Cowboy Island : Farewell to a Ranching Legacy

by Gretel Ehrlich

With 168 color photographs, Cowboy Island captures the natural and cultural heart of Santa Rosa Island and its century-old cattle ranch, Vail & Vickers, from the rugged sweep of wind-whipped, maritime landscapes to the rich humanity of isolated, hard-working vaqueros. Prose by Gretel Ehrlich and photographs by Wm. B. Dewey and others open a window to California's last cattle-ranch-in-the-sea.

136 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Gretel Ehrlich is an American travel writer, novelist, essayist, and poet born on a horse ranch near Santa Barbara, California and educated at both Bennington College in Vermont and UCLA film school. After working in film for 10 years and following the death of a loved one, she began writing full-time in 1978 while living on a Wyoming ranch where she had been filming. Her first book, The Solace of Open Spaces, is a collection of essays describing her love of the region.