Living on Wilderness Time

by Walker, Melissa

• ISBN13: 9780813921105
• ISBN10: 0813921104
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

Melissa Walker set out on a journey that many women of her generation have mapped only in their dreams. Like many American chroniclers before her who have surrendered to the aimless pleasures of the road, Walker had no geographical destination in mind, but she did have two definite goals -- one personal, one political -- for her journey. She was looking for the peace and solitude of the backcountry, certainly, but she also wanted to learn the dynamics of preserving wild places and to devote herself to that cause. In the Sky Islands of southern Arizona, on the banks of the Popo Agie River and the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming, in Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, and Olympic National Park, in Gila and Glacier Peak Wilderness, she encountered the hazards of wild animals and extreme weather, and she began to reassess what parts of her life she could control.Living on Wilderness Time is a book for those who have visited wild places and want to return, and for others whose overcommitted urban lives make them long for land where time is measured differently and human beings are scarce. Above all it is a call to join those who, like Aldo Leopold, see wilderness as vital to the human community.Melissa Walker is vice president of National Wilderness Watch, chair of the Georgia chapter of Wilderness Watch, serves on the Southern Appalachian Council of the Wilderness Society, and is the author of Reading the Environment and Down from the Mountaintop. She has been Professor of English at the University of New Orleans and Mercer University and a fellow of Women's Studies at Emory University. Walker lives with her husband in Atlanta, Georgia.

Author Biography

Melissa Walker is vice president of National Wilderness Watch, chair of the Georgia chapter of Wilderness Watch, serves on the Southern Appalachian Council of the Wilderness Society

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
BEGINNINGS
Hurry Sickness	3	(11)
Home	14	(6)
Rock Springs	20	(5)
Guns, Bears, and Jumper Cables	25	(8)
AUGUST 1993 FROM HOME TO WILDERNESS
Alone in the Dark	33	(7)
Cows in the Wilderness	40	(12)
Home on the Range	52	(6)
Golden	58	(4)
Kill You, Eat You, Too	62	(7)
Lion	69	(10)
Holden Village	79	(13)
Bear Poachers and Mushroom Wars	92	(10)
Canyons and Slickrock	102	(13)
Death in the Navajo Nation	115	(6)
This Is Texas	121	(14)
Settling In	135	(6)
Shopping	141	(6)
FEBRUARY 1994 WILD FLORIDA
A Long Road	147	(9)
Eco Pond	156	(3)
Mosquitoes	159	(2)
The White Heron	161	(6)
The Next Fifty-two Years	167	(6)
Voices	173	(8)
AUGUST 1994 BACK TO THE WILD
Free Rein	181	(4)
Hogs in the Wilderness	185	(9)
Black Elk	194	(7)
Donna	201	(17)
Paradise	218	(10)
Anger and Alpenglow	228	(8)
Drawn to Alaska	236	(6)
The Inside Passage	242	(7)
Juneau	249	(3)
Haines	252	(9)
Socked In, Stood Up, and Stranded	261	(4)
You Have to Ask	265	(5)
Reprieve	270	(9)
The Man-Woman Thing	279	(8)
Can't Be Sure	287	(7)
Talking to the Thunder Gods	294