Bitterroot

In Bitterroot, a long time veteran of the U.S. Forest Service takes you on a whopping good romp through the Pacific Northwest. Be prepared to meet unforgettable characters aplenty, as yellow gold turns good people into killers, then to gentry.

First, travel with Chinese laborers across the stormy Pacific and with wild miners and tough trail bosses into the Idaho wilds of the 1860s. Carouse and grub for gold with them. Rioting laborers cause desperate men to cache precious gold. A buried treasure lies in the deep woods, waiting.

Then pin on the pine tree shield of the U.S. Forest Service and join the thin green line managing and protecting public forests in the 1960s. Meet a young, frustrated, forester who stumbles upon a huge golden treasure. Betrayed, he pays for the discovery with his life. A beautiful young woman steals the treasure runs for her life.

In the 1980s, live among the Hudson Valley gentry, where a respected wifes idyllic life is shockingly churned into violent turmoil by a chance encounter with an old Forest Service associate. Aware that the murderess is alive, the son of the long-dead forester must weigh revenge against mercy. With his fathers old friends help, he produces a surprising triumph for justice and the human spirit.

If you like exciting historical adventures, with just enough facts and real places to ring true, read Bitterroot. The trip is worth it!

The author, Stephen McDonald, was born in Orofino, Idaho, in 1940, and was raised in Lewiston, Idaho. He holds two forestry degrees from the University of Idaho and a PhD in forestry from Colorado State University.

He went to work for the Forest Service on the Clearwater National Forest (north central Idaho) in 1962. Later he was nurseryman at the Forest service nursery at Coeur dAlene, Idaho. In 1975 he became the West-wide Nursery Specialist for the Forest Service. In 1981 he transferred to the National Office of the Forest service in Washington, D.C., where he worked in State and Private Forestry and Research. In 1987, he became the Assistant Station Director of the Rocky Mountain Experiment Station, Fort Collins, Co. In 1990, he went to Portland, Oregon, to lead applied ecological research in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. This included research on the Northern Spotted Owl and the Presidents Plan for Pacific Northwest Forests. He became a Fellow of the JFK School of Government, Harvard University, in 1991. In 1995, he was appointed a Federal Senior Executive in Washington, serving as Director of Cooperative Forestry. Upon leaving Federal Service in 1997, he formed SM & Associates, Ogden, Utah.

Dr. McDonald has authored over 85 technical books and papers and is a member of several academic honor societies. He received numerous awards during his Federal Service. His wife, Shirley, is the Assistant Director of Public Affairs for the Intermountain Region of the Forest Service in Ogden, Utah.

Dr. McDonald is an avid writer. He particularly enjoys creating novels set in the West. He has this to say about his home State:

I view the west as my natural home and wellspring, although I have lived away from there much of my adult life. Perhaps that feeling is normal for those having their formative years in an area. My grandparents were homesteaders in the Snake River Canyon early in the century, having moved to Idaho from Missouri. My mother and aunt went to elementary school at a Catholic indian mission. My mother was an Idaho Public Health nurse many years. The point is: my roots are in the west and in the Forest Service.

When I left Idaho in 1975, I always thought that I would be back soon, but that didn't happen. However, there is a lot of Idaho, and the west, in me. I like to think that I mirror that culture. I often think about the people I lived with early in my life in Idaho. They were honest, humble, hard workerspeople cut out of the western mold of self-reliance and directness. Perhaps that comes through in the characters in my novels. I hope so.