Living With Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey

In 1974, twenty-four-year-old Bill Sherwonit stepped into a whole new life—deep in the Alaska wild. In this engaging essay collection, Sherwonit now recollects his adventures and trials of his more than thirty years in the Alaska wilderness. From the streets of Anchorage to wildlife preserves where wolves and bears freely roam, Sherwonit has witnessed the collision of man and nature firsthand in the untamed climes of Alaska.  Living with Wildness constructs a continuum of “wildness” with Sherwonit’s lyrical writings, as he recounts intimate moments with the songbirds fluttering around his home birdfeeder and the halibut on his fishing line, as well as exciting experiences, including his close encounter with a grizzly bear and the breathtaking views of the Northern Lights in the remote North. Sherwonit discusses the cultural idea of the “wild man” and meditates on his own efforts to spiritually connect with nature, noting that “Wilderness is a place. Wildness, on the other hand, is a quality, a state of being.” A compellingly intimate and mesmerizing narrative, Living with Wildness reveals how we can engage with nature and access the wildness in our own selves.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Coming Home 2. Anchorage’s Hillside: Living with Wildness 3. Anchorage’s Hillside: Wildness Through the Years and Seasons 4. Connecticut Roots 5. Hunting Anchorage’s Frogs 6. Airport Pond: An Urban Tale of Discovery and Loss 7. Living with Bears 8. Anchorage’s Wild Coastal Fringes 9. Chugach State Park: Wilderness at the Edge of Town 10. Wonders of the Night Sky 11. Going Solo Through Gates of the Arctic 12. Encounters with the Other: Arctic Wolf 13. Encounters with the Other: In the Company of Bears 14. Encounters with the Other: A Gift of Halibut 15. In Search of the Wild Man 16. Epilogue: First Snow Selected Readings

About the Author :
Bill Sherwonit is a widely published journalist and nature writer and has written ten previous books on Alaska.

Review :
"Bill Sherwonit has added a fine new volume to the literature of place, a literature that may be the most vital and venturesome of any kind being written in America today." - Scott Russell Sanders, author of A Private History of Awe "Like one of his winter days in Anchorage, Sherwonit's book is bright and calm. Its gifts are a wild landscape of delight and a lesson in attentiveness." - Kathleen Dean Moore, author of The Pine Island Paradox"