Stories from Afield: Adventures with Wild Things in Wild Places

by Bruce L. Smith

Overview

Over the past four decades, Bruce L. Smith has worked with most big-game species in some of the American West's most breathtaking and challenging landscapes. In Stories from Afield, readers join Smith on his adventures as a naturalist, sportsman, and wildlife biologist, as he pulls us into the field of learning and discovery across wilderness areas of western Montana, the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and a South African temperate forest.
Ranging from humorous to harrowing, Smith's essays recount capturing newborn elk calves, stalking mountain goats on icy cliffs, being stranded on a mountain after riding out a helicopter crash, confrontations with bears during his research, plus quirky and edifying hunting tales. Throughout his adventures, the magnetism and danger of wild nature are ever present, reminding us that our fascination with wildness often stems from its unpredictability.

Bruce L. Smith retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2004 after a thirty-year career as a wildlife manager and scientist. He was named Wyoming's Conservationist of the Year in 1997 and received the John and Frank Craighead Wildlife Conservation Award in 2005. His latest book, Life on the Rocks: A Portrait of the American Mountain Goat, won two National Outdoor Book Awards.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803288164
Publisher:	UNP - Bison Books
Publication date:	10/01/2016
Series:	Outdoor Lives
Pages:	222
Sales rank:	756,625
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bruce L. Smith retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2004 after a thirty-year career as a wildlife manager and scientist. He was named Wyoming’s Conservationist of the Year in 1997 and received the John and Frank Craighead Wildlife Conservation Award in 2005. His latest book, Life on the Rocks: A Portrait of the American Mountain Goat, won two National Outdoor Book Awards.
 
 

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Snowbound
2. Big Turtle
3. The Way West
4. The Deer Hunt
5. The Elk Hunt
6. Woodpeckers to Goats
7. The Bear and the Tree
8. Gravity
9. Lightning
10. Collecting
11. Old Garbage Gut
12. In the Timber
13. Baby Elk
14. The Circle
15. Empty Forests
16. Four Decades Later
Afterword
Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

“Stories from Afield is a stirring, informative, and at times gripping tale of biologist Bruce Smith’s love affair with the fauna of the Rocky Mountains as well as an impassioned reminder for all of us to become more proactive in protecting the Earth’s natural landscapes.”—Ted Kerasote, author of Merle’s Door and Bloodties 
 
 

Ted Kerasote

"Stories From Afield is more than one man's memoir of a life spent in service to America's rich wild heritage; in sharing the joy, wonder, humor, and dangers of being immersed in wilderness, Smith introduces audiences to a primordial, pristine, and rapidly vanishing world, with a reminder that its future is in our hands."—Kristine Morris, Foreword Reviews

Foreword Reviews - Kristine Morris

“Bruce Smith is a great storyteller. Here he once again demonstrates the powerful insights he commands as a wildlife biologist and his skill as an outdoor writer. This is a book of sweet, deeply personal tales. Savor them.”—Todd Wilkinson, environmental journalist and author of Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek

Todd Wilkinson

“Plenty of wildness remains on this civilized and domesticated continent, and Bruce Smith has seen more than his share. These are stories to be read by the fire at the close of a winter day.”—Bill McKibben, Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and author of Long Distance
 

Bill McKibben

"Smith's affection for and fascination with wilderness and its inhabitants is the theme on which this collection hangs. It's infectious and inspiring, and his storytelling makes this an excellent contribution to the genre."—Erin H. Turner, Big Sky Journal

Big Sky Journal - Erin H. Turner

2016-07-19
A wildlife biologist shares some of his adventures in the field.During his 30-year career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (he retired in 2004), Smith (Life on the Rocks: A Portrait of the American Mountain Goat, 2014, etc.) had his fair share of “joy, wonder, and drama” in the wilderness, and he shows readers how to “discover a deeper connection and greater purpose in conserving the rich wild heritage we all share.” Each essay is a snapshot of the life of a wildlife biologist and naturalist, written with the kind of exacting details one would expect from someone trained to be observant in nature. "Long, cobalt silhouettes of junipers slipped beneath as we chased our shadow across the dissected sagelands,” he writes in the first chapter. “An immature golden eagle sporting white-banded tail feathers, the decorative plumes prized by Plains Indians, streaked past the helicopter's left door….It was a great day to be alive, soaring with the eagle." When the helicopter crashes, readers are plunged into the waist-deep snow with Smith and his companions as they struggle to find shelter and notify someone of their whereabouts. The author also shares his anguish over shooting a mountain goat, the stress of being lost on a mountainside, how he navigates an encounter with a black bear with cubs, what he does when a sudden storm appears while fishing, and the dismay he feels when he discovers previously visited areas have become devoid of life. The prose is rich with details on the flora and fauna, and it’s also nostalgic, the musings of an older man reflecting on his life, his work, and the world he loves, which he sees changing primarily due to climate change and human incursions. Reflective thoughts and vibrant specifics bring a nature biologist's love of the outdoors to readers.

Kirkus Reviews