Wild Lives: A Cultural History of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness
I'm at work on a nonfiction book that explores the nuanced history of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, which straddles the Montana-Idaho border in the Northern Rocky Mountains. Part of my process involves fleshing out the lives of individuals whose destinies intertwine with one another as well as with the larger narrative of place.
Although the Selway-Bitterroot is the third largest wilderness area outside of Alaska and was among the first pieces of land to achieve wilderness status in the U.S., no comprehensive history has yet been written about it. My project uses audio and video recordings, historical and current photography, and three forms writing: historical narrative, interviews, and personal essay.
My aim is to demonstrate that the Selway-Bitterroot, and by extension all wilderness areas, are living histories, a concept used by ethnographers, historians, and conceptual artists to describe a collaborative process that melds past and present and privileges contingency, embodied experience, and multiple voices over static, linear narrative.
I'm currently conducting oral history interviews and visiting archives in Washington, Idaho and Montana.
Wild Lives: A Cultural History of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness
I'm at work on a nonfiction book that explores the nuanced history of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, which straddles the Montana-Idaho border in the Northern Rocky Mountains. Part of my process involves fleshing out the lives of individuals whose destinies intertwine with one another as well as with the larger narrative of place.
Although the Selway-Bitterroot is the third largest wilderness area outside of Alaska and was among the first pieces of land to achieve wilderness status in the U.S., no comprehensive history has yet been written about it. My project uses audio and video recordings, historical and current photography, and three forms writing: historical narrative, interviews, and personal essay.
My aim is to demonstrate that the Selway-Bitterroot, and by extension all wilderness areas, are living histories, a concept used by ethnographers, historians, and conceptual artists to describe a collaborative process that melds past and present and privileges contingency, embodied experience, and multiple voices over static, linear narrative.
I'm currently conducting oral history interviews and visiting archives in Washington, Idaho and Montana.