Jon Turk earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1971 and was nominated by National Geographic as one of the Top Ten Adventurers of the Year in 2012. Between those bookends, he co-authored the first college-level environmental science textbook in North America, (plus 35 other texts) and five books about his many adventures—which include kayaking around Cape Horn and across the North Pacific from Japan to Alaska, a circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island, and numerous first ski descents and rock climbing ascents around the globe. With his (allegedly last) book Tracking Lions, Myth and Wilderness in Samburu hitting stores this September, Mountain Life caught up with Jon to talk about dirtbags, the power of nature, living in the moment, and how the stories we tell, and are told, have shaped human history.
