Who:
Rick Bass
Sierra Club member, author of Caribou Rising
Where:
Troy, MT
Where I live, in northwest Montana's Yaak Valley, we still don't have a single acre of designated wilderness. For 41 years activists have been trying to change that. Our little grassroots group, the Yaak Valley Forest Council , is trying hard to negotiate a plan that protects as wilderness the Yaak's roadless areas, particularly in the Northwest Peaks section of the valley, which is where bears hibernate, and which is home to lynx and wolverine.
We desperately need letters sent to us on behalf of wilderness in the Yaak -- the Land the Wilderness Act Forgot -- and have been working 18-hour days, attending meetings in all the little towns around this big rural county, trying to draft a plan that protects local jobs in the woods while also protecting the Yaak's special places. Because the work, like the landscape, is so vast, and the people so few, we could work 24/7 on this cause, and it feels like we often do.
All week then, I have been working extra long and hard, trying to get caught up enough to go pick up my daughter from summer camp. I will be on the road on Saturday, eager to see her, and then fixing big fancy homecoming meals this weekend. Early Monday morning, it'll be back to the grindstone, and the ceaseless work of trying to get our first acre of wilderness in the Yaak.
Please help! Send letters! Thank you!! Maybe after 41 years, this will finally be the Year of the Yaak! Yaak Valley Forest Council, 155 Riverview, Troy, MT 59935
