American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon
Written by Steven Rinella
Narrated by Steven Rinella
5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
From the host of the Travel Channel's "The Wild Within."
A hunt for the American buffalo—an adventurous, fascinating examination of an animal that has haunted the American imagination.
In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness. Despite the odds—there's only a 2 percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful—Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountainside and then raft the meat back to civilization while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Throughout these adventures, Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 years' worth of buffalo hunters in North America, as well as the buffalo's place in the American experience. At the time of the Revolutionary War, North America was home to approximately 40 million buffalo, the largest herd of big mammals on the planet, but by the mid-1890s only a few hundred remained. Now that the buffalo is on the verge of a dramatic ecological recovery across the West, Americans are faced with the challenge of how, and if, we can dare to share our land with a beast that is the embodiment of the American wilderness.
American Buffalo is a narrative tale of Rinella's hunt. But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalo's past, present, and future: to the Bering Land Bridge, where scientists search for buffalo bones amid artifacts of the New World's earliest human inhabitants; to buffalo jumps where Native Americans once ran buffalo over cliffs by the thousands; to the Detroit Carbon works, a "bone charcoal" plant that made fortunes in the late 1800s by turning millions of tons of buffalo bones into bone meal, black dye, and fine china; and even to an abattoir turned fashion mecca in Manhattan's Meatpacking District, where a depressed buffalo named Black Diamond met his fate after serving as the model for the American nickel.
Rinella's erudition and exuberance, combined with his gift for storytelling, make him the perfect guide for a book that combines outdoor adventure with a quirky blend of facts and observations about history, biology, and the natural world. Both a captivating narrative and a book of environmental and historical significance, American Buffalo tells us as much about ourselves as Americans as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos.
Related to American Buffalo
Related audiobooks
Seth Kinman: The Life and Legacy of the Famous Californian Mountain Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black Cowboys of the Old West: True, Sensational, and Little-Known Stories From History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean's Greatest Predator Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wolf Nation: The Life, Death, and Return of Wild American Wolves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Return of the Bison: A Story of Survival, Restoration, and a Wilder World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Weird and Mysterious United States: Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena across America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Zion: Cliven Bundy, God & Public Lands in the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley: Drowned by the Quabbin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Cryptids: In Pursuit of the Elusive Creatures Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Every Creeping Thing: True Tales of Faintly Repulsive Wildlife Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People of the Northeast Woodlands: Native People, Native Lands Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When Two Feathers Fell From The Sky Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Son Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Mythology: The Art of Native American, Inuit, Aztec, and Inca Myths Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Famous Heroes of the American West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ivory's Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cat's Walk Across America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rangers, Trappers, and Trailblazers: Early Adventures in Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness and Glacier National Park Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBay Curious: Exploring the Hidden True Stories of the San Francisco Bay Area Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoanoke: The Lost Colony: An Unsolved Mystery from History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Nature For You
The Genius of Birds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Every Living Thing: The Warm and Joyful Memoirs of the World's Most Beloved Animal Doctor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Underland: A Deep Time Journey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fox & I: An Uncommon Friendship Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Venom Doc: The Edgiest, Darkest, Strangest Natural History Memoir Ever Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Uncertain Sea: Fear is everywhere. Embrace it. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Coffee: A Sustainable Guide to Nootropics, Adaptogens, and Mushrooms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for American Buffalo
22 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This guy is a born storyteller and a cool dude. He reminds me of what George W. Bush might be like if he wasn’t such a dink.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well done, through the iconagraphy, the history, the spirit, the hunt
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What a great book so much history. Had a great time listening .