Author Niels S. Nokkentved takes a fresh look at environmental challenges affecting Northwest residents. His essays examine cultural conflicts over resource extraction, threats to watersheds from abandoned mines, wolf recovery in the northern Rocky Mountains, the lingering effects of livestock grazing on western rangelands, and the rapidly disappearing sage grouse. They discuss the importance of forest fires, the value of beavers, the failed promises of salmon hatcheries, the reasons behind the decline of the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest, and how unlikely allies learned to set aside their differences in order to resolve long-standing disputes. Nokkentved's goal is to encourage people to think like a mountain—in other words, to consider the long-term consequences. He shares his connection to each concern as well as his own evidence-based perspective. He believes that it most profits society—collectively and as individuals—when people respect the balance of nature, and he wants to draw others to the same conclusion.