My Wilderness Life

My Wilderness Life: One Man's Search for Meaning in Montana's Backcountry

A wildlife biologist's journey of discovery through Montana's wilderness

As young men, John Fraley and Terry McCoy were kindred spirits, drawn to Montana’s most remote, rugged, wild places. Tragically, one of them died young, his wilderness dreams cut short. The other went on to a forty-year career studying fish and furbearers in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.

My Wilderness Life chronicles John Fraley’s lifelong love of all places wild and his obsession with uncovering what happened on the August 1974 morning when Terry McCoy’s airplane crashed in what would become the Welcome Creek Wilderness. Join Fraley on a frantic search to find his friend, and also on epic treks to traverse an impassable river canyon, snorkel with pure westslope cutthroat trout, retrace the footsteps of conservation icon Bud Moore, track lynx and mountain lions across the Great Bear Wilderness in winter, hike 42 miles through the Bob in a single day, and much more. At turns hilarious and heartbreaking, My Wilderness Life reveals how one man’s unfulfilled dreams can inspire another’s adventures.

• Wilderness risks and rewards come alive in first-hand accounts of daring escapades, solo treks, and a few foolhardy misadventures.
• An inside glimpse of the life of a fisheries biologist in the backcountry.
• Amply illustrated with 100 black-and-white photographs.

By John Fraley, softcover, 264 pages. Published 11/21/2022