Rhythm of the Wild
A Life Inspired by Alaska's Denali National Park
Will be published approx. on 5. May 2030
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-4930-9078-5 (ISBN)
Description
From Kim Heacox, the acclaimed author of The Only Kayak and John Muir and the Ice That Started a Fire, comes Rhythm of the Wild, an Alaska memoir focused on Denali National Park. Music runs through every page of this book, as do stories, rivers and wolves. At its heart, Rhythm of the Wild is a love story. It begins in 1981 and ends in 2014, yet reaches beyond the arc of time. Author and mountaineer Jonathan Waterman has called Heacox "our northern Edward Abbey." In this book we find out why.
We hitchhike with Kim through Idaho, camp on the Colorado Plateau, and fly off the sand cliffs of Hangman Creek with a little terrier named Super Max, the Wonder Dog. We meet Zed, the Aborigine; Nine Fingers, the blues guitarist; and Adolph Murie, the legendary wildlife biologist, who dared to say that wolves should be protected, not persecuted. Kim also reprises in this book his friend Richard Steele, a beloved character from The Only Kayak.
Some books are larger than their actual subject-this is one. Part memoir, part exploration of Denali's inspiring natural and human history, and part conservation polemic, Rhythm of the Wild ranges from funny to provocative. It's a celebration of-and a plea to restore and defend-the vibrant earth and our rightful place in it.
We hitchhike with Kim through Idaho, camp on the Colorado Plateau, and fly off the sand cliffs of Hangman Creek with a little terrier named Super Max, the Wonder Dog. We meet Zed, the Aborigine; Nine Fingers, the blues guitarist; and Adolph Murie, the legendary wildlife biologist, who dared to say that wolves should be protected, not persecuted. Kim also reprises in this book his friend Richard Steele, a beloved character from The Only Kayak.
Some books are larger than their actual subject-this is one. Part memoir, part exploration of Denali's inspiring natural and human history, and part conservation polemic, Rhythm of the Wild ranges from funny to provocative. It's a celebration of-and a plea to restore and defend-the vibrant earth and our rightful place in it.
Reviews / Votes
Former National Park Service ranger Heacox (John Muir and the Ice that Started a Fire: How a Visionary and the Glaciers of Alaska Changed America, 2014, etc.) lyrically recounts his passionate and enduring relationship with Alaska's Denali National Park, a chunk of Alaskan land the size of Massachusetts with only one road.Established in 1917, Mount McKinley National Park is also known by its Athabaskan name of Denali, and Heacox first experienced it in 1981 while working as an interpretive ranger for the Park Service. The author builds his narrative, which spans 35 years, on his deep and personal exploration of the sacredness of wild places, especially Denali, and why these landscapes are so necessary to all humans and animals in today's crowded, noisy world. Heacox deftly traverses a multitude of topics, including his happy childhood spent roaming the Northwest, the influence of music, especially the Beatles, during his teenage years, and the natural and human histories of the park. As the narrative unfolds, the author acknowledges his predecessors, environmental writers such as John Muir, Edward Abbey and Bill McKibben, while also touching on current environmental issues and climate change. Though Heacox voices strong opinions on land use and bemoans America's consumer culture, his tone is never shrill or self-righteous. Rather, by recounting the stories of the explorers, scientists, government officials, historians, tourists, climbers and park employees whose lives have been touched by Denali, Heacox skillfully reveals the many benefits of this grand open space, as well as its fragility. The park's wildlife-moose, eagles, red fox, sandhill cranes, grizzly bears, porcupines and wolves-share the stage with human actors in Heacox's chronicle.
Top-notch environmental writing to shelve alongside George Perkins Marsh, Aldo Leopold, Robert Marshall and Barry Lopez. * Kirkus Reviews * Rhythm of the Wild: A life Inspired by Alaska's Denali National Park is a 304 page Alaska memoir framed against the wild and wonders of the Denali National Park. Rhythm of the Wild begins in 1981 and ends in 2014. . . .Part memoir, part travelogue exploration of Denali's inspiring natural and human human history, and part conservationist polemic, Rhythm of the Wild ranges from funny to provocative in a kind of celebration of (and a plea to restore and defend) the vibrant earth and our rightful place in it. An inherently fascinating read, Rhythm of the Wild is very highly recommended for community and academic library American Biography collections. For personal reading lists it should be noted that Rhythm of the Wild is also available in a Kindle edition. * Midwest Book Review * "This book does with Denali what Edward Abbey's 'Desert Solitaire' did with Arches National Park, showing how freedom and wilderness are bound together, and how the loss of one is both caused by leads to the destruction of the other." * Alaska Dispatch News *
More details
Edition
Revised
Language
English
Place of publication
Guilford
United States
Publishing group
Rowman & Littlefield
Edition type
Revised edition
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-4930-9078-5 (9781493090785)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Kim Heacox, a former park ranger in Alaska's Denali, Glacier Bay, and Katmai National Parks, has written a dozen books, most of them on history, biography, and conservation. Rhythm of the Wild is his second memoir, something of a sister book to The Only Kayak (Lyons Press), a 2006 PEN USA Literary Award finalist in creative nonfiction and now in its tenth printing. A keen musician, Kim plays guitar and piano and lives with his wife, Melanie, in the little town of Gustavus, Alaska. Find him on Facebook or visit him at kimheacox.com.