Caribou Rising: Defending the Porcupine Herd, Gwich-'in Culture, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

by Rick Bass

The eloquent voice of Rick Bass has been raised often in celebration and defense of America’s wilderness and wildlife. In Caribou Rising, Bass journeys to one of the sole remaining landscapes on Earth where the wild is entirely untrammeled—Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where great caribou herds gather, calve, and migrate, and where the ancient bond between animals and human hunters still informs daily life.
As the Bush administration was pressuring Congress to open the Refuge to oil drilling, Bass traveled to Arctic Village to join the native Gwich-‘in in their annual caribou hunt. He wanted to witness and report on what we all stand to lose if that comes to pass.
Caribou Rising details Bass’s time hunting as well as talking with the Gwich-‘in and their leaders, and offers his reflections on the profound differences between that culture and our own, and on the ancient physical and spiritual connection between the Gwich-‘in and the caribou.
Those who read this extraordinary testament to the Refuge, the caribou, and the Gwich-‘in will come to appreciate the interconnectedness of all three, and cannot help but be inspired to make a stand in their defense.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction

176 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

Rick Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Houston, the son of a geologist. He studied petroleum geology at Utah State University and while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi, began writing short stories on his lunch breaks. In 1987, he moved with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes Bass, to Montana’s remote Yaak Valley and became an active environmentalist, working to protect his adopted home from the destructive encroachment of roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies and continues to live with his family on a ranch in Montana, actively engaged in saving the American wilderness.

Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.

Reviews

[Kerri Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again Rick Bass' words read like prophecy, like necessity. “It is one thing to defend a place from afar, and in the abstract, and quite another to defend it every hour of every day, with every breath: to stand always at the brink, at the edge-of-vanishing. To be wedded so completely to place that, when it is destroyed, one's self is lost. Such connections rarely exist in this nation any more; such connections are, I fear, increasingly hard to even imagine or understand.”

That's Bass writing in advocacy for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2004, in direct response to the (greedy, oil-hungry) Bush Administration seeking to drill oil there. When I read it this morning it struck me Bass could just as easily be writing about Standing Rock, today.

[Five stars for being another shining example of why Rick Bass should be required reading in every American home.]

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bass has such a gift - for place, for people, for breaking my heart.

[5 stars for prophesies of a dying world that will never stop being less apt.]

[Kristi Lowery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction to the Gwich'in, the Porcupine caribou herd and the fight to protect ANWR. The author's descriptions of the arctic tundra make you feel like you are there.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're interested in what all the fuss is really about regarding drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, then this book (as well as "Being Caribou") will add a depth to your knowledge and caring for the region as no national news station or newspaper will probably ever bother to do. There's a lot more to the place than we've been told, but I suppose that's the same for every wild place that's been devastated to increase the wealth of a few.

[jack]

really cool book. details his attempt to hunt caribou with the gwich-'in tribe and a general view of their lives. i liked it.

[Dpr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A glimpse of the Gwich'in lifestyle and how big oil could jeopardize their well-being. Well-written, great read.

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disturbing situation described, but terrifically important culturally and environmentally. Good book. Caribou Coffee should give some of their profits to helping this struggling culture!

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made my blood boil.