Writer, former rancher and landscape architect Donna L. Erickson presents her new work of nonfiction Rooted at the Edge: Ranching Where the Old West and New West Collide, at Elk River Books, 122 S. 2nd St. The free event will be held on Thursday, May 8, at 7 pm, and includes a book signing and reception.
Rooted at the Edge paints a portrait of a ranching community in a threatened landscape steeped in history, conflict and beauty. In this narrative nonfiction work, Erickson explores the hilly skirt of ground at the northern boundary of Missoula, Montana, separating the town from the wilderness beyond. The North Hills region represents the critical—and often highly personal—issues at play at the edge of many western towns.
The urban-rural fringe is both valuable and vulnerable. Across the West rural lifestyles are increasingly compromised by suburbanization, economic hardship, and family dynamics; a way of life and a way of work are vanishing. Ranchland may be simultaneously cherished by a family for the life its members have made there and coveted by urban neighbors for open space. Community residents may love a place for its scenery and wildlife habitat while others wish it converted to a commercial parking lot. Complex ecological relationships can be bulldozed in a single afternoon. And the threats of climate change and shifting populations compromise the edge even more.
Mary Clearman Blew, author of Think of Horses, calls the book “beautifully detailed and evocative,” that is “part loving memorial of Erickson’s girlhood on Montana’s Skyline Ranch, part warning of damages to the land through the forces of development, [that] concludes with a feather of hope for western Montana’s landscape.”
Erickson is a consultant on open-space conservation in the Rocky Mountain West and was an associate professor of landscape architecture and planning at the University of Michigan for 16 years. Erickson has published extensively in design, planning and conservation journals and is the author of MetroGreen: Connecting Open Space in North American Cities.
For those who can’t attend in person, the event will live-stream at our YouTube Page.
