feature of this book is that the tale of his own voyage forms a counterpoint against the journal of Captain George Vancouver, who did much of the early survey work in this area. He also, on the basis of Vancouver’s observations, gives a more balanced account of the relative merits of Harrison Chronometers and lunar observations, than Dava Sobel’s ‘Longitude’.

Raban never uses rose-tinted glasses in his journey; he tells it like it is – the good along with the bad. And there’s plenty of bad . . .

Nautically minded readers will not thrill to the splicing of mainbraces or grinding of winches. Raban tells you only a little about the boat and how he sails and navigates. Instead, he concentrates on his impressions of the surroundings; comparing them to those of Vancouver and his crew, many of whom found the magnificent surroundings scary in the extreme.

There’s some discussion of native culture, too; the real culture and the false. A lasting impression is of how they were more at home on the water than on land.

Raban suffered some personal tragedies during the course of the journey, and this brings to mind Paul Theroux’s book "The Happy Isles of Oceania" (Hamish Hamilton, 1992) where the impending break-up of Theroux’s marriage comes to influence his thinking on many aspects of his trip. Interestingly, when he is at the height of his troubles, Raban writes to his friend ‘Paul’ . . .

A Passage to Juneau is a book with many facets. It won’t cheer you up, but it will gently educate and make you think.