Hunter's Road: A Journey with Gun and Dog Across the American Uplands Paperback / softback - 1993

I live in a small town in northern Colorado called Ayn (as in Ayn Rand; local boosters have tried to make a case: that the noted writer actually came here once and that our town is the model for a town in The Fountainhead, but I can find no evidence for either claim).

There are estimated to be more than six million bird hunters in America, every one of whom has dreamed of the kind of epic hunting season that Jim Fergus lives in A Hunter's Road - 17,000 miles in 5 months, pursuing 21 different game bird species across 24 states. But one need not be a bird hunter to enjoy this picaresque adventure; and far more important than the statistics are the hundreds of miles on foot that Fergus and his trusty yellow Lab, Sweetzer, cover in the course of their longest season - tramping the mountains, plains, prairies, fields, forests, marshes, deltas, and deserts of America - both alone and with a host of memorable companions. A Hunter's Road profiles one man's personal journey into the romance of the open country, touching on the history, sociology, politics, and economics of bird hunting in America, while addressing the issue of hunting ethics and the burgeoning antihunting movement in this country - the latter, in Fergus's opinion, reflecting our increasing estrangement from the natural world. A thoughtful and sometimes troubling exploration of the health and well-being of what remains of the American countryside, A Hunter's Road is by turns poignant, humorous, lyric, opinionated, and unflinchingly honest. It is destined to become an American sporting classic.