Author Bio - John Vaillant

Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts,  John has always been drawn to the wilderness from a young age. This allure was so strong that right out of college, he left continental America and took some time hitchhiking to Alaska. Once there, for a period of 3 years he spent his time salmon fishing and building boats in the remote fishing village of Egegik. Here he shared a 10 by 14 foot cabin with two other men and a dog. They stored all their tools, their dynamite, inside and there wasn't a tree around him for 50 to 60 miles. It was this experience from which he derives his confidence.
In his first award-winning book "The Golden Spruce", he questioned the notion of whether the damage we inflict on the environment can ever be justified. He has always written extensively about the conflicts between man and nature, but it wasn't until someone asked him why he liked to write that he realized this. Vaillant got his start relatively late in journalism. Now he has been a magazine writer for 8 years most notably writing pieces for the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Outside.
Vaillant now lives in Vancouver with his wife and 2 children.
His new book The Tiger won Canada's highest honor, British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and the Globe and Mail's best book. Look forward to it on next weeks review!