Barry lopez obituary
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Barry Lopez on the Wolf Biologist Who Changed His Life as an Environmentalist
In the fall of 1975 I read a scientific report that made me sit up straight in my chair. It was entitled “The Eskimo Hunter’s View of Wolf Ecology and Behavior” and appeared in a peer-reviewed volume of technical papers called The Wild Canids, edited by Michael Fox. At the time I was in the middle of researching a book about wolves, so I read carefully every paper in Fox’s book. The one I regarded as a watershed statement was co-authored by Bob Stephenson and a Nunamiut Eskimo hunter from the central Brooks Range named Bob Ahgook.
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In the early 1970s, the notion that indigenous peoples had anything of substance to offer Western science about wild animals, any important contribution to make to the overall study of wildlife, was either scoffed at by professionals in wildlife science or gently dismissed because the indigenous information, purportedly, “lacked rigor.” The report by Stephenson and Ahgook flew directly in the face of this idea. In my mind,
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Spring 2001, Volume 18.3
Conversation
David Thomas Sumner
Nature Writing, American Literature, and the Idea of Community—A Conversation with Barry Lopez
David Thomas Sumner (Ph.D., University of Oregon) teaches in the English Department at Weber State University. His essays have appeared in Ecocomposition (SUNY Press, 2001) and In Our Own Voice (Allyn & Bacon, 1999). He is also contributing editor for The Shape of Reason (Allyn & Bacon, 2000). Sumner is currently working on a rhetorical study of American nature writing and its connection to environmental ethics.
Widely respected as a naturalist and writer, Barry Lopez is a major voice in American letters. He is the author of several volumes of fiction and nonfiction including River Notes, Desert Notes, Lessons from the Wolverine, Of Wolves and Men, Arctic Dreams, and most recently Light Action in the Caribbean. Lopez has received the prestigious John Burroughs Medal for distinguished natural history writing and the Christopher Medal for humanitarian writing. He also received the Natio American writer (1945–2020) Barry Holstun Lopez (January 6, 1945 – December 25, 2020) was an American author, essayist, nature writer, and fiction writer whose work is known for its humanitarian and environmental concerns. In a career spanning over 50 years, he visited more than 80 countries, and wrote extensively about a variety of landscapes including the Arctic wilderness, exploring the relationship between human cultures and nature. He won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for Arctic Dreams (1986) and his Of Wolves and Men (1978) was a National Book Award finalist.[1] He was a contributor to magazines including Harper's Magazine, National Geographic, and The Paris Review. Lopez was born Barry Holstun Brennan on January 6, 1945, in Port Chester, New York,[2][3] to Mary Frances (née Holstun) and John Brennan. His family moved to Reseda, California after the birth of his brother, Dennis, in 1948. He attended grade school at Our Lady of Grace during this time.[4] His paren
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Barry Lopez
Early life
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