Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
From the Pacific Northwest forests to the rugged coastal shores of California, Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild is a remarkable memoir of exploration and survival. As a young girl, Doniga Markegard was thrown from her horse and knocked unconscious. She remembers an out of body experience that revealed to her the great mystery at the heart of life. In Dawn Again she writes of a young woman's immersion in nature in search of herself and her passions. Her search takes her hitchhiking across the West and to Alaska where she discovers and falls deeply in love with tracking wolves and the rigors of surviving in the wilderness. At a wilderness immersion school, medicine people and wildlife trackers train her in indigenous ways. Doniga seeks a vision and discovers her purpose, only to find herself on a cattle ranch falling in love and starting a family, while finding a new way to use all she has learned about the wilderness and what it has to teach us.
Synopsis
Through the Pacific Northwest forests and along the rugged coastal shores of California, Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild is a memoir of exploration and survival from a stunning new voice.
Dawn Again takes readers on Doniga's journey: as a troubled teen attending a wilderness immersion school where Indigenous elders and wildlife trackers were among her teachers; hitchhiking across the Pacific Northwest; the moment she first connected with deer using owl eyes and fox walking techniques; and to Alaska, where she fell in love with tracking white wolves and the rigor of wilderness survival.
With chapters on food, permaculture, and more, Dawn Again dives into Doniga's real-life experiences while equipping readers with practical knowledge. When Doniga tracks mountain lions with Erik, a rancher, she finds herself falling in love with more than just nature. She settles down on a cattle ranch on the California coast to start a family, and has to learn how to apply the deep, unshakeable lessons of the wild to her everyday life.
"Doniga has given us an instruction booklet on how to get in touch with our best selves, through getting in touch with the earth." --Joan Baez
Synopsis
Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild is a memoir of exploration and survival that will inspired you to better tend to the planet, even if it's simply tending the soil in your own back yard
By recounting her own wilderness immersion, animal tracking, and farming experiences, Dawn Again] deftly traces a line from the incredible complexity of nature's wisdom to humanity's vital role as ecologically responsible stewards of the land.
--Allan Savory, author of Holistic Management, Third Edition: A Commonsense Revolution To Restore Our Environment
Dawn Again takes readers along Doniga's journey from unsettled teen to immersive nature school student to wildlife tracker to a cattlewoman on a mission to save the food system through regenerative agricultural practices that restore the soil and other non-human elements of the planet.
One of the few female voices in both wilderness immersion and ranching, Dawn Again is a nature memoir that shares a young woman's experience hitchhiking across the pacific northwest, waiting patiently to connect with a deer on its terms, and tracking in Alaska where she finally came face to face with white wolves and the rigor of wilderness survival.
When Doniga tracks mountain lions with Erik, a rancher, she finds herself falling in love with more than just nature. She settles down on a cattle ranch on the California coast to start a family, and has to learn how to apply the deep lessons of the wild to her everyday life.
Advocating for nature knowledge and ecological wisdom, Dawn Again dives into Doniga's real-life experiences as a woman, environmentalist, wilderness expert, woman rancher, mother, and producer in the food system.