The Sun Is a Compass: A 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds

But we’ve known the power of the wild, the all-consuming demands of rain and snow and wind, the callousness of mountains and rivers. We’ve been cared for by strangers. We’ve felt part of something much

Before walking toward the forest’s edge, I offer a silent goodbye to the gray-green waters of the Pacific.

The idea of worrying about only as much as I need to for today, or tomorrow, has finally taken hold.

Oh, no, the current is so close.” Then, in a single, impossible motion, the animal channels its energy into its core and, like a spring released, launches onto its feet. Prancing, it high-steps along the steep bluff. When it eventually darts up the embankment into the brush, I clap my hands, the mother in me washed with relief.

Observation can guide us to wonder. It’s also the foundation of all scientific inquiry. Without observation, we have little hope of understanding an individual, a species, or an entire ecosystem.

After almost five months, movement brings stillness. Movement brings peace.

Even social media and Internet platforms have changed how we do our work, adding millions of observers around the globe and providing sample sizes much larger than anything a single study could achieve.

The certainty that comes from being loved.

Moving at human pace solidifies his connection to the land.

alcoholic; a shower and four walls provided to me right now. The line between words and actions quickly becomes blurred, so we don’t usually speak of our deepest doubts, or acknowledge that we could cause our own undoing. Today I don’t care. I can think of no reason to continue,