When the Wild Comes Leaping Up Personal Encounters with Nature

by Suzuki, David

• ISBN13: 9781550549645
• ISBN10: 1550549642
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-06-10
• Publisher: Greystone Books

Summary

A Plunge down a winter mountainside above a darkening valley. An innocent walk in the woods. An afternoon amble over grassy hills. A kayak trip through a hurricane. In this eloquent collection of original essays, award-winning writers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia describe a personal encounter with the natural world that moved them, led to a new level of understanding or awareness, or was in some way of importance to them. The essays include childhood memories; startling or magical encounters with wild creatures; moments of grief, loss, or hubris; and even one fantasy. By turns lyrical, humorous, spiritual, irreverent, and terrifying, each one presents a singular experience of enlightenment, awe, passion, outrage, sadness, or exhilaration. All are beautifully written and deeply felt, and all are testimonies to the transformative power of nature. Book jacket.

Author Biography

David Suzuki is an award-winning scientist, environmentalist, and broadcaster. He is the host of CBC TV's The Nature of Things and the author or co-author of more than 30 books. He is the chair of the David Suzuki Foundation and has received the Kalinga Prize for Science, the United Nations Environmental Medal, and the Global 500 award. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(4)
The Way Back Home	5	(18)
Beth Powning
A Desperate Clarity	23	(8)
Bill McKibben
Land	31	(14)
David Adams Richards
The Requiem Shark	45	(20)
Robert Drewe
Sacred Grove	65	(20)
Jennifer Potter
The Same River Twice: Stenothermal Waters and the Remorseless Flow of Time	85	(12)
David Quammen
Living Inside the Landscape	97	(20)
Sharon Batala
A Texas Childhood	117	(26)
Rick Bass
Cryogenics: A Symposium	143	(6)
Margaret Atwood
Taking a Shower with William Hazlitt	149	(22)
David Reynolds
The Day the Waylakas Dance	171	(22)
Wade Davis
The Deer in Springtime	193	(10)
Diane Ackerman
Space and Time Enough	203	(12)
Timothy Findley
Catching an Epiphany	215	(10)
David Suzuki
Out of a Wild Sea	225	(10)
Richard Flanagan
Acknowledgments	235