Being Caribou by Karsten Heuer

Being Caribou by Karsten Heuer

For eons, female members of the Porcupine caribou herd have made the journey from their winter feeding grounds to their summer calving grounds—which happen to lie on vast reserves of oil. They once roamed borderless wilderness; now they trek from Canada, where they’re protected, to the United States, where they are not. In April 2003, wildlife biologist Karsten Heuer and filmmaker Leanne Allison set out with the Porcupine caribou herd. Walking along with the animals over four mountain ranges, through hundreds of passes, and across dozens of rivers—a thousand-mile journey altogether, from the Yukon Territory to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and then back again—they reached a new understanding of what is at stake in the debate over drilling for oil. More than a tale of grand adventure or an activist tract, however, Being Caribou is a “gripping, cinematic tale” (Los Angeles Times) with the “bite of a political tract” (Washington Post) about the power of wilderness and how it returns us to the roots of human instinct. On the caribou’s trail Heuer and Allison learn what is possible when two people immerse themselves in the uniquely wild experience of migration, discovering in the process a different way of being.

KARSTEN HEUER is a wildlife scientist and park warden who has worked in the Rockies' Banff and Jasper national parks, Canada's far north's Inuvik, Slovakia and Poland, and South Africa's Madikwe Game Reserve. He has spent much of the last decade on foot and skis pursuing some of North America's most endangered wildlife as a recipient of the Wilburforce Foundation Conservation Leadership Award. In 1998 and 1999, he trekked and skied from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming to the Yukon Territory in Canada to promote the Y2Y Conservation Project, a 1,900-mile-long system of wildlife corridors and core reserves. Trekking the Great Wild: From Yellowstone to Yukon on the Grizzly Bear's Path is his account of this journey. In 2003, he and his wife, Leanne Allison, ventured out on skis and foot to track the Porcupine Caribou Herd from their Yukon winter range to their vulnerable Alaskan calving grounds and back over the course of five months. Being Caribou, both the book and the accompanying National Film Board of Canada documentary, is about this.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781571313089
ISBN 10	1571313087
Title	Being Caribou
Author	Karsten Heuer
Series	World As Home Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Milkweed Editions
Year published	2008-03-13
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.