The Bookstore To Host Author Donna Erickson

The Bookstore will be hosting author Donna Erickson Saturday, August 2nd from 1:00-300 for a book signing.  The reading will begin at 1:30 followed by a discussion.  Her book Rooted at the Edge: Ranching Where the Old West and the New West Collide  paints a portrait of a ranching community steeped in history, conflict, and beauty. In this narrative nonfiction work, Donna Erickson explores the hilly skirt of ground at the northern boundary of Missoula, Montana, separating the town from the wilderness beyond. The North Hills region represents the critical—and often highly personal—issues at play at the edge of many western towns.

The urban-rural fringe is both valuable and vulnerable. Across the West, a way of life and a way of work are vanishing. Ranch land is simultaneously cherished by families for the lives they’ve made there and coveted by urban neighbors for open space. Community residents may love a place for its scenery and wildlife habitat while others wish it converted to a commercial parking lot. Complex ecological relationships can be bulldozed in a single afternoon. Rooted at the Edge conveys, in a way that statistics cannot, what’s at stake when ranches at the urban fringe are threatened.

Donna Erickson was raised riding horses, putting up hay, and herding cattle at Skyline Ranch.  Her family’s nearly 1000-acre ranch lies in the North Hills at the edge of Missoula, Montana.  As a young adult she ranched there and on other leased ranches in western Montana.  Many decades later, her life as both a rancher and landscape planner gives Donna a unique perspective on ranching at the edge of a growing western town.  She wrote this book to share stories about a century of change in this iconic landscape and the threats it faces going forward.   If you have any questions or would like to reserve a copy call The Bookstore at 683-6807.