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"This passionate work is a welcome and worthy addition to the growing canon of environmental literature." --Publishers Weekly Starred Review
“If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.” Edward Abbey
In a collection of gripping stories of adventure, Doug Peacock, loner, iconoclast, environmentalist, and contemporary of Edward Abbey, reflects on a life lived in the wild, asking the question many ask in their twilight years: “Was It Worth It?”
Recounting sojourns with Abbey, but also Peter Matthiessen, Doug Tompkins, Jim Harrison, Yvon Chouinard and others, Peacock observes that what he calls “solitary walks” were the greatest currency he and his buddies ever shared. He asserts that “solitude is the deepest well I have encountered in this life,” and the introspection it affords has made him who he is: a lifelong protector of the wilderness and its many awe-inspiring inhabitants.
In the tradition of Peacock’s many best-selling books, Was It Worth It? is both entertaining and thought provoking. It challenges any reader to make certain that the answer to the question for their own life is “Yes!”
Publishers Weekly Starred Review: Naturalist and explorer Peacock (In the Shadow of the Sabertooth) presents a captivating retrospective on his life in the wild. Using vivid imagery, he reflects on humanity's relationship with the natural world, his tour of duty in Vietnam, living among Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, and, appropriately, mortality. Each memory encapsulates Peacock's profound compassion for humans and animals alike, and his deep sense of responsibility. After attending to "too much collateral damage—that cowardly phrase they apply to the pile of small, dismembered bodies after a botched air attack," as a Special Forces medic in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, Peacock "applied the anger I had built doing that to the defense of wild things." Readers will appreciate his madcap yet reverential takes on nature; recalling a close encounter with a snake on the Missouri headwaters, he wonders, "How the hell could anyone believe humans were the center of the world when facing poisonous reptiles, grizzlies... or polar bears on equal terms and neutral turf?" While ruefully aware of the prospect of catastrophic global warming ("The beast of today is climate change"), Peacock's "heightened awareness" of the beauty of the wild never wanes. This passionate work is a welcome and worthy addition to the growing canon of environmental literature."
"While I loved the adventure stories, I was most struck by Peacock’s long-lasting friendships with many high-powered personalities– Yvon Chouinard, Jim Harrison, Ed Abbey, Rick Ridgeway, Doug Tompkins, and more. I’m fascinated by how that crew of rebellious legends fed off each other’s energy, increasing their impact both individually and collectively." -- Ed Roberson, Mountain and Prairie podcast and book reviews
About Walking It Off: “Peacock is a direct literary descendant of Thoreau, with a few genes from Audubon and his mentor, Edward Abbey… His response to the natural world is visceral, intellectual and spiritual at the same time. In this book, he writes about it beautifully, in prose that begs comparison to the best of Peter Matthiessen… His meditations on war and wilderness are painfully apt today, with America fighting new battles abroad, led by an administration that seems to be at war with wilderness at home.” —Phil Caputo, Pulitzer Prize winner for A Rumor of War
Was It Worth It? : A Wilderness Warrior's Long Trail Home
CONTENTS
Preface: Winter Count
The Hayduke Ancestry
Treasure in the Sierra Madre
Counting Sheep
Why I Don’t Trophy Hunt
Sheepherder Stew for Abbey
Monsoon
Headwaters
Stalking Polar Bears with Doug Tompkins
Round River Conservation Studies
Spirit Bears
Tiger Tales
Cheating Robinson Crusoe
Galapagos
Reburying the Arrowheads
Postscript: The Perfect Bait for an Outbreak