Finding healing, hope and purpose through a wilderness journey

Brad Orsted’s memoir, “Through the Wilderness: My Journey of Redemption and Healing in the American Wild,”  starts swiftly. On the first page you learn the bones of the author’s journey: His young daughter Marley dies while staying  at Brad’s mother’s house for the first time.

Brad says that to this day he has not discovered what happened to his daughter. This wrenching loss and terrible betrayal devastate Brad, his wife and two step daughters. He plummets into an internal hell where he is constantly suicidal, with alcohol and drugs, and his addiction to them, his daily companion.

After Marley’s death, Brad’s wife has an opportunity to change careers and move the family to Yellowstone. Feeling that this might be the change the family needs, she accepts the position, and the family begins moving from Michigan to the nation’s first National Park. Despite being in their new home, surrounded by the wild beautiful park, Brad’s demons still plague him.

He ventures to the outback and spends his days trekking into the wild and his nights drinking.

A chance encounter with an adult grizzly one morning jars Brad out of the fog of misery he resides in, long enough to realize a truth some of us have had at our lowest moments: That he didn’t want to die, but he didn’t know how to live. This life-altering  encounter leads him to take steps towards recovery. A sweat-lodge ceremony helps him find a piece of that puzzle.

He also makes a promise to his creator, his daughter Marley, and to himself.

On his path towards sobriety, Brad is able to lose himself for moments, finding joy and wonderment in his surroundings. Brad finds purpose in filming a young pair of orphaned grizzly cubs.  These moments of stillness and outward peace let good memories and moments of joy find him. The motherless cubs become almost an obsession to the author, as he watches, protects, and films them for a documentary.

He writes of them with tenderness and love, but also with appreciation for their wildness, their survival in a world that is increasingly hostile to grizzlies. The way he describes the grizzly bears he encounters, from the two precious orphan cubs to the massive adults, shows his love and respect for them, and their wildness. The footage

Brad shot of the orphan grizzlies is part of the award-winning documentary film, “The Beast of Our Time: Grizzly Bears and Climate Change.”

The narrative of his book is told in a nonlinear way, which for some authors can be tricky, but Brad manages it extremely well. Throughout the whole book, the double timelines from the past and present unfold together with utmost clarity. You never lose sight of where you are in the sequence of the story. The author is an artist who is capable of deftly bringing the places he writes about to life without resorting to excessive scenery descriptions.

Every page of “Through the Wilderness” evoked a strong emotional reaction from me.

Brad’s writing is unflinching and intimate. Who among us, after suffering such a soul-crushing tragedy, could write a memoir with such honesty and candor? Overcoming addiction to become an award-winning wildlife photographer, filmmaker, author, and conservationist is an immense gift to the world. On top of his other work, Brad now helps others experience nature as a way to heal and relax.

I highly recommend this haunting, yet hope filled book to all. There is not a heart that wouldn’t benefit from reading its pages.