If you’re feeling assailed by civilization
— its cell phones, computers and telemarketers — David
Petersen has an antidote for you. But be forewarned: It’s
strong medicine. It’s taken Petersen more than two decades to
acquire his hard-earned lessons, and the going hasn’t always
been smooth. In 1981, he and his wife, Caroline, left behind their
modern lives in sunny California and headed to rural southwest
Colorado. There, on a mountainside near Durango, Petersen built a
modest cabin, and began a life dictated not by materialism, but by
the vagaries of weather, wild game and a short growing season.
On the Wild Edge is both an
unapologetic condemnation of our culture’s dependence on
technological gadgetry and a forceful reminder that we might be
built for better things. “I firmly believe that our ancient innate
knowledge of how best to live is not irrevocably dead but has been
drugged, sedated, and prostituted by modern material culture,”
Petersen writes.
He has made enviable use of that
knowledge. With the quizzical eye of the naturalist and the fierce
concentration of a predator, Petersen is never better than when
depicting the passion and adventure of the hunt, be his prey morel
mushrooms or an autumn elk.
Although he isn’t
optimistic about our species’ ability to appreciate the
lessons learned during our Pleistocene upbringing, Petersen has
constructed a tentative blueprint for salvation, one in keeping
with the credo established by Aldo Leopold and Petersen’s
friend Ed Abbey. Live close to the land. Learn from and respect
your neighbors, especially the four-legged ones. Recognize your
role in the local ecosystem and leave as small a footprint as
possible. And remember that, as Abbey was fond of declaring, nature
always bats last.
On the Wild Edge: In Search of
a Natural Life
David Petersen
250
pages, softcover: $15.
John MacRae Books, 2006
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A deliberate life in the Rockies.
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