Table of Contents

Author's Note
Prologue: Blagopoluchnoe
Part One: The Sacred Sea
1: A Flash of Blue Light
2: Songs and Whispers
3: The Earth Splits, Water Rushes In
4: Into the Lake-Shallow
5: Into the Lake-Deep
6: Buryatia, in Black & White and Color
7: On the Trail with Pod Boy and Monkey Mind
8: Bad Roads are Good for Baikal
9: Traveling and Staying Home
Part Two: 180@
10: The Long Way Home
11: The Great Circle
12: Zigzag to Russia
13: Power in the East
14: Across the Sleeping Land
15: Angels & Ghosts in Irkutsk
Part Three: Baikal, Too, Must Work
16: One of the Best Enterprises in Russia
17: Righteousness, Uncertainty and the Point of No Return
18: Connecting the Dots
19: Dr. Hope and Dr. Despair
20: Blind Love is a Dangerous Thing
21: 360°
Epilogue: The Great Baikal Chain
Acknowledgments
Illustration Credits
Source Notes and Further Reading

About the Author

Peter Thomson is Founding Producer and Senior Editor of NPR's "Living on Earth" and recipient of 19 awards for excellence in broadcast journalism; currently freelance environmental journalist and member of Executive Committee of Society of Environmental Journalists.

Reviews

Peter Thomson and his brother left their native Boston on a journey to this remote wilderness. Thomson's passionate and beautifully written account of what they found there combines travelogue with natural history and memoir. London Review Bookshop 2008. '...a compelling diary of personal discovery that reads like a manifesto about travel as a blessing in itself.' New York Times, November 2007 ...beautifully written...BBC Focus Magazine, 2007 "A critical race to save the lake is on, and Thomson's travelogue will help the effort." Moscow Times 2007