The Last Wild Edge: One Woman's Journey from the Arctic Circle to the Olympic Rain Forest

Front Cover
Big Earth Publishing, 1999 - Nature - 189 pages
The northwestern edge of North America is a final edge to settle on a finite planet. Where does mankind go from here? Where else have we not settled, altered, and consumed? Author Susan Zwinger suspects that we have saved this wild edge for last because its geography is punched, exploded, ground, and drenched. Its forest of enormous trees once created a boundary difficult to penetrate, let alone farm. Yet, today this wildness is under threat, as civilization bores its way into even this remote edge.

From inside the book

Contents

Land of No Trees at All
3
Land of Scrawny Trees and Huge Miracles
9
Off Howls and Timberline
19
At the Edge of Taiga
27
The Icy Edge
37
Introduction
51
The Land of Origin
55
Namu
73
Introduction
113
The Wide Bights of Cape Scott
115
West Coast of Vancouver Island
127
Clayoquot Sound
139
Mount Olympuss Mighty Blue Glacier
149
A Species Democracy
157
From Detritus to Salmon
169
Through a Hand Lens Lightly
177

The Dance of the Great Brown Bears
77
Rivers Inlet South to Cape Caution
89
The Classic Hecate Lowlands
99
Bibliography
183
About the Author
189
Copyright

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Page xiv - FACING west from California's shores, Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar, Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled ; For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere, From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero, From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands, Long having...
Page xiv - Western sea, the circle almost circled ; For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere, From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero, From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands, Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd, Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous, (But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound...

About the author (1999)

Susan Zwinger graduated with honors from Cornell College in 1969 in Art and English, completed her Masters at the Writer' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1971, and her PhD in Art Education from the Pennsylvania State University in 1974. She has combined her interest in the natural world, her skills in teaching, and her talent as both a writer and an artist, in professional work and as a dedicated volunteer. Professionally she has worked for the National Park Service as Public Information Officer for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill at Kenai Fjord national Park, and at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve as a naturalist ranger. her teaching experience ranges from elementary school to an independent high school to Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at Wichita State University and Colorado College. Her museum experience is both volunteer and professional; as a volunteer she served as a docent and workshop coordinator in multi-disciplinary approaches, and as a professional she curated contemporary art for the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. In addition, she has written widely as an art critic for arts sections of newspapers and various arts magazines. She is the author of three previous books, Still Wild, Always Wild; Women in Wilderness, co-authored with her mother, Ann Haymond Zwinger; and Stalking the Ice Dragon, winner of the 1992 Governor's Author's Award in Washington State. She has also contributed many stories, poems, and articles to magazines and anthologies. She lives on an island in Puget Sound.

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