Barry Lopez became one of America's most vital voices on human ecology, but his journey began in chaos and unimaginable childhood trauma. This episode traces how a deeply personal search for healing transformed into a fifty-year career that changed how we view the natural world.

From contemplating the priesthood to landscape photography and five years of biological fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic, Lopez fused uncompromising science with poetic prose. We explore how he traded a stone cathedral for a canopy of trees and faced devastating irony at the end of his life.

• How trauma shaped his lifelong search for an incorruptible sanctuary
• Of Wolves and Men and his National Book Award-winning Arctic Dreams
• Using euphony and indigenous myth to translate the earth's data into feeling
• The 2020 Holiday Farm Fire tha ...