My new fantasy novel hasn't even been released yet, and I am already getting questions from people who are reading the advanced reading copies (but not necessarily following my blog).

Here is one of the questions: 

Why did you make the Prince's uncle a hunchback, and is he a sadist or just pragmatic when it comes to extracting information from his prisoners in his dungeon?

Answer:  

I made him a hunchback because I wanted to pay tribute to some of my favorite authors who wrote great stories featuring hunchbacks;  The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, Richard the Third by William Shakespeare. I also wanted to include a physically flawed character into my retelling of the Cinderella tale; one that adds a new dimension and whose own amorous adventures enrich my work.  As for him being a sadist or a pragmatist, I leave that for my gentle readers to decide. 

Keep the questions coming.  As the launch for my book approaches on Oct. 5, 2021, this blog will focus on Ardennia.

Kit Carson and the Indians by Thomas Dunlay

This is a fascinating and disturbing nonfiction book.  It is quite scholarly and describes how Kit Carson witnessed and participated in the decimation of the American West's wildlife and Indigenous peoples.  In his time he was lionized as a great mountain man, scout and Indian fighter.  In the 1970s he began to be vilified as books like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown and movies like Little Big Man revealed the ugly truths about the conflict between Native Americans and the white people who coveted their lands.  To be fair, Kit Carson was only a man of his times; his contribution to trapping out beaver, extirpating species like bison, elk, deer, antelope, wolf, bear, coyote and cougar, and oppressing Native Americans - especially the Navajo Nation - was reprehensible but he was not as mean-spirited as the many settlers who were calling for the total eradication of any Indigenous people who stood their way.  Indeed, he often sympathized with the Indians he came to know so well, and - as an Indian agent in his waning years - did what he thought was best to preserve them from utter annihilation.  As far as the American West's wildlife and natural wonders went, it would take a new generation of men like John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot* to turn the tide of public opinion and begin the work of designating lands as National Parks and Forests.

*Served as the 1st head of the United States Forest Service

 

Close Encounter with a Grizzly in Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park is famous for its glaciers and its grizzly bears.  The glaciers are gradually melting, but the grizzly bears are doing just fine*.  The occasional victim of grizzly bear attacks in Glacier National Park, however, would find little comfort in this.  My close encounter came in 1981 while I was hiking on a remote mountain trail with a friend.  Below is the excerpt from my book Close Calls and Foolhardy Romances about what happened.

“Ahead of us, just twenty-five feet away, a large brown body (a grizzly) was emerging from the forest and onto the trail . .  .  I reached my right hand down to my knife and unsnapped the sheath cover.  The grizzly stepped out and paused, broadside on the trail. Amazingly it was unaware of our presence, and I took advantage of its heedlessness by letting out a blood-curdling roar.  Simultaneously, I ripped my knife out of its sheath and raised it menacingly over my head.  Caught by surprise and startled by my belligerence, the bear turned on its haunches and sped away with the utmost haste.  For ten seconds I remained in my stance, adrenaline pulsing through my arteries.  Then I felt a weakness at the back of my knees, and found it hard to stand.”

About a week later, while I was driving home to Wisconsin, I picked up a seedy looking hitchhiker.  After a few minutes he took out a jackknife and intimated that I should drive out of my way to deliver him to Wisconsin Rapids.  I said I needed my roadmap to navigate, opened the glove box and took out my grizzly knife instead of a roadmap.  Seeing this he meekly folded up his impotent little jackknife.  This incident is eerily like a scene in Crocodile Dundee where a New York punk pulls a knife on Dundee and his girl.  Dundee is unimpressed and the punk says “What’s a matter with you?  This is a knife.”  Dundee then pulls out his huge hunting knife and says:  “That’s not a knife.  This is a knife.”

*The same cannot be said for polar bears.  Loss of habitat (the arctic ice sheets) is causing a  great decline in their numbers.

Next post:  Review of Kit Carson and the Indians, by Thomas Dunlay

Greetings,

As promised this blog is going to be about the intersection of books, adventure and the environment.  Many of the books on the menu will be nonfiction works such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard. Works of fiction will include literary/adventure novels by authors like Jack London, Herman Melville and Ernest Hemingway.  Sprinkled into the mix will be my own writings, including excerpts from my autobiography and references to my plays - especially the ones with environmental themes.  At bottom is the subject of my next post, and I will close this post with a Helen Keller* quote demonstrating the risks involved in everyday life :  "Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all."

 *Inspirational writer who became blind and deaf when she was only 19 months old.

Next Post: Excerpt from my autobigraphy about a close encounter with a grizzly bear in Glacier National Park.