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Temperance Creek: A Memoir
In the early seventies, some of us were shot like stars from our parents’ homes. This was an act of nature, bigger than ourselves. In the austere beauty and natural reality of Hell’s Canyon of Eastern Oregon, one hundred miles from pavement, Pam, unable to identify with her parent’s world and looking for deeper pathways has a chance encounter with returning Vietnam warrior Skip Royes. Skip, looking for a bridge from survival back to connection, introduces Pam to the vanishing culture of the wandering shepherd and together they embark on a four-year sojourn into the wilderness. From the back of a horse, Pam leads her packstring of readers from overlook to water crossing, down trails two thousand years old, and from the vantages she chooses for us, we feel the edges of our own experiences. It is a memoir of falling in love with a place and a man and the price extracted for that love.
Written with deep lyricism, Temperance Creek is a work of haunting beauty, fresh and irreverent and rooted in the grit and pleasure of daily life. This is Pam’s story, but the courage and truth in the telling is part of our human experience. Seen through a slower more primary mirror, one not so crowded with objectivity, Pam’s memoir, is a kind of home-coming, a family reunion for shooting stars.
Written with deep lyricism, Temperance Creek is a work of haunting beauty, fresh and irreverent and rooted in the grit and pleasure of daily life. This is Pam’s story, but the courage and truth in the telling is part of our human experience. Seen through a slower more primary mirror, one not so crowded with objectivity, Pam’s memoir, is a kind of home-coming, a family reunion for shooting stars.
432 pages, Paperback
First published June 14, 2016
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1135 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews
March 10, 2018
I have been waiting for my next favorite read and this is it. The prose is breathtakingly beautiful and quite honestly, not what I was expecting. Pamela is looking for something more in life, freer, more honest, less complicated. When Skip ask Pam after having met her a few days before, “Why don’t you come with me.” She does. Into the wilderness of Hell's Canyon, Imnaha, Wallowa with four horses and what they could carry.
“There is a river, the canyon. The bait- a fly, a bug, a spinner, a hook with a worm breaks the surface of the water, and sinks, tumbling and turning. Beneath a jutting rock lies a fish, fins wimpling. Hungry, it pulses toward the bait, leaps, and leaps again, flashing underbelly yellow in the blue light. The world in that pool. All that I might've, all that I couldn’t be. And time, the only thing that mattered.”
Yes, she would go with him. This is their life.
I loved Cheryl Strayed's Wild, and this one compares.
“There is a river, the canyon. The bait- a fly, a bug, a spinner, a hook with a worm breaks the surface of the water, and sinks, tumbling and turning. Beneath a jutting rock lies a fish, fins wimpling. Hungry, it pulses toward the bait, leaps, and leaps again, flashing underbelly yellow in the blue light. The world in that pool. All that I might've, all that I couldn’t be. And time, the only thing that mattered.”
Yes, she would go with him. This is their life.
I loved Cheryl Strayed's Wild, and this one compares.
February 4, 2017
Pamela Royes shares, in beautifully written prose, how as a restless and searching 20-something she found her passions — in nature as most of us have never experienced it and with a man. Putting her traditional upbringing and expectations behind her, she drops out of college and makes her way to the wilds of eastern Oregon. Here she meets Skip, who will become her lifelong companion and who introduces her to life on the rivers and ridges of the Hells Canyon area. It’s 1976.
As Pam falls in love with the pines, the skies, the horses, the camping, the heavenly solitude, and her fellow traveler, the reader gratefully joins her (from an armchair) on a most astonishing, mind-bending adventure. She is one amazing young woman as she learns to shoe a horse, ford a river, lead a packstring, carve a spoon, all with grace, eagerness, and maybe just a tad of trepidation. The tales of sheepherding and camp tending, taken on when funds were low, were engrossing.
I appreciated all that Pam learned during her years on the trail, not the least of which were her realizations about life, love, community, and being a free spirit. This totally delightful memoir will long be a treasured memory.
As Pam falls in love with the pines, the skies, the horses, the camping, the heavenly solitude, and her fellow traveler, the reader gratefully joins her (from an armchair) on a most astonishing, mind-bending adventure. She is one amazing young woman as she learns to shoe a horse, ford a river, lead a packstring, carve a spoon, all with grace, eagerness, and maybe just a tad of trepidation. The tales of sheepherding and camp tending, taken on when funds were low, were engrossing.
I appreciated all that Pam learned during her years on the trail, not the least of which were her realizations about life, love, community, and being a free spirit. This totally delightful memoir will long be a treasured memory.
June 21, 2016
Lovely, lyrical writing about an era and people in Wallowa County. I'll confess--I read with Pam Royes at a Fishtrap Fireside, one of the selections from this book. Hearing that reading made me want to buy the book. It also features an epic tale about two of my friends.
But the writing itself drives this story. Beautiful, haunting, lyrical (oh wait, I said that). A chronicle of an era and an activity that no longer exists (sheepherding in Hells Canyon) that goes beyond a simple memoir. If you like Annie Dillard, Teresa Jordan, writers of that ilk...check this out. A lovely book, that I sat down and gobbled up in one long read on Solstice Eve. Magical.
But the writing itself drives this story. Beautiful, haunting, lyrical (oh wait, I said that). A chronicle of an era and an activity that no longer exists (sheepherding in Hells Canyon) that goes beyond a simple memoir. If you like Annie Dillard, Teresa Jordan, writers of that ilk...check this out. A lovely book, that I sat down and gobbled up in one long read on Solstice Eve. Magical.
March 9, 2021
I have tried for too many years to write descriptions of Hells Canyon, but never to my satisfaction. Finally Pamela Royes, who lived there as I did--on the backs of mules--nails it. Her landscape descriptions alone are enough reason to read this book. Her autobiographical story tells how, as a young woman, she met a mountain man, travelled on horseback with him through northeastern Oregon and parts of Idaho, lived with him while sheepherding in the deepest gorge in North America, and eventually--oh, but I shouldn't say too much. It's a beautiful story about survival, rugged mountain life and love. https://www.poetfire.com
October 26, 2017
Nearly 13 years ago my husband I and spent part of our honeymoon camping trip to Wallowas, Eagle Cap, Imnaha Valley and Hells Canyon. There’s something unique and special there and I couldn’t ever describe it in a way that did it justice – that turned out to be Royes’ job. She describes the land in a way that engages all 5 of your senses – just like you’re there. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I reached for the cider jug too (you’ll know EXACTLY what I mean when you read Temperance Creek). Two things about her book have had immediate effect on my life – I made a batch of sourdough starter and I regularly order a biscuit with “a tidal wave of butter and jam” in restaurants. I also mentally checked out of my livingroom each time I sat to read leaving my husband and 2 boys to fend for themselves – I was busy herding sheep with Pam and Skip.
Royes’ memoir is about her life as she trusted herself, the land to provide, the people around her (or wisely not trusting them in some cases) and accepting that life is a journey. Her life was a result of her willingness to make decisions about what felt right, listening to her heart and then forging forth accepting the good with the bad in the scope of the bigger picture. It blew me away. Royes’ knew she was bucking against her upbringing, her faith and maybe her better judgment – but she wanted what she wanted (Skip) and went for it. When it got tough, she hung in there knowing not everything always goes the way you want it – but you can decide in large what you want and accept the pitfalls along the way. She tells of an observation that Skip made early on in their relationship – that with all the interrupted time they’ve spent together – no distractions like phones, cars or job – their relationship is further along than most. That’s compelling – that people who are together and depending on each other nonstop for basic needs and survival (honestly – it was that dire in some cases in their life in the canyon) form a life lasting bond in a rather short period of time. Perhaps that rang a little bit also in when Skip talks about his service in Vietnam and some of the men he was with, I know I’ve heard my dad say similar things about the men he was with there.
Temperance Creek is also about how people, animals and land work together. There’s obvious gripes in here about government land management and I briefly (very briefly) thought maybe there was some insight here into why the Bundy’s helped organize a standoff with federal lands in Southern Oregon. After all, some of Pam and Skip’s friend’s lost their lifestyle because of government land leases and regulations. I’ll just say that the Bundy’s made poor choices how to handle it – no need to get into Malheur here.
What makes Royes’ memoir special and unique is that while her journey and life in the canyon with Skip was an amazing adventure – it is her and Skip’ spirit, not the land, that makes everything special.
Royes’ memoir is about her life as she trusted herself, the land to provide, the people around her (or wisely not trusting them in some cases) and accepting that life is a journey. Her life was a result of her willingness to make decisions about what felt right, listening to her heart and then forging forth accepting the good with the bad in the scope of the bigger picture. It blew me away. Royes’ knew she was bucking against her upbringing, her faith and maybe her better judgment – but she wanted what she wanted (Skip) and went for it. When it got tough, she hung in there knowing not everything always goes the way you want it – but you can decide in large what you want and accept the pitfalls along the way. She tells of an observation that Skip made early on in their relationship – that with all the interrupted time they’ve spent together – no distractions like phones, cars or job – their relationship is further along than most. That’s compelling – that people who are together and depending on each other nonstop for basic needs and survival (honestly – it was that dire in some cases in their life in the canyon) form a life lasting bond in a rather short period of time. Perhaps that rang a little bit also in when Skip talks about his service in Vietnam and some of the men he was with, I know I’ve heard my dad say similar things about the men he was with there.
Temperance Creek is also about how people, animals and land work together. There’s obvious gripes in here about government land management and I briefly (very briefly) thought maybe there was some insight here into why the Bundy’s helped organize a standoff with federal lands in Southern Oregon. After all, some of Pam and Skip’s friend’s lost their lifestyle because of government land leases and regulations. I’ll just say that the Bundy’s made poor choices how to handle it – no need to get into Malheur here.
What makes Royes’ memoir special and unique is that while her journey and life in the canyon with Skip was an amazing adventure – it is her and Skip’ spirit, not the land, that makes everything special.
April 4, 2017
Wow! Just the kind of book I love. Wilderness, reflection and being pushed to grow and change. The main character is the wilderness.
June 6, 2025
Pamela Royes writes with such vividness and beauty that I often forgot I was reading a memoir and not a work of fiction. As someone who has spent a lot of time immersed in the American West, I resonated deeply with her intimate relationship to the natural world and what it means and feels like to be wild. Such an inspiring and beautiful story
March 1, 2018
I grew up in Joseph and have spent time on horseback in the Wallowa Mountains and the Eagle Cap Wilderness. I currently live in Summerville. I have family from Imnaha. So naturally, I couldn’t wait to read this book about people and places I know!
I know who Pam and Skip are and their grown kids, I know their basic story. But even knowing how it ‘ends’, as I read the book, I found myself rooting for them and hoping they would find a way to make a life together. I marveled at Pam’s free spirit and toughness. She was a bad ass woman back in those days, probably still is! At times I thought she was crazy to live that way, but admired her at the same time.
I felt longing and despair over the order for apple cider. And I’m still so mad at Skip for insisting they wait until back at camp to drink it and then for his mistake of tying it behind the saddle. My heart broke right along with that bottle of cider!
My favorite chapter is Christmas at Pony Bar. In this chapter are the rules of being injured and if there’s no blood, you get up and move on. That’s how my family works, I can relate...that’s how our kind of people were raised and how they live. Rugged people in rugged country. But mostly, this is the part of the story where I felt relief, hope, and happiness that Skip and Pam were going to make it. The gifts from her parents showed that they finally ‘got it’ and were accepting Pam’s choices. Then the black walnut spoons...I knew they were both on the same page. They were meant to be together!
My other favorite part, which made me cry, are Pam’s words about when Skip became a father. How when he came back he had expanded... “All that careful attention to detail, the saddles, the order, the rising in the middle of the night to tend to whatever needed tending, transferred to us. To fatherhood. And our children would give him the courage.”
Such a wonderful book! I was so sad when it ended. Pam has a gift with words and story telling, she left me wanting to hear more.
I know who Pam and Skip are and their grown kids, I know their basic story. But even knowing how it ‘ends’, as I read the book, I found myself rooting for them and hoping they would find a way to make a life together. I marveled at Pam’s free spirit and toughness. She was a bad ass woman back in those days, probably still is! At times I thought she was crazy to live that way, but admired her at the same time.
I felt longing and despair over the order for apple cider. And I’m still so mad at Skip for insisting they wait until back at camp to drink it and then for his mistake of tying it behind the saddle. My heart broke right along with that bottle of cider!
My favorite chapter is Christmas at Pony Bar. In this chapter are the rules of being injured and if there’s no blood, you get up and move on. That’s how my family works, I can relate...that’s how our kind of people were raised and how they live. Rugged people in rugged country. But mostly, this is the part of the story where I felt relief, hope, and happiness that Skip and Pam were going to make it. The gifts from her parents showed that they finally ‘got it’ and were accepting Pam’s choices. Then the black walnut spoons...I knew they were both on the same page. They were meant to be together!
My other favorite part, which made me cry, are Pam’s words about when Skip became a father. How when he came back he had expanded... “All that careful attention to detail, the saddles, the order, the rising in the middle of the night to tend to whatever needed tending, transferred to us. To fatherhood. And our children would give him the courage.”
Such a wonderful book! I was so sad when it ended. Pam has a gift with words and story telling, she left me wanting to hear more.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 27, 2021
Chris gave me this book many Christmases ago, and I ought to have read it sooner, because it was really fantastic! And right up my alley!
It's like a grownup version of all those YA survivalist books I read as a kid, like Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain and Island of the Blue Dolphins. Instead of a kid surviving a plane crash or being abandoned on an island or something, the protagonist is a twenty-one-year-old woman who decides to live in the woods and valleys of Hells Canyon in Oregon with a dude she just met. She talks about how they eat, how they pack their horses, how they set up camp. They work with sheepherders, then they become sheepherders. They work at a dude ranch, and mostly hate it. They meet other weird dudes and interesting women. There are horses and mules and dogs.
It's all pretty great, it's all the life I think I might have liked to live -- though I might not have been tough enough for it, so better to read about it from the comfort of my clean indoor bed. It's well-written and beautiful as well, which ensures five stars from yours truly. Highly recommended, if you like this sort of thing.
It's like a grownup version of all those YA survivalist books I read as a kid, like Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain and Island of the Blue Dolphins. Instead of a kid surviving a plane crash or being abandoned on an island or something, the protagonist is a twenty-one-year-old woman who decides to live in the woods and valleys of Hells Canyon in Oregon with a dude she just met. She talks about how they eat, how they pack their horses, how they set up camp. They work with sheepherders, then they become sheepherders. They work at a dude ranch, and mostly hate it. They meet other weird dudes and interesting women. There are horses and mules and dogs.
It's all pretty great, it's all the life I think I might have liked to live -- though I might not have been tough enough for it, so better to read about it from the comfort of my clean indoor bed. It's well-written and beautiful as well, which ensures five stars from yours truly. Highly recommended, if you like this sort of thing.
December 8, 2017
I read this in preparation for backpacking 60 miles in Hells Canyon. What a great read. We soaked our feet in Temperance Creek and our guidebook said the old farm house was supposed to be there, but it wasn't. It must have burned down. There were old sheep pens up in the hills we had passed and I wondered if that's where they stayed. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous place. This is a great coming of age woman's story and book about nature.
We flew out of Dug Bar in a Cessna to get back to our cars and the pilot knew Pam's husband and other characters in the book. It's a small town out there all the way around. There also turns out to be a book shelf of other books about the place too. Backpacking is much hard though, harder than the guidebooks know as the trails are all overgrown and the buildings gone.
We flew out of Dug Bar in a Cessna to get back to our cars and the pilot knew Pam's husband and other characters in the book. It's a small town out there all the way around. There also turns out to be a book shelf of other books about the place too. Backpacking is much hard though, harder than the guidebooks know as the trails are all overgrown and the buildings gone.
August 27, 2022
My goodness I loved this book. A big-hearted, yet down-to-earth memoir. The writing is excellent - unembellished, yet descriptive; introspective, yet with enough "happening" to keep the pages turning. What a gem. Books like this make me want to pack it all up and jump off the grid (dirt, hard work, discomfort and all).
Side note: I liked this enough that I bought a hard-copy version. It’s a special book. I have had a difficult time starting anything new since, and it’s been in my head a lot since finishing it.
Companion read: 7003 Days: 21 Years in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness
Side note: I liked this enough that I bought a hard-copy version. It’s a special book. I have had a difficult time starting anything new since, and it’s been in my head a lot since finishing it.
Companion read: 7003 Days: 21 Years in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness
December 9, 2017
Not my fave. Interesting. The writing style is just not my fave. Instead of looking at everything & everyone around her I get the sense that she only mentions things outside herself as they affect her. For instance, I felt she didn't give us a complete picture of her home life or her siblings. I enjoy the descriptions of nature. The Hells Canyon & area around Joseph, OR. It is an easy read, & is the topic of the next Pageturners book group.
November 2, 2016
Only memoire I've ever read more than once. Badass female character. Believable love story. Wrapped around an ode to beautiful country....
October 12, 2017
Started out with some nice writing and storytelling but I gave up about halfway through as it was mostly just a diary of a woman's life without the insights I would have thought would be there
July 29, 2018
Book club book. Could not get past author’s voice, which was very sanctimonious.
January 17, 2023
I think I maybe would have enjoyed this more if I had read the physical copy vs listening to the audio book.
leafed-through
January 26, 2023For G.
Eastern Oregon memoir.
Part II Wallowa County
See also "About my Mother"by Peggy Rowe.
Eastern Oregon memoir.
Part II Wallowa County
See also "About my Mother"by Peggy Rowe.
January 8, 2024
I really enjoyed this memoir and learning more about the Wallowas.
November 10, 2024
Pamela’s writing mirrors and honors the beauty she so elegantly describes of the Helles Canyon and Wallowa Mountains. Loved the story and their relationship even though I wish Skip would have come around a little earlier. Took me a while to forgive that boot toss 🤨
December 24, 2024
A remarkably beautiful life
September 28, 2021
The Goodreads blurb is an excellent review, but I will add my review. Pamela grows up restless and questioning of her parents' middle class life style. Taking a break from college in the 1970's, she travels to the Wallowa Mountains of eastern Oregon, a beautiful place within driving distance of my home, and meets people who intrigue her with their lives. She meets a Viet Nam veteran who is on his own quest for healing by tramping and exploring the nearby wildernesses with the minimum of supplies. Pam is at once intrigued and smitten by Skip and his lifestyle. She ends up adventuring with him on a trek through the wilderness to Salmon River Country in Idaho and then taking a stint at a dude ranch and eventually herding sheep for a ranch in Hell's Canyon country. Pamela writes in a poetic fashion about the outdoors, but also tells of the harsh realities of that type of life. She also shares her thoughts about debating her commitment to this hardscrabble man. We all get a hint that she ends up with him, but their tenuous relationship is on her mind. Skip, in turn, finds healing not only from his years in the beauty and challenge of nature, but in this devoted relationship with this brave woman who won't let him go.
June 20, 2025
Gorgeous writing, likeable narrator, amazing life adventure. Can't recommend this one enough, especially if you've spent any time near the Idaho-Oregon border.
April 7, 2022
Exciting memoir and an homage to place.
August 14, 2016
I purchased this book because I noticed that Pamela Royes would be reading at Powell's Books in Portland. While I didn't manage to make it to the reading, I decided to read the book nonetheless.
The Wallowas are a majestic mountain range in Northeastern Oregon. My husband is particularly fond of these mountains and visits as often as he can. I began this book with high hopes, in a perfectly appropriate setting: next to a cold river full of trout in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.
Try as I might, however, I could not connect with this book. Two hundred pages in, I thought, "There is no way that I can finish this." But, the writing was good, the narrator likable, I had made it halfway, I felt committed and wanted to find out how the book would end. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I didn't find the subject matter compelling or that I did not find Skip, the narrator's partner (and later, husband) sympathetic.
When I finished the book, I was glad that I stuck with it, though I felt that Royes did not need to take hundreds of pages to painstakingly describe her adventures in the mountains, then sum up twenty or thirty years in the last twenty-five pages. The pacing felt wrong. In the acknowledgements, Royes thanks her readers and editors, and I found myself wondering how it was that no one suggested that she heavily edit the whole middle section of the book.
I can't help but wonder if I would have enjoyed this book more if I had gone to the reading and met the author. I plan to give Temperance Creek to my husband to read to see if he enjoys it more than I did. If it were a hundred pages shorter, I could recommend Temperance Creek. But, unfortunately, I just found myself looking forward to the end.
The Wallowas are a majestic mountain range in Northeastern Oregon. My husband is particularly fond of these mountains and visits as often as he can. I began this book with high hopes, in a perfectly appropriate setting: next to a cold river full of trout in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.
Try as I might, however, I could not connect with this book. Two hundred pages in, I thought, "There is no way that I can finish this." But, the writing was good, the narrator likable, I had made it halfway, I felt committed and wanted to find out how the book would end. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I didn't find the subject matter compelling or that I did not find Skip, the narrator's partner (and later, husband) sympathetic.
When I finished the book, I was glad that I stuck with it, though I felt that Royes did not need to take hundreds of pages to painstakingly describe her adventures in the mountains, then sum up twenty or thirty years in the last twenty-five pages. The pacing felt wrong. In the acknowledgements, Royes thanks her readers and editors, and I found myself wondering how it was that no one suggested that she heavily edit the whole middle section of the book.
I can't help but wonder if I would have enjoyed this book more if I had gone to the reading and met the author. I plan to give Temperance Creek to my husband to read to see if he enjoys it more than I did. If it were a hundred pages shorter, I could recommend Temperance Creek. But, unfortunately, I just found myself looking forward to the end.
February 13, 2017
The cover cried "read me!" The author is from our region; the geography she writes of, though remote, is familiar. I pre-ordered the book. When it came, I immediately recognized the publisher, Counterpoint. They publish Wendell Berry! I whispered to myself. Not bad company for a first-time author!
It's been two weeks since I've finished Temperance Creek. I deliberately waited to respond, allowing time to sift through my response. Pam's extraordinary story invades my thoughts and beseiges my dreams.
At first, I told myself this was another ode to individualism and spontaneity. Royes made choices—to live with a guy in a tent in the canyons after knowing him one day— that I would never countenance nor counsel. (And my most curious question is what her response would be if her daughter did the same.) But the depth of her words surprised me. Soon she made me care very much what happened to two young kids in the canyon.
The last two months had been intense, one physical and mental challenge after another.
First I fell in love.
Then I gave up my pillow.
Then I disappeared off the face of the known earth.
Next, I learned to cook over a campfire, got shot, and became a sheep vaccinator.
Pam employs lyrical language to describe the mountains and plateaus of living with Skip in the open air, off the grid, among gasp-inspiring landscape. How primitive it was hit me at the end of the book when they had moved under a roof. Skip asked "So we're buying toilet paper now?" :)
My friend Terri says if you liked Cheryl Strayed's book Wild you'll love this book.
I urge you to watch this book trailer, if only for the resplendent views of Hells Canyon.
https://vimeo.com/190793183
It's been two weeks since I've finished Temperance Creek. I deliberately waited to respond, allowing time to sift through my response. Pam's extraordinary story invades my thoughts and beseiges my dreams.
At first, I told myself this was another ode to individualism and spontaneity. Royes made choices—to live with a guy in a tent in the canyons after knowing him one day— that I would never countenance nor counsel. (And my most curious question is what her response would be if her daughter did the same.) But the depth of her words surprised me. Soon she made me care very much what happened to two young kids in the canyon.
The last two months had been intense, one physical and mental challenge after another.
First I fell in love.
Then I gave up my pillow.
Then I disappeared off the face of the known earth.
Next, I learned to cook over a campfire, got shot, and became a sheep vaccinator.
Pam employs lyrical language to describe the mountains and plateaus of living with Skip in the open air, off the grid, among gasp-inspiring landscape. How primitive it was hit me at the end of the book when they had moved under a roof. Skip asked "So we're buying toilet paper now?" :)
My friend Terri says if you liked Cheryl Strayed's book Wild you'll love this book.
I urge you to watch this book trailer, if only for the resplendent views of Hells Canyon.
https://vimeo.com/190793183
May 14, 2020
I too grew up in the 60s and 70s, and as someone who didn’t take the road Pam took, and caved to the desire for financial security in the corporate world, this book struck a nerve with my ever growing list of regrets when I look back on my life. I feel so envious of her freedom, which she seems to have maintained all her life. And the book also speaks to my nearly constant craving for a happier life in a cleaner, simpler, more natural world. Reading this book was a personal journey for me and may not resonate with others who do not have such “hippie” cravings. The book’s effects are still brewing in me and may yet result in a drastic lifestyle change as I contemplate how I really want to spend my last, retirement, years. Cathartic, at least for me. Thanks Pam!
November 18, 2020
The author has a great story to tell, and she tells it well. Where she lost me was with the killing of the cougar. Total hypocrisy to spend the whole book waxing poetic about her intimate connection to the pristine natural environment, and then to place the needs of a non-native species (sheep) over a wild animal whose home she was invading, all so a tiny tiny segment of the population could make a buck off the land. Totally lame.
March 27, 2018
In the seventies, she and her beau head out to the Snake River valley called Hells Canyon to adventure. This memoir is so well told. You feel like you are right there experiencing there many adventures in the Wallowas and Hells Canyon. Riding, hiking, camping, sheepherding, leading elk hunters and running a base camp for sheepherders. What a life!
January 1, 2024
My aunt could have written this memoir. Same lifestyle, same area of the country, only a generation prior. Freedom of being together with the love of her life and the animals to care for in a wild and vast wilderness - something so much more important than any comforts of civilization. It felt like a familiar story, yet also helped me understand them.
June 13, 2018
Beautiful, Meditative Memoir
Pam Royes’ book is calm, funny, brave, meditative and lovely. Wonderful love story of a woman falling in love with the land and a man. Her writing is clear, beautiful and evocative. A new favorite.
Pam Royes’ book is calm, funny, brave, meditative and lovely. Wonderful love story of a woman falling in love with the land and a man. Her writing is clear, beautiful and evocative. A new favorite.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews