A VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR OF THE BACKCOUNTRY

Bison Books are legendary for their broad coverage of western history, especially stories about our passionate interactions with the West’s rugged and beautiful places that continue to shape our expressions of national identity and destiny.  Although you may not be able to visit this backcountry in the near future, Virtually Bison Books can take you to this land of wonder in a mountain minute!

Many of the Virtually Bison Books explore the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, a vibrant, beloved backcountry destination that draws tourists, scientists, politicians, and wayfarers from around the world who want to recapture a sense of primordial America. Yellowstone as a starting point will take visitors to the magnificent Rocky Mountains, a cordillera that has shaped the legends and survival of indigenous peoples from the Yukon all the way down through Mexico, and now draws hikers, skiers, kayakers, cyclists, and others who want a wilderness experience that invokes a sense of the thrill and danger the mountains presented to trappers, miners, missionaries, settlers, railroad builders, armies, and a host of others who sought to settle or traverse the mountains in their searches for whatever destiny awaited them.

For many heading West, what awaited them were more mountains, deserts, canyons, and rivers that invaders thought of as things to conquer, remove, or reshape. In time, rather than seeing these landscapes as obstacles to be overcome, environmental and cultural activists saw them as ecosystems worthy of protecting in their own right, as natural remnants of a land that had endured plows, axes, dams, and urban expansion to become a landscape of solace and adventure, a place where the urban West gives way to the world as it might have looked if none of us were here.

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