Walking the Big Wild: From Yellowstone to Yukon on the Grizzly Bear's Trail

by Karsten Heuer

Overview

* Karsten Heuer walks with North American mammals from Yellowstone to the Yukon (Y2Y) to document the animals that use this natural corridor and learn its importance

* Preserving the Y2Y corridor has become one of the most critical environmental issues of our day

* Winner of the Banff Book Award for Mountain Literature

* Grants will fund a multi-city author tour for lectures and presentations related to the Y2Y initiative

Walking the Big Wild is the story of Karsten Heuer's extraordinary 18-month journey of hiking, sking, and paddling across 2100 miles of mountains, forests, and rivers from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming to the Canadian Yukon. Accompanied by occasional human companions and a remarkable border collie named Webster, Heuer encountered immense challenges: storms, avalanches, floods, and grizzlies. At the end of the journey, Heuer proved that there is nearly continuous wilderness that can support wildlife along the length of the Rockies-and is salvageable if the right decisions are made now.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780898869835
Publisher:	Mountaineers Books, The
Publication date:	12/28/2004
Pages:	238
Sales rank:	1,161,362
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

KARSTEN HEUER is a wildlife biologist and park warden who has worked in Banff and Jasper national parks in the Rockies, in Inuvik in Canada's far north, in Slovakia and Poland, and in the Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa. A recipient of the Wilburforce Foundation Conservation Leadership Award, he has spent much of the past decade following some of North America's most endangered wildlife on foot and skis. In 1998 and 1999 he walked and skied from Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming to Canada's Yukon Territory to highlight a proposal for a 1,900-miles-long system of wildlife corridors and core reserves (the Y2Y Conservation Initiative). He chronicles this adventure in Walking the Big Wild: From Yellowstone to Yukon on the Grizzly Bear's Trail. In 2003, he again set off on skis and foot with his wife, Leanne Allison, and over the course of five months, followed the Porcupine Caribou Herd from their Yukon winter range to their endangered Alaskan calving grounds and back. This is the subject of Being Caribou, both his book and the accompanying National Film Board of Canada documentary.

Table of Contents

	Map	xii
	Prologue	ix
Chapter 11
Chapter 218
Chapter 344
Chapter 468
Chapter 588
Chapter 6103
Chapter 7124
Chapter 8144
Chapter 9168
Chapter 10185
Chapter 11199
Chapter 12216
	Epilogue	231
	Acknowledgements	235
	Further Reading and Resources	237

Editorial Reviews

The book belongs to the animals: grizzlies, wolves, caribou, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, wolverines … [Heuer] is an engaging guide to both the idea and the terrain. When he gets up north into pristine wilderness, skiing in late winter through the mountains, dodging avalanches and falling through a crack in a snow cornice, the book gets downright thrilling. And for wildlife, Heuer has taken a step -- a hike, if you will -- in the right direction.

National Geographic Adventure

It's a wonderful paean to the natural world -- wrapped up in the tale of a grand adventure.

Blue Ridge Outdoors

Far-ranging grizzlies, elk and wolves don't know where the parks and preserves established to protect them end and much less hospitable public (and private) land begins. Thus, environmentalists have focused on creating wilderness corridors along which animals-mammals, birds and even fish-can migrate from one seasonal "island" habitat to another. Canadian wildlife biologist Heuer gives a harrowing, humorous, engagingly personal and unabashedly polemical account of his 2,100-mile trek along one such potential link, from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming to Watson Lake in the Canadian Yukon, along what activists hope will become the Y2Y (Yellowstone to the Yukon) corridor. Heuer hiked, skied, snowshoed and canoed his way along Rocky Mountain ridges, across icy rivers and through near-impenetrable forests; he encountered heart-stopping beauty and soul-soothing calm, as well as harsh winter storms, clouds of voracious mosquitoes and fierce opposition from logging and mining interests. He also found signs that the grizzly-the animal most vulnerable to the creeping incursion of logging roads, oil pipelines and suburban sprawl-was somehow hanging on. Heuer's journey is exciting, and his passionate vision of a network of protected pathways connecting two mostly pristine wilderness areas is inspiring. Photos, maps. (Jan. 20) Forecast: The extensive coverage of Heuer's trek in newspapers along his route suggests the possibility of solid regional sales. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The Big Wild, also called Y2Y, is the proposed wildlife corridor running from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon Territory in Canada. It currently contains protected and semiprotected areas that wildlife may have trouble traveling owing to development. The Y2Y idea promotes the protection of the entire corridor, so that animals needing large areas for healthy species survival can continue to thrive. In part to explore the true possibility of this venture and in part to promote and educate, Heuer, a wildlife biologist and former park warden, traveled this 2200-mile corridor on and off for a year. By foot, ski, and canoe, the author, along with his dog and an occasional companion, stop along the way to speak to locals and finish preparations for the leg ahead. This book, through its portrayal of the area and its wildlife, is an exploration of what the corridor would be protecting. Encounters with hunters, loggers, and wildlife highlight issues related to the project. Recommended for all environmental collections, particularly in areas impacted by the Y2Y proposa-Sheila Kasperek, Mansfield Univ. Lib., PA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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