Dramatic, amusing, and engaging observations of a major climb by a first-time climber.

    Then came an irresistible opportunity: she won a fellowship to spend three months, all expenses paid, anywhere in the world to research and write a book. Did she choose a glittering metropolis, a romantic village, an exotic paradise? Um, no. Nell chose Bleaker Island, a snowy, windswept pile of rock off the Falklands. There, in a guesthouse where she would be the only guest, she imagined she could finally rid herself of distractions and write her 2,500 words a day. In three months, surely she'd have a novel, right?It's true that there aren't many distractions on Bleaker, other than sheep, penguins, paranoia and the weather. But as Nell gets to work on her novel--a delightful Dickensian fiction she calls Bleaker House--she discovers that an excruciatingly erratic Internet connection and 1100 calories a day (as much food as she could carry in her suitcase, budgeted to the raisin) are far from ideal conditions for literary production. With deft humour, this memoir traces Nell's island days and slowly reveals details of the life and people she has left behind in pursuit of her art. They pop up in her novel, as well, as memoir and novel start to reflect one another. It seems that there is nowhere Nell can run--neither a remote island nor the pages of her notebook--to escape herself.A whimsical, entertaining, thought-provoking blend of memoir and travelogue, laced with tongue-in-cheek writing advice, Bleaker House brilliantly captures the hopes, fears, self-torture and humour of being young and yearning to make a creative life. With winning honesty and wit, Nell's race to finish her book emerges as a fascinating narrative in its own right.

    After skiing 200 miles along California's John Muir Trail, Jean faces death from a mountaineering accident on Mount Whitney. Broken and bleeding on the highest peak in the continental United States, she vows to realize her greatest dreams if she lives until morning. Her escape from the Sierra Nevada Mountains turns into a five-day ordeal for survival. Jean's recovery is equally daunting. Her journey spans three decades and takes her from the depths of despair and chronic pain to the heights of the Himalayas. When the specter of Mount Whitney continues to shatter her world, Jean befriends Tibetan lamas. Their ancient wisdom guides her on a path beyond her wildest dreams.

    A best-selling Arctic classic set against the unforgiving Labrador landscape.

    It helped in the American conquest of California, the launch of the Republican Party, and the ignition of the western Indian wars. And along the way, Lake Tahoe even found the time to invent the ski industry, spark the sexual revolution, and win countless Academy Awards. Tahoe beneath the Surface brings this hidden history of America s largest mountain lake to life through the stories of its most celebrated residents and visitors over the last ten thousand years. It mixes local Washoe Indian legends with tales of murderous Mafia dons, and Rat Pack tunes with Steinbeck novels. It establishes Tahoe as one of America s literary hot spots by tracing the steps of more than a dozen authors including Bertrand Russell, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Michael Ondaatje. Tahoe beneath the Surface reveals how the lake transformed the lives of conservationists like John Muir, humorists like Mark Twain, and Hollywood icons like Frank Sinatra. It even touches upon some of the darker aspects of American history, including anti-Chinese racism and the Kennedy assassination. Despite the impact Lake Tahoe has had on America, environmental threats loom large, and Tahoe Blue a term that Lankford uses to encompass the whole range of life, beauty, and meaning the lake represents grows increasingly vulnerable. In Tahoe beneath the Surface, human history and natural history combine in a most engaging way, one that will both inform and inspire all who would keep Tahoe blue.

    Now 'the greatest living advocate of the global ecosystem' this is the story of the voyages that started it all. Staying with local tribes while trekking in search of giant anteaters in Guyana, Komodo dragons in Indonesia and armadillos in Paraguay, he and the rest of the team battled with cannibal fish, aggressive tree porcupines and escape-artist wild pigs, as well as treacherous terrain and unpredictable weather, to record the incredible beauty and biodiversity of these regions. The methods may be outdated now, but the fascination and respect for the wildlife, the people and the environment - and the importance of protecting these wild places - is not.Written with his trademark wit and charm, Adventures of a Young Naturalist is not just the story of a remarkable adventure, but of the man who made us fall in love with the natural world, and who is still doing so today.

    The incredible true story of one woman's fight for survival in the Arctic wilderness.

    Then Jan was left alone to survive in the dangerous jungle. An inspiring story.

    The proverbial vanished without a trace incidences, which happen a lot more (and a lot closer to your backyard) than almost anyone thinks. These are the missing whose situations are the hardest on loved ones left behind. The cases that are an embarrassment for park superintendents, rangers and law enforcement charged with Search & Rescue. The ones that baffle the volunteers who comb the mountains, woods and badlands. The stories that should give you pause every time you venture outdoors.Through Jacob Gray's disappearance in Olympic National Park, and his father Randy Gray who left his life to search for him, we will learn about what happens when someone goes missing. Braided around the core will be the stories of the characters who fill the vacuum created by a vanished human being. We'll meet eccentric bloodhound-handler Duff and R.C., his flagship purebred, who began trailing with the family dog after his brother vanished in the San Gabriel Mountains. And there's Michael Neiger North America's foremost backcountry Search & Rescue expert and self-described "bushman" obsessed with missing persons. And top researcher of persons missing on public wildlands Ex-San Jose, California detective David Paulides who is also one of the world's foremost Bigfoot researchers. It's a tricky thing to write about missing persons because the story is the absence of someone. A void. The person at the heart of the story is thinner than a smoke ring, invisible as someone else's memory. The bones you dig up are most often metaphorical. While much of the book will embrace memory and faulty memory -- history -- The Cold Vanish is at its core a story of now and tomorrow. Someone will vanish in the wild tomorrow. These are the people who will go looking.

    Restless, unhappy in love, and intrigued by the Desert Fathers who forged Christian monasticism in the Egyptian desert, Will Atkins decided to travel in six of the world's driest, hottest places: the Empty Quarter of Oman, the Gobi Desert of North China, the Great Victoria Desert of Australia, the man-made desert of the Aral Sea in Kazkahstan, the Black Rock and Sonoran Deserts of the American Southwest, and the Sinai Desert of Egypt. Each of his travel narratives effortlessly weaves aspects of natural history, historical background, and present-day reportage into a compelling tapestry that reveals the human appeal of these often inhuman landscapes.

    And Alaska’s mesmeric wilderness has permeated Keenan’s life ever since. A short visit to Fairbanks several years ago was enough to seal his connection with the place, and he resolved to return. He eventually did so with a head full of questions about its inspiring landscape and a heart informed with his own love of the desolate places of the world. In a journey that takes him through four geographical quarters from snowmelt in May to snowfall in September, he discovers a land as fantastical as a fairy tale but whose vastness has a very peculiar type of allure. From dog-mushing on a frozen lake beneath the colors of the aurora borealis to camping in a two-dollar tent in the tundra of the Arctic Circle, from skinning hides with an aging shaman and his wife to boating in the stormy Bering Sea, and along frozen inlets to a remote Eskimo fishing camp, Keenan seeks out the ultimate wilderness experience and connects with a spectrum of wildlife, including his own “spirit bear,” all of them roamers in “The Big Lonely.” En route, he encounters hard-core survivalists who know what struggle and endurance mean from their daily battle for existence. And finally, he discovers that true wilderness is as much a state of mind as it is a place and that ultimately, to make Alaska home, one must surrender to the land.

    This the well-told tale of their epic adventure, which required love, perseverance, and the careful rationing of toilet paper. Six months later, Mary would become the youngest person ever to successfully walk the entire trail.The trio weathered the heat of the Mojave, the jagged peaks of the Sierra, the rain of Oregon, and the final cold stretch through the Northern Cascades. They discovered which family values, from love and equality to thrift and cleanliness, could withstand a long, narrow trail and 137 nights together in a 6-by-8-foot tent. Filled with tidbits of wisdom, practical advice, and humor, this story will both entertain and inspire readers to dream about and plan their own epic journey.

    Follow dedicated wildlife officers as they use their wits and skills in the pursuit of poachers and wildlife law violators.”—Tom Mastin, forester and managing broker, Mossy Oak Properties Legacy Realty Services “Lee recounts his amazing and challenging career as a Florida game warden with wit, wisdom, and careful attention to detail. You will travel with him as he boats the St. Johns River, walk beside him as he wades past resting alligators, and listen for that gunshot on a cold Putnam County night.”—Jeff Hahr, former patrol supervisor, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission In the underbelly of Florida, hardened poachers operate in the dark, out of sight and away from residents who sleep soundly through the night. But poachers are not the only midnight hunters. In the state’s public wilderness tracts, cattle ranches, and water courses, wildlife thieves are stealthily and silently tracked. Most people have never imagined the often dicey, comical, and sometimes bizarre job of a Florida game warden. Backcountry Lawman tells what it’s like to catch an armed poacher in the act—alone, at night, without backup or a decent radio to call for help. These stories describe the cat-and-mouse games often played between game wardens and poachers of ducks, turkeys, hogs, deer, gators, and other species. Few people realize that “monkey fishing”—electrocution of catfish—had the same outlaw mystique in the rivers of Florida as moonshining once did in the hills of Georgia and Tennessee. With thirty years of backcountry patrol experience in Florida, Bob Lee has lived through incidents of legend, including one of the biggest environmental busts in Florida history. His fascinating memoir reveals the danger and the humor in the unsung exploits of game wardens.Bob H. Lee spent over three decades as a water patrol officer on the St. Johns River and a land patrol lieutenant in Putnam, St. Johns, and Flagler counties. Before retiring in 2007, he taught man-tracking classes through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

    She is a contemporary, urban young woman who threw off modern comforts to spend nineteen months in a remote rainforest with her housecat and a virtual stranger. Set in the Broughton Archipelagoa maze of isolated islands near northern Vancouver IslandBecoming Wild is a story of survival in the pristine wilderness of BC. Sometimes predator and sometimes prey, 29 year-old Nikki and her companion Micah fend off the harsh weather, hungry wildlife, threat of starvation and the endless perils of this rugged Raincoast. To survive, Nikki must rely on her knowledge of BCs coastal flora and fauna, and the ancient techniques of hunting and gathering. In this remote world she learns to skin bears, make clothes from cedar bark and take great joy in gobbling a fish tail whole. Told in a voice that is both familiar and vulnerable, Becoming Wild explores our innate longings to connect with nature and revert to a pure, Eden-like state.

    Battered by year-round freezing rain and constant winds, it is one of the most inhospitable places on earth. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death.Incredibly, at the same time on the opposite end of the island, another ship runs aground during a storm. Separated by only twenty miles and the island’s treacherous, impassable cliffs, the crews of the Grafton and the Invercauld face the same fate. And yet where the Invercauld’s crew turns inward on itself, fighting, starving, and even turning to cannibalism, Musgrave’s crew bands together to build a cabin and a forge—and eventually, to find a way to escape. Using the survivors’ journals and historical records, maritime historian Joan Druett brings to life this untold story about leadership and the fine line between order and chaos.