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AN EVENING WITH DOUG PEACOCK
Renowned American Naturalist, Outdoorsman & Author
Friday, August 22, 2008 @ TroutHunter Bar & Grill. 7:30pm.

Doug Peacock will describe his experiences in the wilderness with grizzlies and share his early film footage of bears. A question & answer period will follow.

Doug Peacock is the author of Grizzly Years, Baja, and Walking It Off: A Veterans Chronicle of War and Wilderness a book in part about his friendship with Edward Abbey. His latest book, co-written with Andrea Peacock, is The Essential Grizzly: The Mingled Fates of Men and Bears. A Vietnam veteran and former Green Beret medic , Peacock has published and lectured widely on wilderness issues. He was named a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow for his work on a new memoir about archeology and the peopling of North America. He lives south of Livingston, Montana

Like others of his generation, Doug returned from the Vietnam War in spiritual and psychological crisis. He found the balm to sooth his troubled soul in wild places and in the company of North America's largest predator. Grizzly Years is his account of that time. Peacock is believed to have spent more time with grizzlies in the wild than anyone else in the world. His intimate knowledge of their ways is unparalleled.

Peacock may be even more famous as the model for George Hayduke, a fictional character in the best-selling novel The Monkey Wrench Gang and the follow-up novel Hayduke Lives!, by his close friend, the late Edward Abbey. Abbey's Hayduke was the original wilderness avenger and saboteur. His type of activism is believed to have inspired the creation of Earth First! and the practice of "monkey wrenching," or "eco-terrorism" as the mainstream media would have it.

Peacock claims to be not nearly as colorful as the character Abbey imagined; he prefers solitude to groups and battles for the protection of wilderness with his pen and his voice.

Although living with the Hayduke legacy strained Peacock's friendship with Abbey, they remained close until Abbey's death in 1989. But there's a lot more to Peacock than there is to any fictional character, even one by a writer the stature of Abbey, as Peacock's own books, articles, and film clearly demonstrate. When he's not communing with the wilderness, he is dedicated to working for its preservation.

In Peacock's view, wilderness is essential to the survival of Homo Sapiens as a species, and the question he poses is relevant to everyone living on Earth in the 21st century: Where is our modern, consumer lifestyle taking us?

Doug will speak at 7:30. There is no charge for admission. Tables are available for those dining. Reservations are required. 208.558.0919