Backtracking: By Foot, Canoe, and Subaru Along the Lewis and Clark Trail

by Benjamin Long

Book Overview

Two centuries after Lewis and Clark set off to explore the unknown land between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean, a micro-Corps of Discovery -- the author and his wife with their beat-up... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1570614024
• ISBN13: 9781570614026
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Sasquatch Books
• Length: 247 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A Montanan Review

As a native Montanan and one who was mandated to memorize Lewis and Clark trivia to get her high school diploma I started the book with trepidation. I was more than surprised to love this book! I have read it twice and bought one for a friend. This book takes details and facts and puts life, love and laughter into them. Read this book- it makes you feel good and brings a bit of nature inside.

A Most Skookum Adventure

Skookum. Backtracking is a skookum adventure. Long explains that in the Chinook language skookum means big or powerful. This account of a trek backtracking the route of the Lewis and Clark expedition is just that. The book is a fascinating blend of history, biology, ecology, and philosophy that took me, a confirmed lover of comfort, along on the trip.Long and his wife retrace portions of the trail and report on the status of several of the wildlife and plant species that Lewis and Clark described in their original journals. We learn about the black-tailed prairie dog, the grizzly bear, the American bison, the Missouri River beaver, the Westslope cutthroat, the Columbia sharptail grouse, the Whitebark pine and the Clark's nutcracker, the wolf and the coyote, the White sturgeon and the Great Plains cottonwood. We learn why and how these animals and plants matter today.Long, although his view is clear, does not resort to the adversarial language that pushes opposing forces further apart. He reminds us that, "There is too much at stake for us to give pessimism a chance. There is still too much to be lost."Grouse dancing at dawn on some remote and windswept lek. After reading this book I want to see for myself.