American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.62 (562 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B001MXQ7BK |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 448 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-04-02 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon is his fascinating chronicle, beginning with a search for Black Diamond (the doomed model for the Buffalo Nickel) and including an exploration of "buffalo jumps" (where thousands were run over cliffs by Native American hunters), and tales of bone piles--harvested from the plains for a thriving fertilizer industry--stacked 10 feet high, 20 feet wide, and a half-mile long. Rinella's history is deftly interwoven with his own literal buffalo hunt in Alaska's Wrangell mountains, complete with grizzly bears, raging, ice-rimmed rivers, and bouts of hypothermia and frostbite. Best of the Month, December 2008: Before the 18th century, the American buffalo was the largest land mammal in North America, largely predator-free and roaming the continent in numbers esti
Adam W said A must read for hunters and non-hunters alike.. Excellent writing by Steven Rinella. A mix of American history, a once in a lifetime hunt, friendship, brotherhood and his quest to fill his freezer with some of the most incredible meat one can procure. I really enjoyed this book and have bought several copies for friends. Steve has been breaking the stereotype of the drunk Bubba shooting out the truck window for a long time and giving readers (and viewers of his Meateater TV show) a look at the real hunting culture we have in America. If you like hunting stories or American history, this book is a must read.. Buffalo Steve Whatever tiny inkling I might have had to go into the wild and be one with nature was snuffed out by Mr. Rinella's 'American Buffalo'. The self-effacing hunter's memoir about tracking and killing a buffalo in Alaska is vividly retold. Interesting history and facts about the animal are interspersed between his adventure. There are about a dozen black-and-white photos scattered through it. The author is intelligent, has a insatiable curiosity, and is introspective. The work is grounded in reality and describes the buffalo's evolution without resorting to creationis. Blue Doe said Highly recommended. I first became aware of Steven through his tv show MeatEater. I greatly enjoy his intellectual curiosity and thoughtful approach to hunting and eating game animals. This book covers so much ground, documenting the history of the bison and of early native American life and the effects of the westward expansion of white settlement on the populations of both bison and Indians. Interspersed are Steven's personal experiences hunting and killing a wild bison in Alaska. I found the book fascinatingnon-hunters be warned that the harvest of the bison's meat is decribed in
But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Through this experience, Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 years’ worth of buffalo hunters in North America and the place of the buffalo in the American consciousness. American Buffalo is a narrative tale of that hunt. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalo’s past, present, and future: to the Bering Strait Land Bridge; to buffalo jumps, where Native Americans ran buffalo over cliffs by the hundreds; even to the Bronx Zoo, where legend has it a depressed buffalo served as the model for the American nickel. And yet it also tells us as much about ourselves as Americans as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos.. Rinella’s erudition and exuberance, combined with his gift for storytelling, make him the perfect guide for a book