Ring deRosset, Susan, authorCallahan, Gerald, advisorLevy, Ellen J., committee memberRollin, Bernard, committee member2007-01-032015-09-302013http://hdl.handle.net/10217/80290With a July 2012 Pacific Northwest road trip undergirding this narrative nonfiction woven from three strands (the present, past, and contemplations on science, nature, and mythology), the Colorado author's husband and aging Yellow Labrador join her during the Summer of Fire as she returns to places of wild beauty where, in her twenties, she lived off-the-grid, rock-climbed, and engaged in ecofeminist campaigns to save wolves and wilderness from destruction. They are on their way to the San Juan Islands in the hope of seeing whales. But the road trip through Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon also forces this former veterinary student to face the events of March 19, 1995. That first Sunday of Spring Break eighteen years ago resulted in an accidental death of her ex-partner's German shepherd, who was like a child to them, and nearly took their lives as well. The incident at Oregon's Crooked River Gorge was the defining moment of the young animal-lover's life; there was Before the gorge and there is After. There are still things that happened there that she cannot face, including what happened just after the dog fell to his death. Was she reckless that evening, or merely innocent? And does innocence get us off the hook for actions that result in irreversible loss and suffering--how does one forgive oneself for the sin of carelessness? It's time to face the unfaceable and return to the abyss. But it's also time to work out these complicated relationships with the other animals, with romantic partnerships, career aspirations, and with the untrusting self. It's time to take a close look at terrifying questions of life and death and irreversibility, control vs. responsibility, and what it means to be human and terribly, terribly fallible. What it means to not find what one had hoped for but to discover improbable serendipities just as redemptive.born digitalmasters thesesengCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.ecofeminismgriefmemoirscience/naturemythologyanimalsTextAccess is limited to the Colorado State University community only.