Walking the High Desert: Encounters with Rural America along the Oregon Desert Trail - Softcover

Waterston, Ellen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0295747501 ISBN 13: 9780295747507

Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2020

Synopsis

Former high desert rancher Ellen Waterston writes of a wild, essentially roadless, starkly beautiful part of the American West. Following the recently created 750-mile Oregon Desert Trail, she embarks on a creative and inquisitive exploration, introducing readers to a “trusting, naïve, earnest, stubbly, grumpy old man of a desert” that is grappling with issues at the forefront of national, if not global, concern: public land use, grazing rights for livestock, protection of sacred Indigenous ground, water rights, and protection of habitat for endangered species. Blending travel writing with memoir and history, Waterston profiles a wide range of people who call the high desert home and offers fresh perspectives on nationally reported regional conflicts such as the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation. Walking the High Desert invites readers—wherever they may be—to consider their own beliefs, identities, and surroundings through the optic of the high desert of southeastern Oregon.

About this title

About the Author

Former rancher Ellen Waterston is the author of the essay collection Where the Crooked River Rises: A High Desert Home (OSU Press) and three collections of poetry. She is the founder of the Bend, Oregon literary festival The Nature of Words and instructor and founder of the Writing Ranch, which hosts writing workshops in central Oregon and awards the annual Waterston Desert Writing Prize.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295747501
• ISBN 13: 9780295747507
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248