American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West

by Nate Blakeslee

After reading Edward Abbey’s memoir Desert Solitaire, about a couple of seasons the ardent conservationist spent as a ranger in Utah’s Arches National Park, Rick decided his future was with the National Park Service. His first assignment was as an interpretive ranger at Denali, where once again his job was to talk to visitors about what they were seeing in the wilderness. He began keeping a journal, though he still wasn’t writing much otherwise. In his spare time, however, he began experimenting with wildlife photography and found he had a knack for it. Once he’d mastered the craft, getting good shots was chiefly a matter of patience and dedication, and Rick found he had both in abundance. What began as a pastime quickly grew into an obsession. He published widely, eventually landing his work in National Geographic, the holy grail for wildlife photographers worldwide. He followed a grizzly cub from its early months through adulthood and published a book of photographs documenting the first five years of its life. Eventually his fascination with bears waned, however. They lived a long time, which meant you could follow individuals for years, but they were solitary creatures that seldom interacted with their own kind. That made their behavior, for Rick, somewhat too predictable.