This collection of essays -- twenty-seven in all -- about the Yaak Valley of northwestern Montana brings to life the wilderness and isolation, exhilaration and trepidation that visitors (and residents) encounter here. The half-million-acre Yaak Valley is home to only 150 people but untold numbers of elk, deer, grizzly bears, cougars, and other critters, big and small. An astonishing 175,000 acres remain roadless in this remote area near the Canadian border. Read about a mother who spends Thanksgiving weekend in the Yaak with her children. ."..the Yaak is where my children and I together, have fallen headlong into the glory of the unfamiliar, into the last of the planet's wilderness, the unpredictability of the natural landscape, the authentic hush possible only away from the clamor" (Traveling Close to Home, Debra Gwartney). You will learn about a teacher who is torn between the world beyond the Yaak and the life he has come to know: mountains, thick forests, snow, and bears. And you will learn why we as a people must protect wilderness like this for future generations.