Introduction
What We Carry
Axe
Chapter 1: North Fork: River
Rock Bar
Chapter 2: Sperry: Alpine
Chainsaw
Chapter 3: Middle Fork: Forest
Boat
Chapter 4: Cordova: Town
Skid Steer
Chapter 5: Denali: Park
Shovel
Chapter 6: Denali: Home
Afterword
Traildogs’ Index
Acknowledgments
Works Consulted
Christine Byl lives on a few acres of tundra north of Denali National Park outside the town of Healy, Alaska, with her husband and an old sled dog. She received her MFA in fiction from the University of Alaska-Anchorage, and her stories and essays have appeared in magazines, journals, and anthologies. She owns and operates a small trail design and construction business.
“[It] blends beauty and crudeness, grit and grace… With language
that is lyrical despite the earthiness of its subject, Byl turns
the words of work into found poetry (“brake on, choke on, pull,
pull, fire”), offering a bridge for readers to those “who would not
speak like this themselves”—a beautiful memoir of muscle and
metal.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“A beguiling journey of self-discovery.” —Kirkus Reviews"Here is a
love story that encompasses wild country, skillful labor, hand
tools, crusty workmates, and lingo formal and foul. As a
woman, and a small one at that, the author must persuade the males
on her crews that she can more than hold her own at hiking,
trail-building, and swearing. She begins by convincing the
man who becomes her husband, and ends by convincing the
reader. You'll find plenty to relish here, in a narrative
that's gritty, witty, and wise." —Scott Russell Sanders,
author of A Conservationist Manifesto"Christine Byl has been
summering on trail crews for more than a decade and a half. A
first-rate storyteller, she details the techniques and tools, and
the spirit of fellowship and feel of the woods. If you love getting
into the back country, or even if you're an armchair backpacker as
Iam now at age eighty, you'll love Dirt Work.” —William
Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky and The Nature
of Generosity"Every denizen of wild places from Laotse to St.
Francis to Rachel Carson to black bears to field mice has depended
upon trails. But rarely have we considered the people, tools, or
toil that lay our favorite trails down. Dirt Work is a spectacular
correction of this omission. Imbued with a tough-minded, ribald
reverence for honest labor that brings to mind a female Gary Snyder
or Wendell Berry (if you can imagine that!), Christine Byl does
epic justice to the whole-bodied satisfactions that come of staying
out in the weather, staying alert, and working one’s ass off for
others with love, tenacity and skill." —David James Duncan, author
of The River Why and Sun House“Byl’s is not a world
of groomed nature, inert tools, or nostalgic rituals, but a vibrant
landscape inhabited by people and animals and layered by idea and
history. She means this book as a love song, she writes, and it is,
not only from her to her fellow laborers, but from the mind to the
body, the hand to the tool, the human to the wild.” —Sherry
Simpson, author of The Accidental Explorer: Wayfinding in
Alaska“While Byl does not romanticize nature or her work, she
skillfully uses poetic language, daring the reader to feel the
grit, grim, and sore muscles of working ten hour shifts digging,
chopping, clearing, and creating trails… Dirt Work is highly
recommended for readers who love the outdoors, and especially those
who have hiked in a national park or forest, and benefited from the
hard work of trail crews.” —Women’s Adventure Magazine"'Our work
speaks for us,' Byl writes, speaking on behalf of all traildogs,
who seldom brag about what they do. And it speaks volumes for this
woodswoman and wordsmith." —High Country News
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