Outside Ourselves : Landscape and Meaning in the Greater Yellowstone

In 2015, long-time wilderness ranger and award-winning author Todd Burritt walked across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem with his girlfriend, Jen. For two months the couple wandered, exploring natural and cultural phenomena, and resupplying in rural communities. By starting in a Wyoming community where Burritt once lived, and ending in Bozeman, Montana, hometown to them both, the trip outlined an expansive definition of homeland. Despite visiting several of them most remote areas in the lower 48, Burritt never managed to escape the modern paradoxes invading our most timeless settings. The most bedeviling of all were those he carried in his head. As much a cultural critique as a sharp-eyed tour of natural and human history, Outside Ourselves is a singular demonstration of a landscape's power to both illuminate and challenge.