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A review by alishabillmen
Being Caribou: Five Months on Foot with an Arctic Herd by Karsten Heuer
5.0
What an incredible pair Karsen Heuer and his wife Leanna are. I can only look up to them with amazement at what they have achieved in the 5-month feat this book documents.
Being Caribou is an exhilarating, inspiring and touching adventure of the newly wedded couple, following the Porcupine Caribou herd on a 2,800-mile journey from their winter-feeding grounds to their summer calving grounds. Migratory caribou herds are named after their birthing grounds, in this case, the Porcupine River, which runs through a large part of the range of the Porcupine herd. Though numbers fluctuate, the Herd comprises about 218,000 animals (based on a July 2017 photo census).
Being Caribou is the second book I have read recently set on the Alaska/Yukon border. Being Caribou has certainly grown my obsession. There was just SO much I got from this book. I felt fully submersed within the environment the author was in, almost as if I could feel the snow, the rain, the hunger when they were without food and the smells and sounds of the migrating Caribou.
What the couple went through was a feat. One that I know I would never be able to accomplish myself, so of course, I lived vicariously through the author and his wife. They faced starving, curious bears along their way, and armed with nothing but a small knife and bear spray the pair had to use their gut instincts to come out alive. From lucky escapes from hypothermia when they could not find a flat spot to pitch their tent to shelter from the rain and snow to learning to live, as a newly married couple, elbow to elbow with each other, day in and day out in a small tent.
This book made me feel something a book has not done in a while. I felt in some way connected to the Porcupine herd. I read through their difficult migration path, calves losing their mothers to botfly infestations, cows losing calves to bears and the biggest threat of all, our greed for economic growth in the form of oil.
The Porcupine Herds calving grounds are directly on top of the 1002 area, which has long been a target for oil development. This threat is the whole purpose the couple set on this journey to follow the herd's migration route, to show why this can’t happen.
For the sake of the Porcupine Herd and inhabitants of the Yukon, which rely on the Caribou for sustenance, I hope that we can prevent such turmoil from being caused to their essential calving grounds.
Being Caribou is an exhilarating, inspiring and touching adventure of the newly wedded couple, following the Porcupine Caribou herd on a 2,800-mile journey from their winter-feeding grounds to their summer calving grounds. Migratory caribou herds are named after their birthing grounds, in this case, the Porcupine River, which runs through a large part of the range of the Porcupine herd. Though numbers fluctuate, the Herd comprises about 218,000 animals (based on a July 2017 photo census).
Being Caribou is the second book I have read recently set on the Alaska/Yukon border. Being Caribou has certainly grown my obsession. There was just SO much I got from this book. I felt fully submersed within the environment the author was in, almost as if I could feel the snow, the rain, the hunger when they were without food and the smells and sounds of the migrating Caribou.
What the couple went through was a feat. One that I know I would never be able to accomplish myself, so of course, I lived vicariously through the author and his wife. They faced starving, curious bears along their way, and armed with nothing but a small knife and bear spray the pair had to use their gut instincts to come out alive. From lucky escapes from hypothermia when they could not find a flat spot to pitch their tent to shelter from the rain and snow to learning to live, as a newly married couple, elbow to elbow with each other, day in and day out in a small tent.
This book made me feel something a book has not done in a while. I felt in some way connected to the Porcupine herd. I read through their difficult migration path, calves losing their mothers to botfly infestations, cows losing calves to bears and the biggest threat of all, our greed for economic growth in the form of oil.
The Porcupine Herds calving grounds are directly on top of the 1002 area, which has long been a target for oil development. This threat is the whole purpose the couple set on this journey to follow the herd's migration route, to show why this can’t happen.
For the sake of the Porcupine Herd and inhabitants of the Yukon, which rely on the Caribou for sustenance, I hope that we can prevent such turmoil from being caused to their essential calving grounds.