A vivid and poetic work that recalls the travels around the world and the human, animal and natural encounters that have shaped an extraordinary life. Taking us almost from pole to pole, from modern megacities to some of the most remote regions on Earth, and over decades of lived experience, Barry Lopez offers his most extensive and personal work to date, in a book that moves indelibly through his travels between six regions of the world: from western Oregon to the High Arctic, from Galapagos to the Kenyan desert, from Botany Bay in Australia to the ice shelves of Antarctica. Meanwhile, Lopez also investigates humanity's long history of searches and explorations, including the prehistoric peoples who crossed Skræling Island in northern Canada, the colonizers who plundered central Africa, an Englishman from the Enlightenment era who sailed the Pacific, a Native American emissary who found his way into isolation from Japan, and today's ecotourists in the tropics. Throughout his travels to some of the hottest, coldest, and desolate places in the world, and through the friendships he forges along the way with scientists, archaeologists, artists, and local residents, Lopez searches for meaning and purpose in a broken world. An epic and revealing work that expresses concern and frustration while offering humanity and hope.