Out of work with some ranch hand experience, a Seattle
native answered an advert requiring adaptability and
gumption. He worked for a year on the Sun Ranch, next to
Yellowstone and crossing an important wildlife corridor.
BADLUCK WAY is the memoir of that year in Montana and the
lessons it taught, both about wildlife and about the self.
Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in
1995, as top predators of the ecosystem which was then
producing too many elk and deer, which destroyed the
trees. Ranchers have had to find an uneasy equilibrium as
wolves, not understanding fence boundaries, occasionally
prey on cattle. At the Sun ranch, full of streams, woods
and steep canyons, the aim was to move the cattle around to
minimise conflict with the ecosystem. Andrews had all this
explained to him at the start of his contract. He'd just
caught horses that had wintered out, and was keen to fit in
to the ethos. The wolves were fighting their own battle
against diseases and had not so far been a problem.
Andrews describes the hard repetitive physical work of
ranching, from mending fences to driving cattle. Predators
abounded, grizzlies, black bears, lions, coyotes and
wolves, so he would often come across elk bones. He stayed
out with herds at night, listening for sounds of distress.
The object was to scare off wolves from the cattle, and
leave the land to wild creatures over winter. Some wolves
had radio collars fitted, which helped to track the pack.
Still, the ranch owner explains that cattle ranching
doesn't make a profit, and tourism is unlikely to pick up
the difference. Every animal counts. And in late July,
the wolves did finally get short enough of elk that the
pack started picking on heifers. With four animals lost
as the weeks went on, and terrified herds, the ranch hands
gained a licence for the inevitable hunt.
Some splendid photos illustrate the start of each chapter,
including a young wolf which Andrews helped to catch and
radiocollar. Less easy on the eye are the interspersed
italics which tell a wolf's eye view of the summer. The
indelible memories Bryce Andrews describes are fascinating
reading and tell us about the nature of compromise. BADLUCK
WAY is an evocative, informative and sometimes saddening
read.
“Mine might have been a simple, pretty story, if not for the
wolves. In late July, they emerged from the foothills . . .”
In this gripping memoir of a young man, a wolf, their
parallel lives and ultimate collision, Bryce Andrews
describes life on the remote, windswept Sun Ranch in
southwest Montana. The Sun’s twenty thousand acres of
rangeland occupy a still-wild corner of southwest Montana—a
high valley surrounded by mountain ranges and steep creeks
with portentous names like Grizzly, Dead Man, and Bad Luck.
Just over the border from Yellowstone National Park, the Sun
holds giant herds of cattle and elk amid many predators—
bears, mountain lions, and wolves. In lyrical, haunting
language, Andrews recounts marathon days and nights of
building fences, riding, roping, and otherwise learning the
hard business of caring for cattle, an initiation that
changes him from an idealistic city kid into a skilled ranch
hand. But when wolves suddenly begin killing the ranch’s
cattle, Andrews has to shoulder a rifle, chase the pack, and
do what he’d hoped he would never have to do.
Badluck Way is about transformation and complications, about
living with dirty hands every day. It is about the hard
choices that wake us at night and take a lifetime to
reconcile. Above all, Badluck Way celebrates the
breathtaking beauty of wilderness and the satisfaction of
hard work on some of the harshest, most beautiful land in
the world. Called “an important meditation on what it means
to share space and breathe the same air as truly wild
animals” (Tom Groneberg, author of The Secret Life of
Cowboys), Badluck Way is the memorable story of one young
man’s rebirth in the crucible of the West’s timeless
landscape, a place at the center of the heart’s geography,
savage and gorgeous in equal measure.
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