Rick Bass's dog, Colter, is the brown dog of theYaak. Described by
Bass as a creature almost mythic, the dog charges through the mountain
valleys following the scent of game. In this book, Bass gives a history
of his years with Colter—including vignettes about interactions with
well-known writers Jim Harrison and Barry Lopez—as a way of
understanding what is intuitive in himself and his quest to create art.
Quotes:
“For many of us who teach Literature and the Environment, Yaak and
Bass have now joined the company of Walden and Thoreau, Yosemite and
Muir, Arches and Abbey, Great Salt Lake and Terry Tempest Williams . . ..
He elaborates on wilderness as an anchor, as the root of art, on
writing as scultpure, but also on the artist as a sculpture—as a
creator sculpted by the even greater creative spirit of place.”—ISLE
“In
Brown Dog of the Yaak, Bass uses his encounters with the natural world
to galvanize his thoughts about activism, the writing life, and his
passion for the wilderness . . .. Brown Dog of the Yaak is filled with
nuggets of wisdom and provocative questions. Bass challenges us to lead
authentic, inspired lives, to engage in both activism and art. He urges
us not to rein back.”—Rocky Mountain News
“Brown Dog of the
Yaak gives insight into the creative process—the very life—of one our
finest writers has he comes to terms with why he writes and lives as he
does . . .. [It] combines Rick Bass' heartfelt meditation on the life and
the loss of his hunting dog Colter with his equally passionate thoughts
on the place of activism and art in his life . . .. His writing of the
hunt with Colter, of being swallowed up by the experience of the wild,
is fine and true. His depiction of the work of fighting to save the
valley that he loves, of presenting the rational side of his spiritual,
faith-driven quest in the face of apathy and opposition, is both
instructive and chilling.”—Bloomsbury Review
“With Brown Dog
of the Yaak and The Dream of the Marsh Wren, Milkweed's Credo series is
off to a running, highly intriguing, highly worthwhile start.”—Charles
Scheer, Memphis Flyer
“For any of the fans of Bass, this book
will seem indispensable . . .. There is always something metaphoric, even
intangible, in the best nature writing. You can't point to it and say,
'There it is, that's it.' But sometimes you can point to a place where
you know it lives. You can point to Brown Dog of the Yaak.”—Salt Lake
Tribune
“The first two books in the new Credo series from
Milkweed [Editions] articulate some simple truths about the outdoors
and American writing that play brilliantly off each other. The deaper
the writers go into their subjects, the clearer things become.”—Salon
Magazine
“In this collection, Bass combines several memorable,
short nonfiction tales about living in the Yaak Valley wilderness in
southern Montana with an illuminating exploration of literary and
political activism.”—Eugene Register-Guard
“Rick Bass is one of
those rare authors who, like McGuane and Harrison, writes knowledgeably
and eloquently about hunting and fishing yet is also taken seriously by
the literary establishment. In Brown Dog of the Yaak he tries to make
sense of the loss of Colter, the magnificent German shorthair that put
a burning mark on Bass' soul before disappearing without a trace from
their home in the remote Yaak Valley of Montana . . .. Bass follows
Colter's example and ranges widely, searching for meaning not just in
the mountain covers they hunted together, but in cordileras accessible
only to the mind.”—Sporting Classics
