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Wapiti Spirit: A Young Man's Quest For Wildness

by Michael Houston

145 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-1789; ISBN 1-4251-0032-5; US$13.95, C$16.04, EUR11.46, £8.02

On a windswept trail in the Rocky Mountains, Peter Atkins struggles with more demons than the wind and cold. Elk hunting is too hard, and he wants to go home...

About the Book

Wapiti Spirit, by Michael Houston, is a young adult novel about a troubled boy on his journey toward manhood, responsibility and the challenge of true happiness. Learn the history and habits of the Rocky Mountain elk, one of America's premier wild animals, and the nuts and bolts of ethical hunting as you spend each day in the wilderness with a boy experiencing it all for the first time.

Peter Atkins thought he might simply walk out and shoot a magnificent bull elk, and return to school as a hero. The gorgeous Sara Evington might even notice him, as more than just a geeky lab partner in science class. But Peter finds elk hunting harder than he ever imagined. The wind and cold seem bent on killing him, and there are no elk to be found anywhere. Frustrated and helpless, Peter is plagued with guilt over a crime he and a friend committed during the previous summer.

Across the flames of the evening fire, his family friend and mentor Harvey listens quietly to Peter's complaints. After the boy angrily proclaims, "You can't make me stay!" he is thrown off guard by his elder's refusal to argue. When Harvey readily agrees with him, it takes Peter a while to figure out what he really means. Join Peter as he is drawn into mystery of the hunt and the beauty of the mountains, where his quest for self-reliance and peace of mind becomes a mission of lifelong significance.

About the Author

Michael Houston never had the benefit of a father. At the age of twelve, he escaped Sunday mornings spent in church when his mother introduced him to Katherine Heard, a 65-year-old vegetarian health nut. The two became fast friends and hiking companions on the slopes of Pike's Peak. Katherine introduced Mike to the Colorado Mountain Club, where he met member Arvy Kysely on a hike tracing Zebulon Pike's 1806 attempt on the mountain that would later bear his name. With Arv and others, Mike climbed nearly all of Colorado's fourteen thousand foot peaks before the age of fifteen.

After working, climbing and fishing commercially in Alaska, Mike traded college in Kentucky for a remote homestead built during the Civil War. Without electricity or plumbing for 8 years, he built traditional rocking chairs with hand tools for income. During the 1980's in Florida he completely restored an historic, 1938 wooden sailboat, "Ereva". Between sailing the Carribean and woodworking, he volunteered in rural Guatemala building schools, clinics and drilling wells. He collected and distributed truckloads of shoes, clothes and bicycles in the Indian villages where he worked.

Arvy led Michael, a longtime anti-hunter, on his first elk hunt in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado in the fall of 1995. Since, he's been dedicated to ethical hunting and the yearly quest for healthy, lean organic meat. 80 years old and a longtime cancer survivor, Arv later joined Mike on the Panama Canal leg of an 11,000 mile sailing voyage from Florida to Alaska.

Mike now lives in Colorado Springs with his wife, Angelita and daughters Chloe and Sophia. Rock climbing and mountaineering, hunting, sailing, vegetable gardening and making bio-diesel are among his passions. Look for his next book, A Powder Monkey's Tale, to be released in 2007 by Trafford Publishing.

Excerpts