Looking for adventure and continuing a process of self-discovery,
Janisse Ray has repeatedly set out to immerse herself in wildness, to be
wild, and to learn what wildness can teach us. From overwintering with
monarch butterflies in Mexico to counting birds in Belize, the stories
in Wild Spectacle capture her luckiest moments--ones of
heart-pounding amazement, discovery of romance, and moving toward living
more wisely. In Ray's worst moments she crosses boundaries to encounter
danger and embrace sadness.
Anchored firmly in two places Ray has called home--Montana and southern
Georgia--the sixteen essays here span a landscape from Alaska to Central
America, connecting common elements in the ecosystems of people and
place. One of her abiding griefs is that she has missed the sights of
explorers like Bartram, Sacagawea, and Carver: flocks of passenger
pigeons, routes of wolves, herds of bison. She craves a wilder world and
documents encounters that are rare in a time of disappearing habitat,
declining biodiversity, and a world too slowly coming to terms with
climate change.
In an age of increasingly virtual, urban life, Ray embraces the
intentionality of trying to be a better person balanced with seeking out
natural spectacle, abundance, and less trammeled environments. She
questions what it means to travel into the wild as a woman, speculates
on the impacts of ecotourism and travel in general, questions
assumptions about eating from the land, and appeals to future
generations to make substantive change.
Wild Spectacle explores our first home, the wild earth, and invites
us to question its known and unknown beauties and curiosities.
