Wilderness Reading List

Wilderness Reading List

curated by the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, in partnership with the ImagineIF Library Foundation

To raise awareness for the Great Fish Community Challenge, we teamed up with the ImagineIF Library Foundation and Flathead County Libraries to put together this Wilderness-themed reading list. Here are a few of the books our staff and board love that share history, personal tales, and fictional stories from the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.

Available at Flathead County Libraries:

  • A Wilderness Original: The Life of Bob Marshall by James M. Glover

  • Wild River Pioneers by John Fraley (or ‘My Wilderness Life’ or ‘Rangers, Trappers & Trailblazers’) 

  • This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind by Ivan Doig

  • Hush of the Land: A Lifetime in the Bob Marshall Wilderness by Arnold “Smoke” Elser with Eva-Maria Maggi

  • The Names of the Stars: A Life in the Wilds by Pete Fromm

  • People Before the Park: The Kootenai and Blackfeet Before Glacier National Park by Sally Thompson, Kootenai Culture Committee & Pikunni Traditional Association

  • Montana’s Bob Marshall Country by Rick and Susie Graetz (special collection)

  • Cabin Fever; A Centennial Collection of Stories About the Seeley Lake Area

  • A Swan Valley Journal by Edward Foss

  • Blood on the Marias by Paul Wylie

  • Bandit in the Bob Marshall Wilderness: Donna Love (children's book)

Plus! Make sure to check out trail maps available to check out from the Kalispell, Bigfork and Columbia Falls’ Libraries!

Bonus! Books that made our list, but not currently available at Flathead County Library:

  • A Wild Land Ethic; The Story of Wilderness in Montana, edited by Dale Burk and Wayne Chamberlin

  • The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie 

  • Fools Crow by James Welch

  • Where Roads Will Never Reach by Frederick Swanson

  • The Old North Trail by Walter McClintock

  • Faces of the Wilderness by Harvey Broom

  • Invisible Reality by Rosalyn LaPier 

  • Billionaire Wilderness by Justin Ferrell

  • Great Bear, Wild River by Dale Burk

  • They Left Their Tracks by Howard Copenhaver

  • The Best Short Stories of William Kittredge

  • The Ghost of Schafer Meadows by Beth Hodder (children’s book)

What books did we miss?? Contact us to share your favorites and we might add them to the list!

Allison Siems