Political, economic history of Wyoming.

This novel is about the inextricable, twisted relationship between two self-destructive men. Ward Fall is a rancher in Wyoming, a family man with a strong and supportive wife. Eric Lindsay is a studio musician and songwriter in Los Angeles. Eric and Ward were classmates and friends at U.C. Berkeley. Their friendship turned ugly in an instant when, on a hunting trip, Ward accidentally killed Eric's twin sister, Gwen, with his shotgun, ruining the lives of the surviving two former friends. Ward wallows in guilt, depression, and alcohol. Eric's chaotic life is driven by anger and self-destructive behavior. Now, 25 years later, Ward invites Eric to come to his ranch and go on an elk hunt. The two former friends set out on a tense, contentious camping trip. Ward longs to atone for his guilt. Eric wants revenge. They are both armed with rifles.

Grizzly Lessons is a survival guide to living in, or visiting, grizzly and wolf country. Fear, physical danger, financial hardship, and animosity between neighbors are contemporary challenges of the everyday Western experience. Stories of grizzly attacks reveal the remarkable psychological resilience of survivors. Most have returned to the wilderness with increased respect for bears and their love of nature intact. Grizzly Lessons avoids the polarizing rhetoric of the vitriolic wolf-bear debates. In contrast, Blanchard presents accounts of coexistence, from historical Native Americans to present-day ranchers, hunters, and other wilderness explorers. For those who are open to them, the ultimate lessons of humility, respect, and interdependence are offered through grizzly encounters.

What begins with simple observations from a Utah transplant to Wyoming becomes an ode to family and place, and perhaps an elegy for it all.” —Jeffe Kennedy, author of Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and the Weather Channel In this unconventional memoir, Kevin Holdsworth vividly portrays life in remote, unpredictable country and ruminates on the guts—or foolishness—it takes to put down roots and raise a family in a merciless environment. Growing up in Utah, Holdsworth couldn’t wait to move away. Once ensconced on the East Coast, however, he found himself writing westerns and dreaming of the mountains he’d skied and climbed. Fed up with city life, he moved to a small Wyoming town. In Big Wonderful, he writes of a mountaineering companion’s death, the difficult birth of his son, and his father’s terminal illness—encounters with mortality that sharpened his ideas about risk, care, and commitment. He puts a new spin on mountaineering literature, telling wild tales from his reunion with the mountains but also relating the surprising willpower it took to turn back from risks he would have taken before he became a father. He found he needed courage to protect and engage deeply with his family, his community, and the wild places he loves. Holdsworth’s essays and poems are rich with anecdotes, characters, and vivid images. Readers will feel as if they themselves watched a bear destroy an entire expedition’s food, walked with his great-great-grandmother along the icy Mormon Trail, and tried to plant a garden in Wyoming’s infamous wind. Readers who love the outdoors will eagerly partake, as “Holdsworth invites us to sit down at his literary campfire and listen to vivid, unforgettable stories” (High Country News).

This book focuses on Yellowstone: the park, the larger ecosystem, and even more so, the “idea” of Yellowstone. In presenting a case for a new conservation paradigm for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), including Yellowstone National Park, the book, at its heart, is about people and nature relationships. This new paradigm will be truly committed to a healthy, sustainable environment, rich in other life forms, and one that affords dignity for all: humans and nonhumans. The new story or paradigm must be about living such a commitment and future for GYE in real time. The book presents a well-developed theory for interdisciplinary problem solving that is grounded in practice.

In the fall of 1913, Laura and Earle Smith, a young Iowa couple, made the gutsy—some might say foolhardy—decision to homestead in Wyoming. There, they built their first house, a claim shanty half dug out of the ground, hauled every drop of their water from a spring over a half-mile away, and fought off rattlesnakes and boredom on a daily basis. Soon, other families moved to nearby homesteads, and the Smiths built a house closer to those neighbors. The growing community built its first public schoolhouse and celebrated the Fourth of July together—although the festivities were cut short because of snow. By 1917, however, the Smiths had moved back to Iowa, leasing their land to a local rancher and using the proceeds to fund Earle’s study of law. The Smiths lived in Iowa for most of the rest of their lives, and sometime after the mid-1930s, Laura wrote this clear, vivid, witty, and self-deprecating memoir of their time in Wyoming, a book that captures the pioneer spirit of the era and of the building of community against daunting odds.

As in the rest of the United States, grizzly bears, wolves, and mountain lions in and around Yellowstone National Park were eliminated or reduced decades ago to very low numbers. In recent years, however, populations have begun to recover, leading to encounters between animals and people and, more significantly, to conflicts among people about what to do with these often controversial neighbors. Coexisting with Large Carnivores presents a close-up look at the socio-political context of large carnivores and their management in western Wyoming south of Yellowstone National Park, including the southern part of what is commonly recognized as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The book brings together researchers and others who have studied and worked in the region to help untangle some of the highly charged issues associated with large carnivores, their interactions with humans, and the politics that arise from those interactions. This volume argues that coexistence will be achieved only by a thorough understanding of the human populations involved, their values, attitudes, beliefs, and the institutions through which carnivores and humans are managed. Coexisting with Large Carnivores offers important insights into this complex, dynamic issue and provides a unique overview of issues and strategies for managers, researchers, government officials, ranchers, and everyone else concerned about the management and conservation of large carnivores and the people who live nearby.