These timeless, beautifully written essays share encounters and observations on a variety of Alaskan wildlife and include natural history information.

In these essays about Alaska's best-known and most charismatic animals-grizzlies and wolves, moose and Dall sheep, bald eagles and beluga whales-Sherwonit also introduces readers to many of Alaska's largely overlooked species, from wood frogs to redpolls and shrews to lynx and wolverines. The stories are geographically diverse, stretching across the state, from the Panhandle to the Arctic, and also from Alaska's urban center, Anchorage, to its most remote backcountry.

Sherwonit examines the complicated relationships humans have with other animals and consider different ways of knowing, and relating to, these critters. Animal Stories increases readers' awareness and questions their own relationships with wild neighbors, wild relatives, and the inherent value that these animals have, irrespective of what they give to us.

For more than three decades, Anchorage-based writer Bill Sherwonit has written extensively about wilderness, the natural history of animals and plants, wildlife management, connection to place, conservation issues, and notions of wildness. He's contributed stories and photos to a wide variety of national publications and is the author of over a dozen books about Alaska. He also teaches nature and travel writing in his adopted hometown of Anchorage.

Introduction/Author's Note I. Meeting the Neighbors The Songs of Robins Stretch Across Time and Space The Hidden Lives of Hares and Shrews Living with Moose Through the Seasons and Across the Years Watching Belugas Point Woronzof's Spectacle of Swallows Squirrelly Behavior Leaving the Nest Ravens in Winter Redpoll Serenade: Celebrating the End of Winter Of Bears and Bird Seed Listening to Owl II. Along City and Highway Fringes A Gathering of Swans Called to a Primeval Presence: Anchorage's Sandhill Cranes Nesting Goshawks Arctic Terns, the World's Greatest Long-Distance Flyers Campbell Creek's Silvers On the Trail, Finding Lynx Valley of the Eagles III. Backcountry Encounters In the Company of Bears Crossing Paths with Porcupine Looking into Wild Eyes Seeking Caribou, Touching the Arctic Refuge's Coastal Plain Fourteen Ways of Viewing Alaska's Wild, White Sheep Meeting a Legend: Wolverine Paddling with Porpoises Wilderness Music: Sharing a Valley with Howling Wolves IV. Oddities, Surprises, and Dilemmas A Gift of Halibut Leonard Peyton's Redpoll Project Otter Catastrophe "Nice" Weather Gets Seals Hot Mystery of Alaska's Deformed-Bill Chickadees An Overlooked Marvel: In Search of Anchorage's Wood Frogs Of Waxwings and Goshawks and Standing Up to Power A Tale of Two Wolverines and One Beloved Dog