The Book of Yaak [Paperback]

Rick Bass (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1997

The Yaak Valley of northwestern Montana is one of the last great wild places in the United States, a land of black bears and grizzlies, wolves and coyotes, bald and golden eagles, and even a handful of humans. But its magic may not be enough to save it from the forces threatening it now. In The Book of Yaak Rick Bass captures the soul of the valley itself, and he shows how, if places like the Yaak are lost, so too will be the human riches of mystery and imagination.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Rick Bass, a prolific writer of considerable merit, has crafted an elegant plea to save the ecosystem of the Yaak Valley in northwestern Montana. Bass argues that the Yaak deserves to be saved, both for its beauty and for its role in a biological system that stretches through much of North America. To enamor readers with the Yaak he describes it with reverence, and in doing so makes us care. "We are all complicit," he says. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Popular outdoor author Bass (Lost Grizzlies, LJ 11/1/95) returns to his home turf in the Yaak Valley of northwestern Montana, also the setting for his Winter Notes from Montana (LJ 2/15/91). As a resident of that remote area for over ten years, Bass seems to have been accepted by the few locals who populate the canyon. Much of this work concerns his attempt to protect the remaining wilderness of the area, a vital corridor for genetic replenishment of wildlife from Canada. As he ponders the question of the worth of such a place, Bass writes countless letters to anyone he feels may aid in stopping the construction of the roads that facilitate logging in the area. Although bitterness occasionally surfaces in his account, the author remains hopeful as he describes attempts to forge alliances with diverse groups of loggers, hunters, and other residents. In the process of reconciling his artistic side (writing) with his scientific training as a geologist, he once again paints a marvelous portrait of life in an area of rugged beauty. Recommended for all public, regional, and nature collections.?Tim Markus, Evergreen State Coll. Lib., Olympia, Wash.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; First Edition edition (September 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395877466
• ISBN-13: 978-0395877463
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #450,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the, December 12, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Coplin, Maine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of Yaak (Paperback)

Rick Bass has a knack for going far beyond the traditional environmentalist arguments about biodiversity and global warming, arguments that have fallen on deaf ears for the past thirty-plus years in this country. In his moving story of the Yaak Valley in northwestern Montana, he does touch on these subjects--the economic and other reasons why the Yaak should be protected from out-of-state corporate interests--but his story is more far-reaching than that. He understands that the value of a forest extends to something less tangible than economics, and he says it as well as any other living writer. His discussion of the correspondences he's had with the Montana Congressional delegation is entertaining and poignant, and his descriptions of natural scenes are visceral and succinct. At times his tone is like that of fellow naturalist Doug Peacock, but his skill with words is far greater. Bass gets a lot of bang out of few words. You'll come away feeling like writing to your Congresspeople. A beautiful and passionate account.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Woodsman, spare that old growth. . ., October 16, 2003

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Book of Yaak (Paperback)

I first came across Rick Bass in the very readable collection "Big Sky Reader." His essay there about accompanying a friend on a fishing trip with several out-of-state fishermen was an enjoyable glimpse into the lives of folks in the thinly populated woods of the far northwestern corner of Montana. It's a self-sufficient kind of life, where people make do with few amenities in exchange for the beauty and solitude of the mountains and the isolation that comes with many months of snow and cold.

That essay, "This Savage Land," appears in this collection of the author's nonfiction. However, instead of the self-effacing, quiet humor of that essay, the rest of this book is a poignant account of an apparently doomed effort to preserve the Yaak River valley as a wilderness and bring a stop to the clear-cut logging that has been steadily turning it into a vast area of devastation. Chapters describing the author's letter-writing campaigns and his trip to Washington DC to make his case before Montana's congressmen alternate with descriptions of walks on the mountains, sighting bears and other wildlife, discoursing on the delicately interrelated flora and fauna, and admiring what is left of the old growth forests. There's also a chapter on the experience of the winter months and another on a summer of fires in the mountains and the role that fire plays in the regeneration and preservation of forests.

Through it all are the themes of loss and the ruinous harm of the logging industry, which he believes is not simply destroying a wilderness area but removing a critical link connecting regions where grizzlies, wolves, and other forms of wilderness wildlife still survive. When that connection is gone, he believes that these creatures will quickly die out. Meanwhile, the poet in him believes that something also dies within humankind when the wilderness is gone, and he reminds us that once it's gone it will be gone forever.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the mountainous West, nature writing, and the lives of people in sparsely populated and isolated areas. It's also a book for those whose hearts respond to the call of the wild and who are concerned by the destruction of national forests by the heedless economics of the logging industry and its strangle-hold in government and other seats of power.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Don't Hack the Yaak, April 28, 2002

By 

Arch Stanton (Bondurant, WY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of Yaak (Paperback)

Rick Bass has written a plea that is at times elegant and at other times shrill. The best writing in the book are the stories of long-time valley residents (both human and animal) trying to exist in a habitat that is shrinking in the hands of indifferent government and corporate stewards. Every 30-40 pages there is the ripe whiff of the holier-than-thou that usually occurs when a gifted writer transplants himself to the West and somehow comes to believe he is the only one who can truly interpret its significance. But this is possibly a quibble based on the prejudices in my head as a longtime Wyoming rancher. In any case, it's good to know that each member of the Congressional delegation received a copy of this book, although it's doubtful that Conrad Burns or Craig Thomas ever cracked the thing.