A Thousand Trails Home

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What to expect

A stunningly lyrical firsthand account of a life spent hunting, studying, and living alongside caribou, A Thousand Trails Home encompasses the historical past and present day, revealing the fragile intertwined lives of people and animals surviving on an uncertain landscape of cultural and climatic change sweeping the Alaskan Arctic. Author Seth Kantner vividly illuminates this critical story about the interconnectedness of the Iñupiat of Northwest Alaska, the Western Arctic caribou herd, and the larger Arctic region. This story has global relevance as it takes place in one of the largest remaining intact wilderness ecosystems on the planet, ground zero for climate change in the US. This compelling and complex tale revolves around the politics of caribou, race relations, urban vs. rural demands, subsistence vs. sport hunting, and cultural priorities vs. resource extraction—a story that requires a fearless writer with an honest voice and an open heart.

Critics Review

  • “A Thousand Trails Home is a book of supernal majesty, a book to break and restore your heart. Seth Kantner’s devotion to the living pulse and unity of the skein of wonder that is the Alaskan wilderness haunts and inspires me.”

    Louise Erdrich, New York Times bestselling author

  • “Seth Kantner is the most interesting person and the finest writer I know. I savor his writing as I have savored the work of Annie Proulx and John McPhee. Nature is not landscape or subject matter for him; it is sustenance, literal and emotional. He doesn’t just write what he knows; he writes what he lives and breathes. This book is extraordinary.”

    Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author

  • [An] intelligent, emotional, and passionate exploration of life among the Western Arctic caribou herd…Ordinary Wolves and Shopping for Porcupine made Kantner a literary force, but this is the book he was born to write.”

    Booklist (starred review)

  • “Readers will gain a new appreciation of these magnificent ruminants through Kantner’s sharply focused eyes.”

    Kirkus Reviews

  • “A Thousand Trails Home is a literary tour de force that reaffirms Seth Kantner’s place as one of Alaska’s premier writers. An amalgam of intimate autobiography and impeccable nature writing, Kantner’s luminous prose transports the reader to a timeless world, shaped by great waves of hooves and antlers.”

    Nick Jans, author of A Wolf Called Romeo

  • “Beloved Alaskan author Seth Kantner has written his magnum opus. A Thousand Trails Home is an inspiring and important book about Alaskan culture, biology, philosophy, history—and love for the creature at the heart of life on the tundra. Through deft storytelling and exquisite, gut-wrenching prose, Kantner shows us how caribou might be the ultimate harbinger of what is to come for humanity if we can’t slow down and learn from the land, the elders, and those animals on whom our very existence depends.”

    Don Rearden, author of The Raven's Gift

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