By Dale A. Burk Author Dale Burk grew up in the wilds of northwestern Montana, born into a logging family whose way of life put them into the remote forest lands where his logger father lived by a maxim that if you could see smoke coming out of a neighbor's chimney, you were too close to the settlements. In the process, Dale and his siblings developed a kinship with the wild land and the wild things about them, an affinity to those aspects of his life that would never leave him even when his chosen profession as a writer took him on occasion to many of the major cities of the world. In this book, the author has written about people, places and things that reflect a life spend exploring and enjoying the outdoors and what comes with that endeavor - good, bad or indifferent. In the process, he has touched on the often unrealized linkage of a person's mind and attitudes, as well as physical endeavors, to a landscape that unwittingly had truly "gotten inside" him, in other words, shaped his values and his relationship not only to the land but to other people who may or may not have shared that kinship with things wild. Within these pages you'll find stories about birds, wildlife, trout streams, wild places, and many beautiful people whose lives interacted with the author to the point of, on occasion, contentment but, as well, pure joy, and sometimes raw heartbreak. The key is that the stories in this book reflect in raw passion one man's relationship with the wilds of Montana, wherein he found true meaning to his life. Throughout, Dale explores the theme of wildness, of primeval solitude as well as naturally-regulated relationships as they shape one's life, in this case the author's as he shares stories out of a lifetime in Montana's wild environment. Dale is a third-generation Montanan, an honors graduation in philosophy of the University of Montana in Missoula, and the first Montana writer to win the prestigious Nieman Fellowship for Professional Journalists to Harvard University. For the last forty-nine years, Dale has made his home in Montana's Bitterroot Valley. Cover artwork courtesy of Monte Dolack. Issued in 6x9-inch, softcover format $19.95