Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals

by Brenda Peterson

Book Overview

The author examines her life-long fascination and encounters with bears, dolphins, and Siberian huskies living in the Sierra Mountains, and discusses her efforts to preserve wolves in Arizona, Yellowstone, and Alaska.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393050149
• ISBN13: 9780393050141
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 317 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A deep and lasting joy

This book is a beautiful journey into the life of author Brenda Peterson, and her clear and intimate portraits of many wild creatures she encounters in her early years. She has an endearing compassion for the world of flora and fauna. Her activism is pure poetry. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in connecting with the power of words, wilderness, and the witnessing of our domestic and wild animal companions.

Fascinating Life Between the Worlds of Animals and Humans

When you read Brenda Peterson's memoir or any of her books, be prepared to abandon your human assumptions and pre-conceived notions of how animals and the natural world "really are." If you are willing, Peterson will lead you down long forgotten paths that still connect the human and the natural worlds. Through her own stories, you will re-member and discover your own life stories with animals, both wild and domesticated, and the essential joy of a shared world.This memoir is a pleasure to read, written by an informed nature writer who also knows how to write engaging, lyrical prose that often reads like poetry or a novel. Peterson also is a witty observer of life's ironies and odd, often contradictory human behavior. Rare is the nature writer who can skillfully weave together the talent of a seasoned storyteller, the reportage of an informed environmentalist, the visionary perspective of a literary writer, and the honesty to admit passionate feelings for animals. Brenda Peterson does all of this consistently.In her memoir, Peterson admits, "My first people and family were animals," and then tells us numerous stories from the first 50 years of her life living "in between the worlds of animals and humans." There were times while reading this book when I would have to pause, put the book down, and simply savor the story at hand. I could easily spend days reflecting on a story, digesting its impact, feeling full and satisfied. Warning: This is rich, gourmet reading!Peterson also tells of the many disillusionments and the grief she has had over how humans treat animals. In particular, she writes about Smokey the Bear, Peterson's childhood animal hero and an American icon dubbed the Protector of the Forest, who, in reality was a depressed and isolated bear living in Washington National Zoo. When Peterson was 13, she and her father, a Forest Service executive who would one day head up the National Forest Service, visited Smokey the Bear at the zoo. "Any child could see that it was this bear who himself needed protection," observed Peterson. "...we stood watching Smokey huddled in a corner, eyes lowered, turning away Goldie Bear [a potential mate]...."Every chapter reveals a life with animals, whether they are animal companions or whales, wolves and bears. Peterson writes with emotional honesty that is refreshing. It is Peterson's willingness to talk about her own feelings in relationship to the natural world that makes her so appealing as a nature writer. She is not afraid to admit such things as emotions...a courageous act in a modern world filled with scientists and "objective writers" who purport to be beyond such sentimental or "anthropomorphic" notions. In truth, ancient peoples worldwide have always known that animals have spirits and feelings and an integral purpose on Earth beyond serving human needs. There was a time when humans respected and blessed and thanked the animals for their partnership---even when they became our food and clothing. S

a good read which lacks accuracy

Although I did enjoy this book, little niggling errors cropped up here and there to irk. Poor editing (numerous misspellings) and bad information here and there result in a 4 star rating rather than a 5. For example, the author 'tried out' Siberian Huskies at one point and even produced a mixed breed litter (gasp), but some of her assumptions were patently untrue. For example, the author claims that "Siberian huskies (sic) were the last canine breed to be domesticated". In fact, the Siberian Husky originated over 2000 years ago with the Siberian Chukchi tribe (see Demidoff/Jennings "The Complete Siberian Husky"). The author dabbles in various wild critter commitments:Tursiops in Florida, belugas in Tacoma and eastern Canada, wolves across the US, humpback whales and spinner dolphins in Hawaii but I kept wondering how much more she could have understood if she had taken the path of biology rather than journalism. She claims to have taken up the mantle of wild critter advocacy but to be honest, I think she falls into the category of 'talk is cheap'-type advocacy. But then, we have real biologists like Ken Balcomb to fight against Navy sonar experiments etc. All in all, an interesting read....but remember the salt shaker (take with a grain of salt).

An Important Work of Prose from a Modern Day St. Francis

I sit here quietly at my desk having just completed Brenda Peterson's "Build Me an Ark". My fingers fan the pages repeatedly as if refusing to believe that the last and final chapter of this book is over. I am rendered speechless and my thoughts turn inward as I hear the voice of the author over and over again in my head unlocking those childhood mysteries that I long ago safeguarded in the back recesses of my mind.I have been instantly reminded that at my entry into this world some forty years ago I was born remembering a universal responsibility to protect those kindred spirits whose voices cannot be heard or understood. In this book, Peterson acutely finds that place in the reader's heart that unlocks those forgotten memories and reminds us of our contract with the earth to serve and protect, with uncompromising compassion, all of its noble creatures that walk on this planet. If the planet earth is in fact a classroom - "Build Me an Ark" should be required reading for the human race.Peterson writes from two distinct places: She is first and foremost a visionary healer connecting our souls and our memories with the rest of the animal kingdom and in the same moment she is an incredible writer - every paragraph, every page each in its own right beautiful prose and lilting poetry. From whales and dolphins to cats and dogs, through her eyes, we find the connection to God in all living creatures and are reminded that our souls are all connected by this same source. Peterson asks us to remember, realize and understand our connection to other species, through compassion. "This is the best of all possible worlds," she writes. "This is embracing more than our own kind and assuring that more than we alone survive. For if humans only survive without the company of other animals, then we will be more alone than any of our ancestors could ever have imagined. To one day find ourselves on this ocean planet alone with only our own kind would be perhaps the beginning of the end of our species."With a soft voice and deft hand, she takes the reader down the path of transformation from sympathetic observer to fierce protector. I would have to caution anyone wanting to read this book to be prepared to face your failure at not having done enough for our animal planet. Be prepared to endure incredible rage at the abject carelessness by the hand of man and be prepared to have your life changed as your own memories are unlocked and as that quiet voice in your throat rises now to a load roar. We finish the book and we know in an instant that we have not done enough to protect nature. We know that there is much more work to do for the conservation of the planet. The author dares you to remember that contract you made with self and God and the planet upon birth and reach out now to make a difference. Brenda Peterson is a modern-day Moses and the St. Francis of our times. Thank you for reaching out to my hand and bringing me back to the path I was meant to

Finding new meaning in Noah's Ark.

Animals "carried me all my life," Brenda Peterson writes in her new memoir. "I was a crossover--carried along in the generous and instructive slipstream of other species. And I always navigated my life with them in mind. Going between the human and animal worlds--a crossover myself--mine was was not simply a life with other animals, but a life because of animals" (p. 35). Born in 1950 in a forest lookout station in the High Sierras, as a child Peterson found herself "surrounded by millions of acres of wilderness and many more animals than humans" (pp. 35; 37). "There were more animal conversations in that lookout station than human talk," she recalls in "The Wild" (p. 40).In fact, there are animals at every turn of Peterson's fascinating memoir. Her book revisits her life from that cabin in the Sierras to her home in Seattle, where she has lived since 1981. "To survive here," she writes about her life in "the rain shadow" of the Puget Sound, "one must have an inner life that is bright" (pp. 137; 139). Before her move to Seattle, when Peterson was commuting from her farmhouse near Boulder, Colorado, to teach classes three days a week at Arizona State University in the "102-degree weather" of Tempe (pp. 114; 129), I was a student in her creative writing class. Rattlesnakes, dolphins, bears, wolves, dogs, cats, whales and seals, "all my life animals have surrounded me," Peterson says, "from my forest birthplace to ocean shores, from desert to New York City, and now in my chosen watery world . . . animals have inspired my life's work and my sense of sacred" (pp. 250-51).Organized into three parts, "Animal Apprentice" (pp. 17-134), "Return to the Wild" (pp. 135-230), and "The World as an Ark" (pp. 231-313), Peterson's not-so-typical memoir finds inspiration in both nature and animal nature. "Because animals seem to dwell in the present moment," Peterson writes, "because their own presence is so instinctive, their attention so unwavering, they offer us a different kind of compassion than humans do. Anyone is lucky to have both human and animal comfort in their lives" (p. 159). In her book's title section, "Build Me an Ark," Peterson finds new meaning in Noah's Ark. We find her at age 10, attending a Montana "garage-church" service, "obsessed with the question of animal afterlives" (p. 61). "Every venison steak and elk stew and mooseburger I ate begged the question, Where do animals go when they die?" (p. 61). She concludes that maybe these animals have souls that, like ours, are worth saving (p. 63).Upon meeting "the real Smokey Bear" in another section, Peterson writes, "shaggy and antisocial after years alone in a cramped, concrete zoo exhibit . . . his tragedy took my breath away" (pp. 76; 77). This childhood experience, we learn, left her feeling "uneasy in zoos" (p. 161) as an adult. "My years with animals in the wild have taught me that most zoo creatures are a sad shadow of their wild relatives" (p. 163). Upon discovering a dea