Sky Time in Gray's River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place

An ecologist reflects on the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest as he describes the lives of plants, animals, and humans through every season of the year during his thirty years in the village of Gray's River, near the mouth of the Columbia River—long out of print, this classic of nature writing is being given a new life in trade paperback with a new afterword by the author.

Sky Time in Gray's River is an elegant meditation on life in the rural Northwest. Although Robert Michael Pyle is a lepidopterist and southwestern Washington is notable for its lack of butterflies, something about the village of Gray's River spoke to him on a visit more than thirty years ago. Ever since then he has lived in the village, one of the first to be established near the mouth of the Columbia River and only tenuously connected to the world of the twenty-first century. Sky Time in Gray's River brings Gray's River to life by compressing those thirty years into twelve chapters, following the lives of the people, plants, and animals that make the village their home, month by month through the seasons.

Through his story of how the village changed his life, Pyle illustrates how a special place can transform anyone lucky enough to find it. He shows that you don't have to travel far to see something new every day—if you know how to look.