On the Wild Edge: In Search of a Natural Life [Paperback]

David Petersen (Author), John Nichols (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2006

"Opinionated and iconoclastic, Petersen writes with humor and a well-honed craft that will delight fans of Edward Abbey." --Library Journal (starred review)

Twenty-five years ago David Petersen and his wife, Caroline, pulled up stakes, trading Laguna Beach, California, for a snug hand-built cabin in the wilderness. Today he knows that mountain land as intimately as anyone can know his home.
Petersen conflates a quarter century into the adventures of four high-country seasons, tracking the rigors of survival from the snowmelt that announces the arrival of spring to the decline and death of autumn and winter that will establish the fertile ground needed for next year's rebirth.
In the past we listened to Henry David Thoreau or Aldo Leopold; today it is Petersen's turn. His observations are lyrical, scientific, and from the heart. He reinforces Thoreau's dictum: "in wildness is the preservation of the earth." In prose rich with mystery and soul, his words are a plea for the survival of the remnant wilderness.

"Many of us would like to live a life of greater intention and simplicity, but few can and even fewer do. David Petersen is one of those rare human beings among us who lives a wild life with a cultured mind . . . [He] has created a map all of us can follow."
--Terry Tempest Williams, author of The Open Space of Democracy

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

By eschewing such "distractions" as jobs, money and children, Petersen (Among the Elk; The Nearby Faraway; etc.) and his wife embraced a simple life on the edge of the wilderness in the Colorado Rockies, where the enduring rhythms of nature shape each day. In this extended meditation on that life, Petersen's prose can be overwrought ("Still hoping for a glimpse of the hawk,... I... lifted my face skyward in desperate faith, like some crippled, crawling pilgrim") and cranky ("What was once a middle-class paradise... has been reduced to just another rich person's playground of choppity-chop subdivisions and fenced-in ranchettes littered with a nauseating profundity of tacky trailer houses at one extreme, ostentatious and obscenely wasteful trophy homes at the other"). But he also writes movingly of the things he loves: his wife and dogs, the mountains, the grizzlies he camps among every summer and the elk he hunts for food ("the humane killing of a fairly and honorably outwitted prey is precisely the opposite of slaughter.... Does the wolf not love the caribou? And does she not, even so, undertake her daily hunts with enthusiasm and joy?"). While this book will not bump classics like Walden, A Sand County Almanac or Silent Spring off the environmental bookshelf, its mix of strong opinions and vibrant personality give it unique appeal. Agent, Carl Brandt. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Although he might bristle at such a comparison, like Thoreau, Petersen is a man who chooses to "live deliberately." For him, this means a nearly self-sustaining existence high in the Colorado Rockies. He built his own home, hunts for his own food, walks gently through the forest, leaves little trace of himself upon the land. Taking the reader through one year of his life, Petersen squeezes the essence out of each season in a dialogue that embraces both the metaphorical and practical aspects of living in the midst of nature's rapidly diminishing bounty. One comes to learn as much about the life cycles of the elk and bear that were the mountains' earliest and, he hopes, eternal residents as about Petersen himself. Nestled within his compelling and frequently humorous recollections of near-death exploits and mundane daily rituals, Petersen eloquently communicates his deeply held environmental ethos. Honest, outspoken, and unabashedly conscientious, Petersen is a passionate advocate for the responsible stewardship of the land and its inhabitants. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (January 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805080031
• ISBN-13: 978-0805080032
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,524 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Natural History

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A year in the Colorado life, May 2, 2005

By 

Corinne H. Smith (Athol, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: On the Wild Edge: In Search of a Natural Life (Hardcover)

33 years ago, John Denver first sang a warning about Colorado developers trying "to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more: more people, more scars upon the land." Dave Petersen issues a similar lament in the final chapters of ON THE WILD EDGE. But that's after we have spent a great deal of time in the woods with this likeable and contemporary disciple of Edward Abbey and Aldo Leopold, listening intently and eagerly grabbing every observation he tosses in our direction.

In standard natural history narrative style, Petersen shares a sample year with us. He and his wife Caroline live as simply as possible in a mountain cabin near the city of Durango, Colorado. They raise or find their own food, with Dave the hunter providing meat from a single elk each year. While this lifestyle has immeasurable benefits -- like witnessing a screen-door nose-touch between a bear cub on the porch and the family dog standing inside -- it is not without its pitfalls. Ranking high on that list are the lack of medical insurance and the near-constant verification of the stupidity of mankind. It's not as easy to "simplify" today as it was in Thoreau's time.

Page after page, Petersen teaches us much about the natural world of the Rockies. As far as plants, insects and stars are concerned -- well, their numbers are so many that he admits he doesn't know much about the individuals among them. Give him mammals -- the bigger, the better -- and he can rattle off every one of their habits and preferences. Deer, elk, and bears are among his favorite fellow creatures. And though he hunts, he's conscientious when it comes to aiming his arrow. His behavior and choices mirror that of any other wild predator.

Reading and thinking about this lifestyle provides great environmental joy, but it's also a double-edged sword. This is the kind of book we read and say, "YES! That's the life I've always wanted to lead." But if we all lived it, it would no longer be unique, and the wilderness -- the very thing we'd want to get close to -- would be destroyed in the process. The intelligent tactic for us, then, is to let folks like Dave and Caroline Petersen be the forest dwellers. Let them be the reporters, and we will wistfully read their stories and live vicariously through their experiences. <sigh> It's a difficult but environmentally-conscious choice.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yarns of Naturalism, February 11, 2006

By 

Richard L. Pangburn (Bardstown, KY USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On the Wild Edge: In Search of a Natural Life (Paperback)

What a treat! I bought this from Amazon back when it first came out in hardcover, and it has resided on my to-be-read shelf all this time. We now have snow here and, in a wintry mood, I was prompted to pick this one up after finishing Vardis Fisher's excellent THE MOUNTAIN MAN and watching the Robert Redford movie based upon that book.

What a dustjacket! It says here that Caroline Peterson, the author's "permanent wife," took that photo. If the gorgeous, dustjacket art especially appeals to you--as it does to me--then you might also enjoy looking inside at these marvelous tales of David and Caroline Peterson in their natural surroundings.

This author will resonate to those who love the nature writings of Emerson and Thoreau, Doug Peacock and Edward Abbey. Peterson writes with the practical common sense of Wendell Berry mixed with an almost mystical be-here-now sense of wonder. He sees the Great Spirit in things.

We found this a delightful, gorgeous edition to our personal library of naturalism. This author edited A. B. Guthrie's enviromental essays and wrote the afterward to Guthrie's marvelous autobiography. I can't say if this is Peterson's best book because I've yet to read several of his others. They are now moving up on my list.

31 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars author should stick with nature writing, not politics, October 4, 2006

By 

Adam R. Emter "dakotaboy81" (US prairie) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: On the Wild Edge: In Search of a Natural Life (Hardcover)

David Peterson writes very well and has a great ability to engage the reader and make them feel as if they are part of the forest where David writes. I am only about half finished with the book and have enjoyed his views on simple living and self sufficiency. However, his subtle and not-so-subtle interjections about politics totally distract from the beautiful writings about nature. If I wanted political commentary, I would read a book about politics, not a book about nature and simple living.