Grizzlies On My Mind

"Three and a half million people see Yellowstone National Park every year, but few people see as clearly and deeply into the park as Michael Leach. Yellowstone’s combination of natural attributes and human oddities makes it a truly weird and wonderful place. Leach lifts a curtain, lets you see a layer of the park the casual visitor would never know. He writes with equal admiration for the subtleties and splendor—and the understanding that sometimes the subtleties are the splendor. Leach provides glimpses of the people—from biologists to law enforcement staff to astonishing gym rats in the border town of Gardiner—and the animals that make Yellowstone a world unto itself. Whether writing about famous wolves, dinosaur bones, arrowheads, marmots or grizzly bears, Leach writes with a passion that is as inspiring as his subject. His journey of discovery through Yellowstone is both public and poignantly personal. Treat yourself to this unique and passionate perspective on America’s greatest national park." —Jeff Hull, author of Pale Morning Done and Streams of Consciousness
"Michael Leach dreamed of becoming a Yellowstone park ranger. He got his wish and, with his memoir GRIZZLIES ON MY MIND, he takes us on a personal journey, traveling with an unguarded heart into the mystery and beauty of the Yellowstone backcountry. He passionately and correctly speaks his outrage against the 'barbaric' trapping of the park's wandering wolves, of the inhumane bison slaughter by Montana's livestock department. Above all this is a personal odyssey; Leach shares his lusty interest for women in uniform, his faith in the power of wild nature and the spiritual paths of healing." —Doug Peacock
"The flora and fauna of Yellowstone becomes the setting of a spiritual journey in this luscious memoir.

For seven years, the scenery of Michael W. Leach’s daily commute was beyond enviable: bands of roaming bison, marauding grizzlies, charging elk, and sulking wolves that peppered stunning vistas. In Grizzlies on My Mind: Essays of Adventure, Love, and Heartache from Yellowstone Country, Leach delivers a beautiful tribute to the Yellowstone National Park or, as he calls it, the “spine of the continent,” where he spent over a decade as a ranger, naturalist, guide, park nonprofit director, and wildlife advocate.

Written like a journal, the chapters convey Leach’s rapture for Yellowstone as an iconic American landscape and one of its last truly wild frontiers. Such scenery can be as cruel as it is invigorating: it is a place “where ignorance or carelessness can help you become part of the food chain.” For instance, he tells of an overly zealous amateur bear enthusiast who after being mauled by a grizzly bear is forced to walk miles back to camp holding the skin on his face in place.

Leach also regales readers with several stories of his own brushes with danger: a hormone-crazed elk who chased him through the deck of a cabin, the search for the body of a park visitor after a fatal fall, keeping park visitors at a safe distance from a grizzly and wolf having a stand-off over an elk carcass, and tumultuous snowmobile excursions.

Diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune disorder, Leach was forced to stop his basketball career at an early age and undergo a cycle of pain intervention and other medical treatment. He credits his career as a ranger as saving his sense of self, and Grizzlies on My Mind is Leach’s spiritual journey. An early essay describes a Native American healing ritual, and there are short essays throughout the collection in which Leach conjures animistic reverence for the park’s impressive flora and fauna.

Grizzlies on My Mind has wide appeal as an intimate account of life within one of America’s national treasures beyond the rocketing waters of Old Faithful. Leach’s inspired prose evokes how the land and its creatures hold special powers over those lucky enough to witness them firsthand. As Leach describes, “each day spent in Yellowstone has the potential to remedy a broken heart and calm a racing mind.” As evidence, he points out that any day he spends with park visitors ends in hugs rather than handshakes."

—Amanda McCorquodale, Foreword Reviews
"Michael Leach offers a beautiful tribute to Yellowstone National Park, where he spent over a decade as a ranger, naturalist, guide, park nonprofit director and wildlife advocate. At age 22, Michael Leach became a Yellowstone National Park ranger, it was a dream come true. Shortly after he took the job, Michael had earned the nickname "the Rev" for his powerful and passionate Yellowstone "sermons" that drew crowds to his interpretive presentations throughout the park. His passion went to new heights five years later, when he was named one of the park's bear education rangers. In Grizzlies On My Mind, Michael shares his love for Yellowstone—its landscapes and wildlife, especially its iconic bison and grizzlies--as he tells tales that will delight anyone interested in the national park system, wildlife and wild landscapes, rivers and adventure. The essays are written as a personal journal, so the book that can be read chronologically or savored one random chapter at a time. As he states in the introduction, all events are centered on his life and interactions with the park . . . Michael Leach does for Yellowstone, what Terry Tempest Williams does for the Great Salt Lake; Rick Bass does for The Yaak; and Jack Turner does for the Tetons---gives the reader a special look at a place they hold in their hearts." —Barbara Theroux, Fact & Fiction, for Mountain West News
The flora and fauna of Yellowstone becomes the setting of a spiritual journey in this luscious memoir.
For seven years, the scenery of Michael W. Leach’s daily commute was beyond enviable: bands of roaming bison, marauding grizzlies, charging elk, and sulking wolves that peppered stunning vistas. In Grizzlies on My Mind: Essays of Adventure, Love, and Heartache from Yellowstone Country, Leach delivers a beautiful tribute to the Yellowstone National Park or, as he calls it, the “spine of the continent,” where he spent over a decade as a ranger, naturalist, guide, park nonprofit director, and wildlife advocate.
Written like a journal, the chapters convey Leach’s rapture for Yellowstone as an iconic American landscape and one of its last truly wild frontiers. Such scenery can be as cruel as it is invigorating: it is a place “where ignorance or carelessness can help you become part of the food chain.” For instance, he tells of an overly zealous amateur bear enthusiast who after being mauled by a grizzly bear is forced to walk miles back to camp holding the skin on his face in place.
Leach also regales readers with several stories of his own brushes with danger: a hormone-crazed elk who chased him through the deck of a cabin, the search for the body of a park visitor after a fatal fall, keeping park visitors at a safe distance from a grizzly and wolf having a stand-off over an elk carcass, and tumultuous snowmobile excursions.
Diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune disorder, Leach was forced to stop his basketball career at an early age and undergo a cycle of pain intervention and other medical treatment. He credits his career as a ranger as saving his sense of self, and Grizzlies on My Mind is Leach’s spiritual journey. An early essay describes a Native American healing ritual, and there are short essays throughout the collection in which Leach conjures animistic reverence for the park’s impressive flora and fauna. Grizzlies on My Mind has wide appeal as an intimate account of life within one of America’s national treasures beyond the rocketing waters of Old Faithful. Leach’s inspired prose evokes how the land and its creatures hold special powers over those lucky enough to witness them firsthand. As Leach describes, “each day spent in Yellowstone has the potential to remedy a broken heart and calm a racing mind.” As evidence, he points out that any day he spends with park visitors ends in hugs rather than handshakes.
—Amanda McCorquodale, Foreword Reviews
The flora and fauna of Yellowstone becomes the setting of a spiritual journey in this luscious memoir.—Amanda McCorquodale, Foreword Reviews
"Leach collects his stories and essays about his ranger days in Yellowstone National Park. Through short pieces, he tells the reader of his encounters with bears, strange hikers, and medicine men. Essay titles include, Wild Entrapment, Hello Again, Old Faithful, American White Pelican, and Song of the Yellow Bellied. The essays touch on numerous topics such as love, loss, and friendship, as seen through the lens of the infinite beauty of Yellowstone's flora and fauna." —Eithne O'Leyne, ProtoView