A thousand trails home, with Seth Kantner

Author Seth Kantner shares stories from his new book, a stunningly lyrical firsthand account of a life spent hunting, studying and living alongside caribou in wild Alaska.

“A Thousand Trails Home,” written by Seth Kantner, encompasses the historical past and present day, revealing the fragile and intertwined lives of people and animals surviving in an uncertain landscape of cultural and climatic change sweeping the Alaska Arctic. Seth’s stories vividly highlight the interconnectedness of the Iñupiat of Northwest Alaska, the Western Arctic caribou herd, and the larger Arctic region. His tale has global relevance as it takes place in one of the largest remaining intact wilderness ecosystems on the planet and ground zero for climate change in the U.S. — Arctic Alaska.

More about Seth: Seth Kantner was born and raised in northern Alaska and has worked as a trapper, wilderness guide, wildlife photographer, gardening teacher, and adjunct professor. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Outside, Orion, and Smithsonian Magazine. Kantner is the author of the award-winning novel “Ordinary Wolves,” the memoir “Shopping for Porcupine,” and a collection of essays entitled “Swallowed by the Great Land: And Other Dispatches from Alaska’s Frontier.” He has been a commercial fisherman in Kotzebue Sound for more than four decades and lives in Northwest Alaska.

Watch Seth’s episode of Geography of Hope below: