Land of Bear and Eagle - by Tanyo Ravicz Paperback

About the Book

At odds with society, Ravicz persuades his wife, to join him in a reset, a new beginning. Before long, they and their children are living in a wilderness cabin on Alaska's Kodiak Island, outnumbered by the brown bears.

Book Synopsis

At loose ends in his private life, at odds with society, Tanyo Ravicz persuades Martina, his wife, to join him in a reset, a new beginning. Before long, they and their children are living in a wilderness cabin on Alaska's Kodiak Island, outnumbered by the brown bears.

A celebration of nature and of the peculiarities of the Alaskan bush, Land of Bear and Eagle: A Home in the Kodiak Wilderness builds from personal experience to a rounded, loving portrait of a place, Cottonwood Homestead, and a way of life. In these essays and sketches, by turns humorous, meditative and lyrical, the author goes beyond the challenges and triumphs of wilderness living to explore his environment and to examine the relationships among the plants and animals and the people he meets. Along the way, he wrestles with his doubts and reconsiders his assumptions about life.

The testament of one of Alaska's last homesteaders, this book offers a vision of what it means to be wedded to a place and fully alive to the world.

From the Back Cover

At loose ends in his private life, at odds with society, Tanyo Ravicz persuades Martina, his wife, to join him in a reset, a new beginning. Before long, they and their children are living in a wilderness cabin on Alaska's Kodiak Island, outnumbered by the brown bears.

A celebration of nature and of the peculiarities of the Alaskan bush, Land of Bear and Eagle: A Home in the Kodiak Wilderness builds from personal experience to a rounded, loving portrait of a place, Cottonwood Homestead, and a way of life. In these essays and sketches, by turns humorous, meditative and lyrical, the author goes beyond the challenges and triumphs of wilderness living to explore his environment and to examine the relationships among the plants and animals and the people he meets. Along the way, he wrestles with his doubts and reconsiders his assumptions about life.

The testament of one of Alaska's last homesteaders, this book offers a vision of what it means to be wedded to a place and fully alive to the world.

Review Quotes

"A disenchanted truth seeker in his youth, Tanyo Ravicz with his young family, eschewed lives of quiet desperation by settling a hard heaven of 16 acres accessible only by sea or by air.

In language unflinchingly honest, graceful, precise, tender, flashing with humor, and sounding Thoreauvian notes, Land of Bear and Eagle offers a kaleidoscope of seasonal reflections and observations. Treading lightly, fully aware on the land, Ravicz met deer "masters of the quiet" and eagles with "the imperial disdain of centurions." Where lesser writers employ a journal's chronology, he has assembled topical essays in a structure that deepens our understanding of decades of returning to Cottonwood Homestead, sojourns that bestowed on this indweller a profound, long-term perspective. This collection derives its freshness and poignancy from the author's frequent skipping between worlds: an urban, mainland or even Californian one and a wild insular one where the world's largest brown bears outnumber and mingle with people and the nearest phone was a five-mile boat ride away. Ravicz' memories cut to the core of the Alaska experience-not since John Haines has this state's literature seen a homesteading poet like him."

- Michael Engelhard, author of Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon and Where the Rain Children Sleep: A Sacred Geography of the Colorado Plateau

"Tanyo Ravicz knows Alaska. His new book, Land of Bear and Eagle: A Home in the Kodiak Wilderness, offers a keen look at the wilderness of the nation's northernmost state. Ravicz has a fine eye for the details of ordinary lives lived in an exhilarating climate, yet he explores with equal finesse the soulful elements of dedicating oneself to intentional living. He also examines the significance of historic and social trends impacting those lives. Ravicz's personal story brings a strong perspective to the book: he's fought forest fires in Alaska's Interior, lived among moose in rural Fairbanks as he and his wife parented young children, then built a homestead on Kodiak Island, all while participating in the state's lively literary scene. Ravicz is a good and courageous writer, the real deal, and his new book is a pleasure to read."

- Jean Anderson, author of Human Being Songs: Northern Stories and In Extremis and Other Alaskan Stories

"... acutely detailed essays and relaxed, down-home yarns ... treats the reader not only to the reality but also to the philosophy of homesteading ... a manual of advice and perspective for those considering the notion of life in the wilderness."

- Barbara Bamberger Scott, US Review of Books

"Ravicz's essays and sketches about the land and his Far North experiences do the next best thing for armchair readers ... Under his hand, Cottonwood Homestead comes to life, Alaska's rugged beauty and individualist dream return to the center of human experience, and readers will, for a moment, know freedoms and wilderness milieus that seem to be long gone from this world ... Readers who look for memoirs steeped in a sense of place, purpose, and adventure will find these elements and more in Land of Bear and Eagle, a powerful, highly recommended pick that should be in any library collection strong in accounts of building a life on the land, of wilderness and its preservation, and of the American spirit of individualism and independence."

- D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review

About the Author