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Grinning, I worked the levers and lowered my bucket. Drawing the teeth down and back, I chewed my first hole in the soil of Las Vegas, one of several I would dig over the next 90 minutes. Operating the 315CL Caterpillar Hydraulic Excavator at the Heavy Equipment Playground set me…
Read moreAs a child he witnessed magic. Among the spires of orange and russet rock, in the shadows of parapets ribboned with plum colored bands left by long receded seas, he watched as the Hopi medicine man placed the tip of an eagle feather against his mother’s neck and sang. His…
Read moreMy brother Curt and I were sitting in the dining room of the Little America Hotel in Flagstaff, AZ after our ski trip to Telluride when I said, “Look something up on your phone, will you? See if you can find out the steepest pitch a person can ski without…
Read moreSome warning labels are ridiculous. A warning label on a chainsaw says: Do not attempt to stop chain with hands. A warning label on a wheelbarrow says: Not intended for highway use. A warning label on a mattress says: Do not attempt to swallow. The lengths we go to prevent…
Read moreWhen he found the bodies, George Bascom was furious. Didn’t this prove what he had been saying all along, that the Indian chief and his followers were ruthless killers? They had undoubtedly slain the little boy too, which was why they had been refusing to return him. The four bodies…
Read moreThe black mailbox was white. Or more precisely it was a black mailbox locked inside a white wooden outer box, a mystery locked inside an enigma, a fitting symbol. Amongst all the graffiti, stenciled in large black letters, was the name Medlin. He still lived here. He still collected his…
Read moreIt’s true. Mountain biking is one of the most exciting, gut-checking, adrenalin-pumping sports there is. It requires skill, finesse, courage and physical strength. It also requires a comfortable familiarity with pain, a friendly association with contusions, a nodding acquaintance with exhaustion, and a willingness to get cozy with nausea and…
Read moreWhen I told Gray that the final drop-off at Shotgun Eddie’s, a 7-foot drop into a fast running current riddled with submerged rocks was a Class IV rapid, he scoffed. Gray was of the opinion that any river that could be run by inexperienced rafters, many of them unable to…
Read more“Chuff-chuff-chuff,” came the sound. I stopped dead in my tracks and listened. I had been hiking the trail high in the Bitterroot Mountains of western Montana for well over an hour and seen no other person. There it was again. “Chuff-chuff-chuff,” like an animal panting. A signboard at the trail…
Read moreWandering the streets of Boise, I came across a homeless guy picking through the trash. I was just finishing my lunch, a McDonalds number one value meal, which, if you don’t already know, is a Big Mac, soft drink and fries. Foolishly, I had agreed to super size it, which…
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Pilgrim’s Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier by Tom Kizzia
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The question of what to do when a child is lured into a cult is hard enough, but the issue becomes even more complicated when the cult is actually the child’s family and the cult leader is the child’s father. The complications deepen when the cult leader and his family are elevated to the status of a cause celebre by anti-government groups fighting the US Park Service in a remote corner of Alaska…
