Bathsheba Demuth

@brdemuth.bsky.social

12179 Followers 1792 Following

Writer & environmental historian of cold places, now writing about the Yukon River. Author of FLOATING COAST. Prof at Brown University. Post mostly about animals, Arctic things & books. Heart is on a dogsled. #envhist #naturewriting

Cover of Robert Moor’s In Trees
View of the Yukon River from the air, with a large brown island in the foreground, silty whiteish water reflecting the clouds, and deep green land
A photo of Robert Moor’s book, On Trees, with a green tree in the background
A red fox emerges from willows along a blue-green river, then trots along the river over rocks.
Copies of Joan Naviyuk Kane’s book With Snow Pouring South Past the Window and Corinna Cook’s Permafrost is an Archive: And other Inheritances from the Alaska-Yukon borderlands
Show blowing and covering a patio, halfway up the side of a garage.
A photo of a tapestry of a gray and white river cutting through yellow and green shrubs with green and blue and deep maroon hills behind. The hanger is blonde and dark wood in the shape of mountains, with cast salmon securing the tapestry to the hanger.
A caribou bull stands in green tundra with spruce in the background. He has a white ruff and tail and substantial antlers.
Book covers of Lance Richardson’s True Nature and Caroline Tracey’s Salt Lakes
Denali and other mountains against a pink sky, with the Tanana River running silver in the foreground and layers of trees between.
Moose tracks in sand, with a canoe and mountains in the background. On the Yukon River, summer 2024.
A deep maroon daylily with a yellow center and water drops shining in the sun
White and yellow daisies from above
Photo of laptop screen with the title page of Lance Richardson’s True Nature: the pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen
Cover of Jen Rose Smith’s book Ice Geographies
Copies of Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive and James Scott’s book In Praise of Floods
Screenshot of Google Maps showing Mt Denali properly labeled as Mt Denali
Blue and white pancakes of sea ice glide past frost covered leaves and stems at Turnagain Arm in Anchorage Alaska
Historic newspaper headlines reading The Nome Nugget, Diphtheria Epidemic Threatens District, Nome Anxious While Dogs Race On with Antitoxin Situation Still Critical
Photos of three books, Corvid and Crater by Erin Coughlin Hollowell, No Sleep Till Fairbanks by Eva Holland, and On the Swamp by Ryan E Emanuel
A brindle French bulldog holds a plush dog toy shaped like a martini glass with olives
Low gray hills over a silvery river with large driftwood logs; the Yukon near the White River confluence
A rainbow touches down in green bushes on the banks of the blueish Yukon, with hills in the background
A brindle French bulldog sniffs and lightly chews sheets of paper as they come off the printer
An orange-pink sun over gray hills. The sun is reflected in the river in the foreground. There is smoke on the horizon.
Marion Creek in the central brooks range: blue-green water flows around a bend in the creek, with green spruce trees and yellow birch. The conical mountain behind is turning red and yellow in fall colors.
A blue and white banner with VOTE HARD in white on a blue circle, hanging from a balcony along the High-line in New York City
A brindle French bulldog puppy stands on her hind legs in front of bookshelves and bright colored rugs. She just has one front paw but is a very happy tripod.
Driftwood snags on the Tanana, with the Alaska Range in the distance
Panel • “Environmental Guesswork” Time: 4:00pm - 5:30pm Sponsor: Cogut Institute for the Humanities Location: Cogut Institute, Andrews House Room: 110 In this panel, Jen Rose Smith (dAXunhyuu), Hi’ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart (Kanaka Maoli), and Bathsheba Demuth (settler) will discuss how the idea of “careful guessing” can contribute to our encounters and ways of thinking with the other-than-human world in the past and present. Looking at environments from Hawaii to Alaska to Antarctica, the discussion will touch on new work in Native American and Indigenous Studies, the environmental humanities, and ways of narrating the world around us.
Cover or Ramachandra Guha’s new book Speaking with Nature: the Origins of Indian Environmentalism
A beaver surfaces in a river, head and back just above the water
Tree covered in red and green vines against a pink sunrise over a river
Cover of The Burning Earth by Sunil Amrith
Poster for Laura Marris Age of Loneliness book event at Riffraff Providence at 7pm on September 19
Cover of A Survivor’s Education by Joy Neumeyer
Flowers with red stems and small bell shaped blooms breaking through leaf litter
Orange sun peeking out from a gray cloud over orange gray water and dark hills
Blue and white icebergs reflected in water
A penguin with pink feet and a black back and white belly, and a white face with a black strap on its chin, walks on a gray stone seashore.
Back of the magazine showing contributions list including Zoe Dubno, Lillian Fishman, Vigdis Hjorth (translated by Charlotte Barslund), Karan Mahajan, Sam Sax, Brandon Taylor and Nico Walker, and memoir and essays from Didier Eribon, Rahmane Idrissa, Anton Jäger, Samuel Moyn, Yuri Slezkine and Ralf Webb. Plus, poetry by Jana Prikryl, Eve Esfandiari-Denney, Nam Le and K Patrick.
Advice to Myself Leave the dishes. Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor. Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster. Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup. Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins. Don’t even sew on a button. Let the wind have its way, then the earth that invades as dust and then the dead foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch. Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome. Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry who uses whose toothbrush or if anything matches, at all. Except one word to another. Or a thought. Pursue the authentic—decide first what is authentic, then go after it with all your heart. Your heart, that place you don’t even think of cleaning out. That closet stuffed with savage mementos… Poem by Louise Erdrich
A black and white spotted dog looks over an open book with an intent expression.
Curling River seen from the air, in winter
Green trees reflected in blue water
A dog team runs across the frozen Yukon in blue twilight
An orange canoe paddles in front of a rainbow on the Yukon River, with green hills in the background
White cutout stars lit from within hang in a tree against a dark sky