Like John Muir, David Pitt-Brooke stepped out for a walk one morning--a long walk of a thousand kilometres or more through the arid valleys of southern interior British Columbia. He went in search of beauty and lost grace in a landscape that has seen decades of development and upheaval. In Crossing Home Ground he reports back, providing a day-by-day account of his journey's experiences, from the practical challenges--dealing with blisters, rain and dehydration--to sublime moments of discovery and reconnection with the natural world.

Through the course of this journey, Pitt-Brooke's encounters with the natural world generate starting points for reflections on larger issues: the delicate interconnections of a healthy landscape and, most especially, the increasingly fragile bond between human beings and their home-places. There is no escaping the impact of human beings on the natural world, not even in the most remote countryside, but he finds hope and consolation in surviving pockets of loveliness, the kindness of strangers and the transformative process of the walking itself, a personal pilgrimage across home ground.

Crossing Home Ground is a book that, though rooted in one specific place and time, will evoke a universal sense of recognition in a wide variety of readers. It will appeal to hikers, natural-history enthusiasts and anyone who loves the wild countryside and is concerned about the disappearance of Canada's natural spaces. Pitt-Brooke's grassland odyssey is sure to become a classic of British Columbia nature writing.

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David Pitt-Brooke, a veterinarian and researcher, writes for a variety of nature and wildlife publications and has received a Canadian Science Writers' Association Award for Outstanding Contribution to Science Journalism. He was an environmental education officer for Parks Canada for ten years. Pitt-Brooke lives in Tofino, British Columbia, on the edge of Clayoquot Sound.

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David Pitt-Brooke's profile page

• Short-listed, Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize

“Like the grasslands themselves, Crossing Home Ground is quiet, a place for musing and discovering something that’s right before our eyes.”

Kamloops This Week

“If there is only one book you read in the next year make it Crossing Home Ground by David Pitt-Brooke… He chronicles all that is beautiful and important about our grasslands and all that is sad and heartbreaking as well. It will almost certainly inspire you to do a bit of walking yourself. A superbly well written work that should be read by everyone in the valley.”

Penticton Western News

“For another’s perspective on B.C.’s Protected Areas I highly recommend reading David Pitt-Brooke’s new book Crossing Home Ground in which he describes his walk from the headwaters of the Ashnola River near the U.S. Border to Williams Lake. Subtitled A Grassland Odyssey through Southern Interior British Columbia, this is definitely a “must read.””

Penticton Western News