Rick Bass reads from an essay-in-progress on “westernness,” bringing together familiar themes of place and people, of beauty and art and their relation to the problematic idea of wilderness. His thoughts are grounded in human and economic realities of life in the Yaak valley in northwestern Montana, where he makes his home, writes, and works with the Yaak Valley Forest Council. This reading took place at the Best of Bioneers event in Bozeman on March 27, 2011.

For more Rick Bass, watch his 2013 Wallace Stegner Lecture at MSU on YouTube.