My initial thoughts: So many comma splices [so many!], and a "could have cared less" in the first few pages [How is that missed in editing? Whyyyy is My initial thoughts: So many comma splices [so many!], and a "could have cared less" in the first few pages [How is that missed in editing? Whyyyy is it missed?], and still, the first few chapters are beautiful, full of lines that made me stop to re-read them [and not because they were laden with comma splices, oof].
My thoughts halfway through: This book is so good. The place itself is a memorable character you want to spend more time with, and some of the things the protagonist says and does? I can see myself in those lines, in those decisions. Fighting for wolves and rewilding a barren landscape devoid of apex predators? A thousand times YES to that. In another life, I'm doing exactly that. Maybe still yet in this life.
My final thoughts: Good grief, what was this book? From a purely developmental standpoint, I honestly think this book was [at least] two altogether different books, and trying to mash them together in the way they were mashed made...well, it made a bit of a mess, in my opinion.
[Three stars for a book I sincerely would have rated five stars if I'd stopped reading when I was smitten and skipped the ending altogether. Endless stars for wolves, obviously.]...more
I expected this book to be full of whimsy; I didn't expect it to make me cry.
This book is a fictionalized retelling of a true story of a wild wolf (OI expected this book to be full of whimsy; I didn't expect it to make me cry.
This book is a fictionalized retelling of a true story of a wild wolf (OR-7) who wandered from Eastern Oregon down into California and back into the Cascade Range in Southwestern Oregon.
He's as beloved and as well known in some circles as Balto, and he and his mate are responsible for bringing five litters of wild wolves into the world (a supremely impressive and hope-filled feat for so many reasons).
I love reading about wolves, even as it tends to make me inherently sad every time I do.
In this case it's because no matter how inspiring the story (and OR-7's is definitely an inspiring story), there's no way to tell a story about wolves and not talk about the brutality, ignorance, and fear-mongering of humans when it comes to how badly we as a species have treated wolves for my entire lifetime (and so much longer than that).
Contrary to popular fear-mongering and lazy storytelling, wolves don't prey on sheep or cattle unless they're desperate (see also: hardly ever, and even less if our government didn't subsidize cattle farming in all sorts of places it doesn't need to exist), and hardly ever negatively interact with humans (you have a better chance of running into a human psycho in the woods than you do having a negative encounter with a wild wolf).
I'm glad this book exists for young readers who in learning about OR-7/Wander/Journey (as kids from around the world decided to name him) will also get to learn about the sanctity and inherent value of wolves throughout the world.
And I'm so glad I can hear wild wolves calling to each other across our fair valley.
[Three-point-five stars for a beautifully illustrated book about the importance of belonging, and for Warm.]...more
I've hereby decided there are three types of memoirs:
Type 1: Celebrity memoirs—Books written and published solely because of, and centered around, thI've hereby decided there are three types of memoirs:
Type 1: Celebrity memoirs—Books written and published solely because of, and centered around, the author's celebrity. Usually they're funny, and self-deprecating, and when we like them, we like them because we're a fan of the celebrity in question and/or are captivated by some aspect of the business/sport/achievement in or for which they became famous.
Type 2: Wait, What Is This? memoirs—In my experience these are books that should have been diary entries, therapy sessions, and/or personal/narrative essays. Often, they suffer from disorganization and/or a lack of a central tenet or theme that is also universally applicable and/or interesting to a wide variety of readers. Alternately titled: White Privilege Memoirs.
Type 3: Memorable memoirs—Important stories by humans with something to say. These are the books that spur us to action, and make us think. These are the stories that make everyone who reads them better, more awake, more compassionate, and hopefully, more empathetic humans. These are the memoirs we need more of.
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube is a strange combination of Type 1 and Type 2 from the memoir list above, and while I'll never advocate for any woman not telling her own story, the story that ended up in this particular book felt half-baked, meandering, and altogether not the story Braverman could (and arguably should) have told. (See also: This book needed a MUCH better developmental editor, if it had one at all. So many books need better editors, and whenever I run into one I want to kindly scream, "Hire me! Hire my husband! Hire this person I know who is a fantastic editor!")
This book was a bizarre combination of would-be female empowerment mixed with a celebration, manifestation, and in some places, an outright defense of old-school patriarchal values, attitudes, and behaviors that still permeate the North, dominate the sport in which Braverman has gained celebrity status, and which have been so unendingly damaging to her as an individual, and to womxn across the globe for centuries.
Those parts of this book were extremely off-putting to me, and I don't think I would have finished it had it not been for my appreciation for Braverman as one of the few female mushers trying to make a name for herself in a harsh world swallowed by ice and littered with self-aggrandizing, toxic masculinity.
I won't read another book by Braverman centered on what felt and looked too often (to me) like half-finished thoughts she should have shared with a therapist to gain insight, uncover her identity, and find her fire after suffering through abusive relationships. But should she decide to write a book centered on her experience as a female musher, and maybe even about how her whiteness and history in the North made that entry simpler for her than it would have been for a BIPOC individual? Well, I'll be first in line to read something like that.
[Two stars for some moments of real brilliance underneath layers of dude-infested ice.]...more
Annual re-read of one of my favorites. This book will forever sit within arm's reach of my desk.
"But I am just a woman who thinks her duty is not to Annual re-read of one of my favorites. This book will forever sit within arm's reach of my desk.
"But I am just a woman who thinks her duty is not to forget."
Past reviews/gushing below:
Do I already know parts of this book by heart? Yes. Am I still likely going to re-read this book every year? Also yes. Did I get to lead a beloved book club meeting centered on this book in April? Oh, did I.
Such a perpetual gift: Words after words after words and the power they have to change us.
[Five stars forever, for everything.]
Original review below: Note to self: THIS IS PROBABLY THE BEST BOOK I'LL READ ALL YEAR. I can't imagine finding a book I'll love more than this one.
This book felt in places like a homecoming to a part of myself I've been hiding away—a reminder of a version of me I've been afraid to let have a voice, for fear it might disrupt or bother or make someone feel uncomfortable. This book felt like a dam breaking inside of me.
What I want to remember, and what I wrote immediately after I finished reading the last page: This book was a gift, passed down to me by two of my closest friends. This book is a river running. This book is a reminder. This book is a warning. This book is a peregrine, crying. This book is a meadowlark, singing. This book is an owl, perched and waiting. This book is a balm, and a reminder of past wrongs. This book is a possibility. This book is such a gift to me. This book is such a gift.
[Five feathery stars for yet another one of TTW's books I'm going to be joyfully re-reading for the rest of my life.]...more
Note to self: Don't read a book about a deadly and formidable epidemic during a pandemic.*
I would, however, definitely recommend this book to anyone Note to self: Don't read a book about a deadly and formidable epidemic during a pandemic.*
I would, however, definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in Alaskan history, including but not limited to the true story behind some of the most heroic sled-dogs in history and one of the best animated movies of all-time (Balto! The original, 1995 version). This story also includes heaps of interesting and essential Indigenous history (as any story about the history of Alaska should), and it handles that history with respect and reverence.
Well-written and well-researched, with a handful of sections that read a bit slower and felt a bit more difficult to navigate, overall this book is an engaging and highly informative read. It's also peppered with the sort of hope, iron will, and sheer insanity only the direst of circumstances unearth—like stalwart mushers and their unendingly amazing dogs who painstakingly manage to carry diphtheria serum along the treacherous route to Nome while battling blizzards, white-out conditions, shifting sea ice, and temperatures down to -70 degrees. NEGATIVE SEVENTY DEGREES. I have no real barometer for that sort of cold, and I'm grateful I don't.
Once again and forever: Dogs are amazing, and we don't deserve them.
*In my defense I checked this book out from the library well before the word "pandemic" was uttered, but still: yikes.
[Three-point-five stars for a story I knew in pieces, and so many more pieces I didn't know.]...more
By all accounts I should be/have been the target audience for this book, but not having found it in my younger years (I was too busy reading anything By all accounts I should be/have been the target audience for this book, but not having found it in my younger years (I was too busy reading anything and everything to do with horses and wolves and whales), reading it as an adult fell supremely flat for me.
I didn't find it particularly well-written or engaging the way (the best) middle-grade books are these days, and while it's of course fiction so who cares if it's true, I didn't really find any part of it plausible, either, save for the part where a white boy feels safe and entitled enough to run away to live on land his family stole from Indigenous people but there's not going to be any mention of that fact or any mention of the Indigenous people (save for channeling them for adventures, of course!), because once white people own land, that's where the history of that land really begins. UGH.
I think what it really is: I hold "old" books to the same standards to which I hold books I'm reading now because (white privileged gatekeeping sucks, and) back then Craighead George was certainly old enough to know better. Also, this book isn't even that old.
This book is so much beauty and so much truth and so much heartache rolled into one memorable, timely, oh so important collection of poems.
Some favoriThis book is so much beauty and so much truth and so much heartache rolled into one memorable, timely, oh so important collection of poems.
Some favorite lines, including a beautifully succinct and accurate representation of how and why I personally met and fell in love with poetry when I was 13 (the last lines from the excerpts below):
"Be who you are, even if it kills you. It will. Over and over again. Even as you live." —From "Break My Heart"
"No one had told us how beautiful it was: the waters of this river, these healing plants, these stones, these winds roaming through on sunlight and rains, all the suns of our lost days." —From "By The Way" (This poem, dedicated to Adrienne Rich, made me cry.)
"We are land on turtle's back—when the weight of greed overturns us, who will recall the upright song of this land"
—From "Bless This Land"
"It was impossible to make it through the tragedy
Without poetry. What are we without winds becoming words?"
—From "Becoming Seventy"
[Five stars for the power of poetry to tell the truth, for poetry as memory, and for the sincere hope that every year more and more people take the time to listen to what Indigenous voices we have left.]...more
This book wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be, which is: heartbreaking and beautiful and woodsy and centered around sisters and loss and tThis book wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be, which is: heartbreaking and beautiful and woodsy and centered around sisters and loss and the myriad shapes grief takes throughout a season and a life.
The only (and in my opinion supremly valid) reason this book isn't getting five stars from me: I don't dig Indigenous appropriation by anyone, but especially by two white women (this book is co-authored).
DEAR FELLOW WHITE PEOPLE: STOP USING "SPIRIT ANIMAL" IN YOUR DAILY LIFE AND IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS AND ESPECIALLY, ESPECIALLY IN YOUR BOOKS.
It's been well established that Indigenous appropriation (and especially "spirit animal") is disrespectful to the Indigenous community, which countless Indigenous community members have themselves articulated in a variety of places, and that alone should be enough. The use of it here was also wholly unnecessary, and in my opinion took something away from an otherwise stunning story.
[Four stars for foxes, for catamounts, for sisters, for honest depictions of loss, and for the interwoven connectedness present in every square inch of woodland on this earth.]...more
This book is a supremely fictional account of a true story of a father and daughter found living (happily and safely) in Forest Park (the massive and This book is a supremely fictional account of a true story of a father and daughter found living (happily and safely) in Forest Park (the massive and beautiful city park I lived blocks away from in Portland, and where Matt and I had our first date: a seven-hour hike until we lost the light) back in 2003.
The truth of the story centers around the fact that they were living in the woods with the tiniest of ecological footprints; so tiny, in fact, they went undetected there for years. Once found, they were removed from the park and told they had to assimilate into modern society in a more "acceptable" manner. They did that for a handful of days before disappearing again. No one has seen or heard from either one of them since.
The movie (Leave No Trace) is worth watching for myriad reasons, not the least of which being it was written and directed by two women, is stunning cinematically, and better than the book in a 1,000 ways, not the least of which being it's far less judgmental and malcontent than the book is, and doesn't assume ill-will the way the (male) author of the this fictionalized story does.
The film is also so much proof that Thomasin McKenzie (who plays the daughter) is one of the best acting talents of her generation.
What I love most about this story (either in book or movie form) is how much it made me (re-)think about what we as a society have deemed "acceptable" vs. "unacceptable" and how much subjective, capitalist nonsense that really is in so many places.
Two of my favorite passages from early pages of the book (the entire book is told from the POV of the daughter):
"If a paragraph is a thought, a complete thought, then a sentence is one piece of a thought. Like in addition where one number plus another number equals a bigger number. If you wrote down subtraction you would start with a thought and take enough away that is was no longer complete. You might write backward, or nothing at all. You wouldn't even think or breathe. A comma, that is a place you breathe, or think, which is how breathing and thinking are the same. They collect, or are places to collect."
"I do not collect things since collections draw attention. It is possible to collect things in your mind or to gather them and one way to do this is to write them."
[Two-point-five stars for the book, rounded up to three because I would give the movie five(hundred) stars.]...more
I tried really hard to get into this book because the story itself is just so amazing. To race the Iditarod is an endlessly impressive feat of enduranI tried really hard to get into this book because the story itself is just so amazing. To race the Iditarod is an endlessly impressive feat of endurance and bravery and insanity unto itself. To race the Iditarod with no sight seems to rest in the realm of impossibility, and yet it's been done. Rachael Scdoris has done it.
The problems for me with this book are two-fold: the writing itself and the organization, neither of which felt particularly well done or even appropriately finished before this book went to publication.
Scdoris didn't write the majority of the book. She told her story and that story was put to paper by Rick Steber (listed as co-author). It definitely seemed written for a much younger target audience than I'd imagined when I picked it up.
Ultimately, for me, the internal (dis)organization mirrored the jumbled thoughts of the narrator, and that disorganization was so distracting I jumped ship before I reached the end of the book.
[Two stars for potential, and for the inspiring athlete behind the book.]...more
This book wasn't what I was expecting. The cover art is lovely, which is admittedly why I initially grabbed it, and because I'm always up for reading This book wasn't what I was expecting. The cover art is lovely, which is admittedly why I initially grabbed it, and because I'm always up for reading a story about walking for the sake of walking, hiking for the sake of seeing all there is to see, movement for the sheer joy and struggle and simplicity of putting one foot in front of the other over and over and over again.
This book was much more than that while also falling short for me. My biggest problem wasn't the story, which was plenty inspiring and honest and raw. Destigmatizing homelessness is something I think needs to happen before we can properly and sufficiently end homelessness once and for all (or at the very least try much harder to alleviate it than we are now).
I think more than anything my biggest problem with this book was the editing: Both the structure itself (I'm of the mind that chronologically isn't always the best way to tell a story, even one about walking a path from one end to the other), and the length. This story is one that could (and in my opinion, should) have been hundreds of pages shorter than it was. It read more like a travel journal (replete with plenty of thoughts that would have been best kept in a journal vs. shared) more than it did a fully formed and properly edited memoir. (e.g. At one point Winn compares caravans to concentration camps and it's so cringe-worthy and tone-deaf that I nearly stopped reading then and there. SEE ALSO: AMAZING EDITORS ARE OUT THERE AND THEY'RE AWESOME. HIRE AMAZING EDITORS!)
Anyway. Parts of this book are inspiring. Parts of it are annoying. Parts of it are incredibly sweet and moving. Parts of it feel overwrought and judgmental. Overall, I think the story itself is compelling, even if I'd have preferred it be told a bit differently and more succinctly.
[Two-point-five stars for honesty, and for the simple, devastating, and inspiring reality of nothing behind you and nothing ahead of you but the path stretching out beneath your feet.]...more
My thoughts while reading this book, a review in list form:
1. I don't remember this book being written from the POV of a dog. 2. Come to think of it,My thoughts while reading this book, a review in list form:
1. I don't remember this book being written from the POV of a dog. 2. Come to think of it, I don't think I've actually ever read this book before now. 3. Pretty sure I read White Fang and some of London's short stories in HS, and nothing else. 4. I really don't enjoy reading about humans (in this case: men) abusing animals, especially dogs. 5. I also don't really enjoy reading about vicious dogs killing less vicious dogs. Oof. 6. I hope all of these abused dogs get to eat a cruel man by the end of this book. 7. That's probably not the sort of book this is. (Where's Cujo when you need him?) 8. Dogs are the best. Even Cujo. 9. Humans are the worst. (Yeah, yeah, not all humans. But most humans. Even on our best days, there are simply too many of us and not enough resources and so we're killing the planet on a daily basis, but I (perpetually, & parenthetically!) digress.) 10. This book is quite old, as is a noticeable amount of vocabularly London is employing. 11. This book is also quite violent. Exceptionally violent, even. 12. There are so many passages that ramble on needlessly (and to be honest, come across a bit masturbatory). 13. I would liked to have asked London who his target audience was for this book. (It's not kids.) Ohhhhh, Jack London is racist, as are glaring passages in this book. (Spoiler alert: He's also a misogynist!) 14. This book has one of the worst endings in the histor of "classic" literature. I'm all-in for Buck getting to run free, but the rest of it, including a totally fabricated and murderous Indigenous tribe? Garbage. 15. Our "classic" English Lit. canon is in dire need of updating/decolonizing.
FIN.
[One star for Buck getting to answer the call of the wild, and for nothing else.]...more
Newly obsessed with the Iditarod, we picked this up after Matt remembered he read Paulsen as a kid, and as I was searching for anything and everythingNewly obsessed with the Iditarod, we picked this up after Matt remembered he read Paulsen as a kid, and as I was searching for anything and everything Iditarod-related to devour. I'd seen some reviews that mentioned how funny this book is, but I didn't expect to laugh out loud as much as I did (and as this was one I read aloud to Matt every night, he was laughing alongside me). This book is really, really funny.
(It's also harrowing in places, including but not limited to all the times Paulsen should be really, really dead.)
I'm not sure if it's more amusing to people who have dogs, and/or people who know what it's like to run a dog who has seemingly endless energy, and loves, LOVES (maybe even lives) to pull.
We spent all winter skiing with (and roped to) our pup, Toya, and watching her joy while skijoring—pulling, pulling, pulling; literally sprinting up and down the sides of mountains—made us realize what an enthusiastic and capable snow dog she is. It definitely gave us a renewed appreciation (and interest) in the sport/hobby/life of running dogs. Hence the interest in the Iditarod and all the logistics therein.
There's a lot to love about this book, but the part I loved most: How honest Paulsen is about everything he had to learn with no one teaching him, save for his dogs, who taught him something new and vital (and often hilarious) every day. That's a feeling I know well, and one I'm thankful for every day.
[Four-point-five stars for being one of the most memorable books I'll likely read all year, for all the laughs, and for helping me imagine what Toya would look like running with joy across the heart of Alaska.]...more
This book was written and published before Winterdance, and if you're looking for essays and stories related to dog running and Iditarod racing, (in mThis book was written and published before Winterdance, and if you're looking for essays and stories related to dog running and Iditarod racing, (in my opinion) Winterdance is the vastly superior option between these two.
Woodsong had its moments, but overall it felt...disorganized. Unfinished. Repetitive in all the wrong places, and noticeably strange in others.
Regardless of any latent weirdness, I'm likely always going to be all-in for essays about dogs and people who love them like members of their families.
[Three stars for Cookie, Storm, and wonderful, wacky Wilson.]...more
An essay about bats followed by an essay about alligators followed by an essay about whales followed by an essay about penguins. It's like this book wAn essay about bats followed by an essay about alligators followed by an essay about whales followed by an essay about penguins. It's like this book was written just for me (and anyone else super into bats, alligators, whales, and penguins; if that's you, hi; let's be friends!).
I was so smitten with this book that I wrote notes all over it and savored it for over a month. I would (and have and will continue to) read 100 more books just like this one. (Also, it was fun to randomly run into the same zany bat scientist heavily featured in the first essay in Paul Bogard's The End of Night, which was published 17 years after this book.)
There's no denying it's dated in places (being first published in 1996), so some of the data likely isn't even close to accurate anymore, and it's impossible to read naturalist books without highlighting the huge and undeniable role humans have played in destabilizing entire ecosystems and nearly (or successfully) eradicating entire species. Ackerman doesn't ignore human impact in her essays, but there was certainly a lot more hope (and more time) to conserve these species (and fragile ecosystems) back when she was first writing this book than there is now.
[Five stars for so much naturalist magic, beautifully vivid passages, and for being a wonderful, albeit belated introduction to Ackerman.]...more
One-sentence review if you're not into novella reviews, which is more my steady jam: One of the best writers I've stumbled into in recent memory, but One-sentence review if you're not into novella reviews, which is more my steady jam: One of the best writers I've stumbled into in recent memory, but exceptionally difficult in places to read past the author's inherent white privilege.
I have many thoughts about this strange beauty of a book. A list, then!
1. First, it's the first book I've stumbled into in a long time where the writing is simply stunning. In places, it's absolutely perfect: visual and clever in all the right places. But there are also plenty of pages and chapters where it feels imbalanced in that regard. Beautiful sentences are worthy, and I want to read them, but I crave stark sentences in between whimsical, witty turns of phrase. There were times when it felt like Harris was putting all of her best visual whimsy to work to describe places and situations when myriad simpler sentences would have sufficed. It's a stylistic choice, and I get why she made it, but in my opinion in places it negatively affected the overall pacing and flow of the book. (I'm realizing that this is likely more of an editing critique than anything else.)
2. I liked the gritty bits, and that Harris wasn't afraid to share them. The mistakes, fatigue-induced poor decisions, the soreness and reluctance/inability to move. Being married to a man who had a bike for legs when I met him, and who used his superhero legs to spend three consecutive summers long-distance bike touring across the U.S. (with special emphasis on climbing and descending steep mountain passes), I appreciated the honesty and unexpected twists and turns in both the route and the narrative.
3. I really liked Mel (the friend and woman who biked the Silk Road with Harris). Her comedic timing (as Harris recounted it) was consistently one of my favorite parts of the entire book.
4. I didn't so much like the places where it felt like Harris was a) making sweeping generalizations about an entire country based on a few interactions with a handful of locals and/or what she read/knew about said country from various books, and b) outright judging/poking fun at locals met along the Silk Road, especially when they were simply parts of a moving background to her as she and her friend(s) biked through. (There was a specific passage where Harris made a disparaging and strange remark about the sagging of a woman's breasts, and in my mind there's just no reason for that, in this book or in any book, and I really wish Harris hadn't wrote it, yes, but also that her editor(s) would have caught it.) It also seemed like Harris was going out of her way to prove she was more intelligent than most people, and especially locals, when all it really did was illuminate the privilege she's been privy to her entire life.
5. I actually think this would have worked better as a collection of essays vs. a standard travel memoir.
6. Ultimately, for me, the beauty of Harris' writing and her moments of vivid insight outweigh the pieces that don't work.
[Five stars for some stunning passages minus two stars for some ugly white privilege equals three stars for a memorable debut that made me want to bike tour even more than I already do.] ...more
One of the calendars I've had next to my desk all year featured the twelve moons Oliver centered this poetry collection upon, and so it feels fitting One of the calendars I've had next to my desk all year featured the twelve moons Oliver centered this poetry collection upon, and so it feels fitting that this is one of my last books of 2018. It's a beautiful, rhythmic collection, with rivers of imagery I recognize as home.
[Five stars for so many poems I needed to read this month of all months.] ...more
This collection of 26 eclectic, funny, and wonderfully whimsical essays about everything from salmon to flowers to pandas to the moon is maybe one of This collection of 26 eclectic, funny, and wonderfully whimsical essays about everything from salmon to flowers to pandas to the moon is maybe one of the strangest things I've ever read. It was also absolutely delightful.
The reason I bought it/read it in the first place, and my favorite paragraph:
“But perhaps nature needs us like a hostage needs her captors: nature needs us not to annihilate her, not to run her over, not to cover her with cement, not to chop her down. We can hardly admire ourselves, then, when we stop to accommodate nature’s needs: we are dubious heroes who create a peril and then save its victims, we who rescue the animals and the trees from ourselves.” —from “The Round-Earth Affair”
[Four-point-five stars for being relentlessly interesting.]...more
We added this book to our library after listening/talking to a local wolverine biologist about a recent survey and study done in our own backyard. It'We added this book to our library after listening/talking to a local wolverine biologist about a recent survey and study done in our own backyard. It's an important book. An honest book. A book that's altogether difficult to read in places, as nearly all honest and important books are.
The Wolverine Way is part natural history of/part personal connection to one the wildest, most tenacious species on the planet, told through the lens of Douglas Chadwick, a wildlife biologist who lives near Glacier National Park and who was a volunteer participant in an intensive five-year study of wolverines done there from 2004-2009.
But this book, like every naturalist-themed book I’ve ever read, isn’t just about wolverines. It’s about the climate crisis, human greed, misguided and outdated game management/hunting philosophies, the extreme need for wilderness corridors between wild spaces, and the lack of sufficient buffer zones between humans and wild animals. It’s about a fierce animal that has as much right to exist in the mountains as we do. (And arguably more right in the winter.)
These animals may be fierce, but they aren’t cruel. Cruel is what humans so often are and most certainly have been when it comes to diligently, passionately, and ignorantly trapping, baiting, “harvesting,” and otherwise nearly exterminating woodland (and oceanic) predators like the wolverine—as if this world will be anything but less than without them in it. As if our public and private wilderness lands and oceans will be anything but more unstable without healthy communities of predators helping manage and maintain what are both complex and vital ecosystems.
What I hope we can collectively figure out before it’s too late: We’re all connected; we need predators (and predators need ample prey, + room to roam and exist); these complex and vital ecosystems aren’t just essential to a wolverine’s survival, but to our own, too.
We have wolverines where we live, and while there aren’t enough of them left in Idaho, or anywhere else in the West, that we have them at all gives me a sense of solace. I so want them to make it.
Some of my favorite passages, then:
“To say that French voyageurs and other whites in the first waves of colonization were predisposed to portray wolverines as diabolical is putting it mildly. … Reviling wolverines wasn’t fundamentally about wolverines—no more than condemning wolves through the centuries as sadistic spawn of Satan was [is] about the wolves themselves.” —from “Kwi’kwa’ju”
“The hallmark of our particular era is the startling pace at which humans multiplied to the point of monopolizing much of the biosphere and altering its basic qualities.” —from “Risks, Rewards, and Southern Polar Bears”
“As the wolverine becomes better known at last, it adds a fierce emphasis to the message that every bear, wolf, lynx, and other major carnivore keeps giving: If the living systems we choose to protect aren’t large and strong and interconnected, then we aren’t really conserving them.” —from “Freedom to Roam”
[Five stars for important, scientifically sound books, and the hope we'll allow wolverines and their wild communities to recover even a fraction of what we've taken from them.]...more
This is not the book about wolves I wanted it be. It's the latest offering written by a couple who lived with a pack of wolves in mountains our heartsThis is not the book about wolves I wanted it be. It's the latest offering written by a couple who lived with a pack of wolves in mountains our hearts also call home here in Central Idaho in the early '90s. But this wolf pack they lived with was not a wild pack, and therein lies the rub for me.
Do I think it's important to foster factual knowledge of and reverence for wild wolves by nearly any means necessary? Yes, I do. But it hurt my heart to know these wolves never knew true freedom in their already short lives, and maybe that's the biggest truth this book once again solidified for me: There are so few places and ways where wolves can live their lives free from the literal and figurative trappings, needs, and misguided fancies of men.
That humans have so aptly decimated entire species of apex predators out of fear, ignorance, greed, and sheer cruelty—and continue to hunt them as if they were an actual threat when every single hunter/farmer/trapper/rogue poacher should know better by now—is an ongoing tragedy. It's a tangible tragedy here in Idaho, where the Department of Fish & Game still issues endless tags to "hunt" wolves, even as wolf populations are still in steady decline. (They literally issue more tags for wolves than there are wolves in existence. It's disgusting, irresponsible, and at some point we'll learn that ecosystems and humans can't survive without apex predators, but by that point it'll likely be too late for all of us.)
These wolves were bottle-fed and domesticated beyond recognition as a wild pack, and on top of that this book is one of the more poorly edited I've ever read, so while there will always be value in what wolves have to teach us, I definitely think there are much better (written and sourced) books about wolves.
[Two stars for introducing me to some truly sobering statistics about local wolves (and all the cowardly, inhumane ways humans seek to eradicate them), and for reminding me how many miles we have to go before we sleep.] ...more
Kerri Anne
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Books:
running-with-the-wolves
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