The Last Empty Places: A Past and Present Journey Through the Blank Spots on the American Map

Americans have shaped the idea of wilderness, and it has shaped us. The Last Empty Places is one mans love letter to the enduring American wild, where our countrys character was forged and its destiny set in motion.

Memories of growing up in a log cabin in the Wisconsin woods inspired writer Peter Stark to seek out untouched tracts of the American wilderness. What he discovered in these blank spots on the U.S. map is that these places are actually teeming with the rich history of our nation.

Stark journeys into the great wild to four of the emptiest expanses he can findnorthern Maine, central Pennsylvania, the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico, and southeast Oregonand in so doing weaves together a majestic and dramatic tale of frontiersmen and fighters, naturalists and philosophers, migrs and natives. But he also goes beyond that, acknowledging to some of the great minds that first framed our relationship to the wilderness that would become our homepassionate thinkers and writers including Thoreau, Emerson, and John Muir.

The result is a narrative that blends nature and history in a vivid new way, a tale that provides an unforgettable window into our countrys past and present.