The Roadless Yaak

by Rick Bass

Hardcover: 256 pages; ISBN: 1585745456

(From the Back Cover): This collection of essays about the Yaak Valley of northwestern Montana brings to life the wilderness and isolation, exhilaration and trepidation that visitors (and residents) encounter here. The million-acre Yaak Valley is home to only 150 people but untold numbers of elk, deer, grizzly bears, cougars, and other critters, big and small. An astonishing 175,000 acres remain roadless in this remote area near the Canadian border. Read about a mother who spends Thanksgiving weekend in the Yaak with her children. "...the Yaak is where my children and I together, have fallen headlong into the glory of the unfamiliar, into the last of the planet's wilderness, the unpredictability of the natural landscape, the authentic hush possible only away from the clamor" ("Traveling Close to Home," Debra Gwartney). You will learn about a teacher who is torn between the world beyond the Yaak and the life he has come to know: mountains, thick forests, snow, and bears. And you will learn why we as a people must protect wilderness like this for future generations.

Contributors include: Todd Tanner, William McKibben, Gregory McNamee, Jeff Ferderer, Amy Edmonds, Scott Daily, Laurie Lane-Zucker, Sue Halpern, Tim Linehan, Debra Gwartney, Bob Shacochis, Doug Peacock, Annick Smith, Bill Kittredge, Jim Fergus. (6 1/4 x 9 1/4, 256 pages)Rick Bass is the author of seventeen books of fiction and nonfiction, including a novel, Where The Sea Used To Be, and a short story collection, The Hermit's Story, as well as The Book of Yaak and Winter. He is a board member of the Yaak Valley Forest Council, Montana Wilderness Association, Round River Conservation Studies, and Cabinet Resource Group.