Customer Reviews

Hawks Rest: A Season in the Remote Heart of Yellowstone

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you're looking for nothing more than a happy-go-lucky escape, where Bambi runs free and all is right with the world, don't bother with Hawks Rest. But if you want an honest look at the most remote place left in the lower 48 - both the beauty and the insanity - this is the book. While living in Wyoming I came to this region on several occasions, mostly as a hunter, and I saw first hand the kind of cronyism that exists there: illegal salting, chain saws, and a hatred of wolves that was clear off the charts. The LA Times had it right: Hawks Rest is "an eloquent tribute to a threatened place and its lone protectors."

The most remote spot in America: the southeast corner of Yellowstone. Home to wolves, grizzlies, ornery misfits, and -- for a summer -- the experienced naturalist Gary Ferguson. He vividly portrays the landscape (beyond the teeming masses at Old Faithful) that make Yellowstone so beautiful and important. He also investigates some of the fascinating political issues that rule this isolated area. Whether you're planning a trip to Yellowstone or just want an armchair escape, this is a great journey.

Gary Ferguson's "Hawks Landing" provides readers with a glimpse of life for a summer in the backwoods of Yellowstone, something that many dream about, but few ever do. This book is a marvelous and engaging read. It's easy to lose track of time when you're reading this book.

Let's face it, Ferguson is an excellent writer. He has a style of prose that is poetic and understated. It's hard to count the number of times that you find yourself thinking, "Wow, that is described perfectly."

Ferguson also manages to pull off something very difficult - the ability to meander from topic to topic without losing the reader or ticking them off. Many travelogues and journal-style books make huge leaps and unrealistic expectations on the readers. Ferguson's texts wanders like a fufilling hike through the backwoods, taking inventory of many different sites and scenes. Most books like this aren't as skillfully written which make them interesting, but not as satisfying as "Hawks Rest."

While Ferguson's views on things like grizzly bears, wolves and outfitters are pretty self-evident, he doesn't necessarily foist his views on the reader demanding that they accept them unconditionally. He also seems to give enough information that the reader is allowed to come to their own conclusion.

If you like a good journal-style book with lessons in history and biology, then this is a delightful find. Other books may try to describe Yellowstone's geysers, wildlife, mountains or streams, but this book seems to tell more of Yellowstone's soul.

I visited Yellowstone a few months ago and picked up Hawks Rest at a local bookstore. I was thoroughly awed by the beauty and majesty of the park but was disappointed by the crowds that I just couldn't get away from. I was hoping that Hawks Rest would give me insights into the "real" world of Yellowstone.

Given these expectations, the book truly did satisfy my purposes and I was pleased. But it also turned into a political screed. Although I very much believe in Ferguson's cause of alerting the public to the abuses of the elite hunting culture in Yellowstone, I feel that he devoted too much of this book to this cause. Hawks Nest is subtitled A Season in the Remote Heart of Yellowstone. I wish this, rather than promoting a political agenda, had been the focus of the book.

Ferguson's book takes us to a corner of the US that not many people will ever see - - the Thorofare region in the southeast part of Yellowstone National Park. This region boasts the point in the lower 48 states farthest from any road-though if islands are eligible, the prize really belongs to Point Houghton on Isle Royale. Unlike Point Houghton, the Thorofare is a busy place despite its remoteness.

Ferguson is working for the US Forest Service for a summer in the Thorofare. He's staying at the USFS cabin, "Hawk's Rest," which provides the title of the book. Besides him and his National Park Service colleagues, three kinds of people show up in the Thorofare - - backpackers, outdoor leadership programs for teenagers and young adults, and outfitters with their hunter clients.

Ferguson discusses each group but gives most of his attention (and his vitriol) to the outfitters. If he is to be believed, the outfitters act as if they have property rights, and act as if they are a law unto themselves. They're rude to him, and they treat the other groups with contempt. Though the book is about the Thorofare as a whole, your reaction to the book will depend on your reaction to the outfitters in it.

Ferguson starts and ends the book with a discussion of the route he took there and back. The route there, beginning at his home in Montana, is a wonderful journey for the reader. His return route is not very interesting for the reader nor, it seems, for him. At that point he was glad to be going home. That's too bad, because I wasn't ready for the book to end. He writes very well, and his story is engaging throughout.

Although in his endorsement on the back cover William Kittredge says that this book "...is a long step toward a user's guide to wilderness..." it is in fact largely about long-standing border conflicts and culture clashes in the remote, but by no means inaccessible, southeastern boundary-lands of Yellowstone National Park, especially the Thorofare region. One might better say that it is about threatened ways of life: that of the local outfitters whose living depends upon access to lands protected for them by the government they so resent, and upon the elk herds that prosper there; that of those whose passions wear on it more lightly, and who eschew more conventional lifestyles to live out those passions, and finally, that of the wildlife that inhabits the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, now, as always, on tenterhooks.

Few people are more qualified than Gary Ferguson to understand the origins and ramifications of the issues for all concerned. The book is clearly written. Interspersed with revelatory passages about man vs. man vs. nature are classic Ferguson paeans to the glory that is Yellowstone, leavened with entertaining contemporary and historical anecdotes.

My only negative comment about this book, a must-read for those seeking a thorough understanding of Yellowstone's precarious place in this world, is that the copy-editing (if any) is astonishingly poor. Some may not be put off by these gaffs, but such sloppiness risks diminishing the author's credibility among other readers, and that does "the cause" no good.

I bought this book hoping to gain insite to the "Real" yellowstone wilderness. There are real tibits and treasures of this experience in this book that I thoroughly enjoyed. The major part of the book was devoted to the political rallying that goes on with the government and NPS and elk hunters. I believe that the hunting and salting issue deserve to be brought to the publics attention, but do not believe that so much of a book supposedly about a summer on Hawk's Rest should have been devoted to it.

Gary Ferguson is a very engaging writer and always delivers the goods on wonderful story writing and this book it no different. I just wish he had focused more on the wildlife and wilderness experience with short interjections on guiding and elk hunting.

Yellowstone needs an Ed Abbey, it needs an outspoken and opinionated, brawling, ornery cuss. Someone who will say what is wrong and what is right. Unfortunately, Gary Ferguson isn't that person. His writing is fluid and occasionally graceful and there is no doubt he loves the land. But in this book he is rarely able to truly deliver a sense of wonder or transfer it to the reader. We can never close our eyes and see a grizzly sparring with a wolf pack or a fledgling bald eagle peering down from the nest. Having hiked and hunted in the Thorofare my whole life I was hoping for something more evocative.

Although he shines a light on the good-old-boy cronyism that transforms the Teton Wilderness into a collection of outfitter fiefdoms every year, he doesn't really get down and dirty and rake the muck. Sure he throws a few weak jabs here and there at the big commercial guides and their dour hands, but mostly he just steps out of the way of the issue. In the end, the book adds just a bit to our collected knowledge of the Yellowstone ecosystem.

More damaging than a few redneck salt licks up a drainage someplace are the trophy home subdivisions encroaching the park on all sides. These developments are grinding up the habitat in ways an outfitter could never accomplish, and they are being built by those who profess to love the country the most. Ferguson takes a brief stroll down that path before turning aside - perhaps in his next book?

This book is awesome. I've lived near Yellowstone all my life and worked for the NPS for the past 5 years in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

This book is not a flowery fun romp through the summer of yellowstone, its more political and thoughtful than that. Though there is some simple summer fun in there as well.

Other reviews have criticized this book for being to political... don't critique a book for what you wish it was, critique it for what it is. And for what it is, its awesome.

Well written and researched. Not to heavy and very interesting. I recommend to all who have an interest in the area.

I read this book a couple years ago during a fishing trip to the southeast arm of Yellowstone Lake. The Hawk's Rest area intrigues me because it is the headwaters of the Yellowstone River. The hiking adventures and bits about the history of the area are great to read. I wasn't expecting the opinions about outfitters and all the politics of the area, but it was interesting to learn about that side and realize how important the area is in more ways than just the wilderness. Pick it up and read it while you travel to and in the area. [...]