He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Ulin is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, which was shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time. You can find her in Fox's valley tugging tumbleweeds from the sloughs.ĭavid L. Her natural history essays have appeared in American Scientist, Journal of American Mensa, and Montana Magazine. She earned a PhD in biology from Montana State University, holds degrees in zoology and botany from the University of Montana, and is a member of American Mensa and Sigma Xi. It is both a timely tale of solitude and connection as well as a timeless story of one woman whose immersion in the natural world will change the way we view our surroundings-each tree, weed, flower, stone, or fox.ĪUTHOR: Catherine Raven is a former national park ranger at Glacier, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Voyageurs, and Yellowstone national parks. Fox and I is a poignant and remarkable tale of friendship, growth, and coping with inevitable loss-and of how that loss can be transformed into meaning.

Friends, however, cannot save each other from the uncontained forces of nature. From the fox, she learned the single most important thing about loneliness: we are never alone when we are connected to the natural world. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself and they became friends. How do you even talk to a fox? She brought out her camping chair, sat as close to him as she dared, and began reading to him from The Little Prince. She had never had a regular visitor before. Then one day she realized that the mangy-looking fox she'd seen on her property was now showing up every afternoon at 4:15 p.m. In the meantime, she taught remotely and led field classes in nearby Yellowstone National Park. She was as emotionally isolated as she was physically, but she viewed the house as a way station, a temporary rest stop where she could gather her nerves and fill out applications for what she hoped would be a real job that would help her fit into society. When Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana.

Catherine raven fox and i