The boreal forest is buried in ice and snow during winter. But in summer lakes teem with fish, and bogs swarm with insects. Follow a snowshoe hare, beavers, a lynx, and other animals as they survive a year in this endangered landscape.

A unique look at the boreal forest, Earth’s vast and vital wilderness. The boreal forest, the planet’s largest land biome, spans the northern regions like “a scarf around the neck of the world.” Besides providing homes for many species, the forest’s influence is far-reaching: its trees and wetlands clean our air and water and are helping slow global climate change. In this evocative tour, a lyrical fictional narrative is paired with informational sidebars that describe life in the forest throughout the year, from one country to another. One of the world’s most magnificent regions comes to vivid life through the art of storytelling.

In Canada alone, the boreal forest (also called the taiga) covers more than 1.5 million square miles, fully one-third of the country and 20 percent of the entire North American continent. Terminating to the north with the treeless tundra, this region is inhabited and utilized by indigenous people and is home to unique populations of plants and animals found nowhere else on the planet. J. David Henry challenges the perception of the boreal forest as an "economic wasteland" by explaining how economically and ecologically valuable it is. He begins by answering some common questions about the region and explains its intricate geology. An in-depth examination follows of three factors that play an enormous role in shaping the complex life of the boreal forest: snow, forest fires, and peatlands. Henry looks at the dynamics of the region's vegetation and the evolution of its animals, and discusses the fascinating ten-year predator-prey cycle of snowshoe hares and Canadian lynx, one of the most famous examples of ecological interconnection. In Canada's boreal forest, loggers have clear cut an area the size of Great Britain. The final portion of the book examines initiatives from Scandinavia and Finland in order to offer alternatives to large-scale logging and mining, suggesting how humans can live and work in the boreal forest in a sustainable and responsible manner.

A page-turning memoir about a young woman's grueling, revelatory summers working alone in a remote lookout tower and her eyewitness account of the increasingly unpredictable nature of wildfire in the Canadian north. While growing up in Peace River, Alberta, Trina Moyles heard many stories of Lookout Observers--strange, eccentric types who spent five-month summers alone, climbing 100-foot high towers and watching for signs of fire in the surrounding boreal forest. How could you isolate yourself for that long? she wondered. "I could never do it," she told herself. Craving a deeper sense of purpose, she left northern Alberta to pursue a decade-long career in global humanitarian work. After three years in East Africa, and newly engaged, Trina returned to Peace River with a plan to sponsor her fiance, Akello's, immigration to Canada. Despite her fear of being alone in the woods, she applied for a seasonal lookout position and got the job. Thus begins Trina's first summer as one of a handful of lookouts scattered throughout Alberta, with only a farm dog, Holly--labeled "a domesticated wolf" by her former owners--to keep her company. While searching for smoke, Trina unravels under the pressure of a long-distance relationship--and a dawning awareness of the environmental crisis that climate change is producing in the boreal. Through megafires, lightning storms, and stunning encounters with wildlife, she learns to survive at the fire tower by forging deep connections with nature and with an extraordinary community of people dedicated to wildfire detection and combat. In isolation, she discovers a kind of self-awareness--and freedom--that only solitude can deliver. Lookout is a riveting story of loss, transformation, and belonging to oneself, layered with an eyewitness account of the destructive and regenerative power of wildfire in our northern forests.

The world's boreal forests, which lie to the south of the Arctic, are considered to be the Earth's most significant terrestrial ecosystems. A panel of ecologists here provide a synthesis of the important patterns and processes which occur in boreal forests and review the principal mechanisms which control the forest's patterns.

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees, this guide to awakening your senses and engaging deeply with the forest is the perfect gift for hikers and walkers. “This book will fast-track you into the joys of spending time amongst the trees.”—Tristan Gooley, author of The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs and How to Read Water "You'll be changed after reading this fine and enchanting book.”—Richard Louv, author of Our Wild Calling and Last Child in the Woods When you walk in the woods, do you use all five senses to explore your surroundings? For most of us, the answer is no—but when we do, a walk in the woods can go from pleasant to immersive and restorative. Forest Walking teaches you how to engage with the forest by decoding nature’s signs and awakening to the ancient past and thrilling present of the ecosystem around you. What can you learn by following the spread of a root, by tasting the tip of a branch, by searching out that bitter almond smell? What creatures can be found in a stream if you turn over a rock—and what is the best way to cross a forest stream, anyway? How can you understand a forest’s history by the feel of the path underfoot, the scars on the trees along the trail, or the play of sunlight through the branches? How can we safely explore the forest at night? What activities can we use to engage children with the forest? Throughout Forest Walking, the authors share experiences and observations from visiting forests across North America: from the rainforests and redwoods of the west coast to the towering white pines of the east, and down to the cypress swamps of the south and up to the boreal forests of the north. With Forest Walking, German forester Peter Wohlleben teams up with his longtime editor, Jane Billinghurst, as the two write their first book together, and the result is nothing short of spectacular. Together, they will teach you how to listen to what the forest is saying, no matter where you live or which trees you plan to visit next.

Temperate rainforests are biogeographically unique. Compared to their tropical counterparts, temperate rainforests are rarer and are found disproportionately along coastlines. Because most temperate rainforests are marked by the intersection of marine, terrestrial, and freshwater systems, these rich ecotones are among the most productive regions on Earth. Globally, temperate rainforests store vast amounts of carbon, provide habitat for scores of rare and endemic species with ancient affinities, and sustain complex food-web dynamics. In spite of their global significance, however, protection levels for these ecosystems are far too low to sustain temperate rainforests under a rapidly changing global climate and ever expanding human footprint. Therefore, a global synthesis is needed to provide the latest ecological science and call attention to the conservation needs of temperate and boreal rainforests. A concerted effort to internationalize the plight of the world’s temperate and boreal rainforests is underway around the globe; this book offers an essential (and heretofore missing) tool for that effort. DellaSala and his contributors tell a compelling story of the importance of temperate and boreal rainforests that includes some surprises (e.g., South Africa, Iran, Turkey, Japan, Russia). This volume provides a comprehensive reference from which to build a collective vision of their future.