Nature writer and anthropologist Richard Nelson,
whose latest book Heart and Blood explores the often
controversial relationships between people and deer, will speak on
Thursday, April 25, at 4:45 p.m. in the Reamer Campus Center
Auditorium.
Nelson is a nature writer and cultural anthropologist who
spent many years studying relationships to the environment
among Iñupiaq Indians and Athabaskan Indians in Alaska. Based on
these experiences, he wrote Hunters of the Northern Ice, Shadow of
the Hunter, Hunters of the Northern Forest, Make Prayers to the
Raven (which became a PBS TV series), and
The Athabaskans.
His book, The Island Within, a personal journey into
the natural world around his home on the southeastern
Alaskan coast, won the John Burroughs Award for nature writing. He
also received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and
the Lannan Literary Award for creative non-fiction writing.
Heart and Blood: Living With Deer in America
received the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. In 1999, he was
named Alaska State Writer.
Besides writing, Nelson's life centers on watching
wildlife, surfing, hiking, kayaking, subsistence hunting and
fishing, and camping with his partner Nita Couchman.
He is also a volunteer conservation activist, working
for protection of old-growth rainforest in the Tongass
National Forest.