Ken Ilgunas

There is great beauty in the wild, solitary Highlands, but it can be a haunting sort of beauty. You could walk for miles and never see anything move, except maybe the ripple of a stream and the swaying of grass in the wind. On my recent hike from the town of Inverie to Fort William, I didn’t see any cattle or sheep. No bugs, no birds, no rabbits, no squirrels. Nothing. Entering the Highlands feels as if you’re entering a deep and otherworldly past. You time-travel well beyond

Christopher Solomon has a lovely piece in NYT‘s Sunday Review. I have lived near the National Petroleum Reserve (a cold and undignified name, sadly, for this beautiful place) in Alaska, on and off, for years. I have never stepped foot in it, but I know the reserve by reputation and I am familiar with the Alaskan Arctic’s surrounding lands, which are breathtakingly wild and inspiring and full of life. It’s likely that I will never step foot in the reserve, yet I am grateful th