Plains Indian biographic rock art can be “read” by those knowledgeable in its lexicon. Presented is a lexicon of imagery, conventions, and symbols used by Plains Indians to communicate their warfare and social narratives. The reader is introduced to Plains Indian “warrior” art in all media, biographic art as picture writing is explained, and the lexicon is described, providing a pictographic “dictionary,” and explains conventions and connotations. Finally, it illustrates four key examples ...

The Plains region that stretches from northern Colorado to southern Alberta and from the Rockies to the western Dakotas is the land of the Cheyenne and the Blackfeet, the Crow and the Sioux. Its rolling grasslands and river valleys have nurtured human cultures for thousands of years. On cave walls, glacial boulders, and riverside cliffs, native people recorded their ceremonies, vision quests, battles, and daily activities in the petroglyphs and pictographs they incised, pecked, or painted ...

"Unexpectedly delightful reading—there is much to learn from the buck-toothed rodents of yore" ( National Post).Beavers, those icons of industriousness, have been gnawing down trees, building dams, shaping the land, and creating critical habitat in North America for at least a million years. Once one of the continent's most ubiquitous mammals, they ranged from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Rio Grande to the edge of the northern tundra. Wherever...

From the host of the Travel Channel’s “The Wild Within.”A hunt for the American buffalo—an adventurous, fascinating examination of an animal that has haunted the American imagination.In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness. Despite the odds—there’s only a 2 percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful—Rinella managed to kill a buf...

Fear of bears seems almost to be part of what it is to be human. Our species emerged out of the depths of time into a world already populated by these great carnivores. Before we mastered iron and later developed firearms, we had few defences against bears—only watchful caution and elaborate ceremonies and sacrifices to ward off fear.Where human populations grow, bears have traditionally dwindled or disappeared. But when we return to the wild, to places where bears still survive, a...

New York Times Bestseller • Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award • Winner of the Saroyan International Prize for Writing • Winner of the Pacific Northwest Book Award • “The best outdoors book of the year.” —Sierra ClubFrom a talent who’s been compared to Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, David Quammen, and Jared Diamond, On Trails is a wondrous exploration of how trails help us understand the world—from invisible ...

Discover the incredible highlights, history, geology & nature of Yellowstone National Park with this entertaining, educational, point-by-point Waypoint Tour complete with park insider stories & detailed tour maps. Your personal tour guide for Yellowstone travel adventure! www.waypointtours.com Waypoints Include: 1) Yellowstone 2) Madison & Firehole Canyon 3) Fountain Paint Pots 4) Firehole Lake Drive 5) Midway Geyser Basin 6) Biscuit Basin & Black Sand Basin 7) Old Faithful Inn & Lodge 8) ...

A collection of captivatingly meditative essays that display a deep understanding of Buddhist belief, wildness, wildlife, and the world from an American cultural force.With thoughts ranging from political and spiritual matters to those regarding the environment and the art of becoming native to this continent, the nine essays in The Practice of the Wild display the deep understanding and wide erudition of Gary Snyder. These essays, first published in 1990,...

“Let’s get lost together . . . ”Lost in My Own Backyard brings acclaimed author Tim Cahill together with one of his—and America’s—favorite destinations: Yellowstone, the world’s first national park. Cahill has been “puttering around in the park” for a quarter of a century, slowly covering its vast scope and exploring its remote backwoods. So does this mean that he knows what he’s doing? Hardly. “I live fifty miles from the park,” says Cahill, “but proximity does no...

Beavers are the great comeback story—a keystone species that survived ice ages, major droughts, the fur trade, urbanization and near extinction. Their ability to create and maintain aquatic habitats has endeared them to conservationists, but puts the beavers at odds with urban and industrial expansion. These conflicts reflect a dichotomy within our national identity. We place environment and our concept of wilderness as a key touchstone for promotion and celebration, while devoting signifi...

Explore the fascinating highlights, history, geology & nature of Grand Canyon National Park with this entertaining, educational, point-by-point Waypoint Tour complete with travel expert stories & detailed tour maps. Your personal tour guide for Grand Canyon travel adventure! www.waypointtours.com Waypoints Include: Grand Canyon Village Area Tour 1) Grand Canyon South Rim 2) Mather Point 3) Canyon View Information Plaza 4) Yavapai Point 5) Train Depot 6) Hopi House 7) El Tovar Hotel 8) Brig...

At the place known as Head-Smashed-In in southwestern Alberta, Aboriginal people practiced a form of group hunting for nearly 6,000 years before European contact. The large communal bison traps of the Plains were the single greatest food-getting method ever developed in human history. Hunters, working with their knowledge of the land and of buffalo behaviour, drove their quarry over a cliff and into wooden corrals. The rest of the group butchered the kill in the camp below. Author Jack Bri...