This site features true stories and photography about wilderness travel, wildlife, and exploration — from grizzlies in Denali and wolves in Yellowstone, to jaguars in the Chiricahua Wilderness and tigers in India. It is a space devoted to the life and reflections of John Rust — naturalist, traveler, and writer — who has spent decades immersed in some of the world’s most remote and untamed places.
Welcome to John Rust Wilderness — Through a lifetime of solitude and discovery in wild landscapes, John has encountered the raw beauty and brutality of nature — from tracking predators in Yellowstone and Satpura to canoeing, camping, and surviving alone in Denali National Park, Katmai National Park, and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This site introduces both the stories and the storyteller: one who has lived where science meets the spirit of the wild.
As a wilderness writer, John captures true stories from remote wilderness expeditions, not simply as observer but as participant — confronting grizzlies near Denali, wolves along Slough Creek, and tigers deep in the forests of India. His book, "Exploring Wilderness: From Heart-Racing Adventure to Tranquility," is a culmination of these experiences: wilderness memoirs and nature essays that chronicle encounters with wolves, bears, and wild landscapes, moments of sacred silence, and trials of survival in remote terrain. The stories reveal not only landscapes, but the evolving relationship between human presence and ecological truth.
Across its pages, readers travel from the volcanic coasts of Alaska, the glaciers of Banff and Jasper, to Yellowstone backcountry, and the jungles of India. These are places John has not just visited, but inhabited — physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Whether paddling across Naknek Lake under white caps, watching a bald eagle circle over glacial erratics in Yellowstone, or navigating Lake Brooks of Katmai, he brings us with him — offering not just facts, but feeling. His stories reflect natural history through the eyes of a wilderness traveler, and invite readers to explore ecosystems and predator through the lens of real, lived adventure.
This site is more than a book preview — it’s a portrait of a life spent in motion, in awe, in the wild. If you’re drawn to exploration, wanderlust, or simply the quiet thrill of living close to nature, join John Rust on this journey — one that spans continents, habitats, and a deep respect for the wild world.
John Rust
9725 Oliver Ave. North
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, 55444
763-202-3346
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I love sharing stories and insights about nature, wildlife, wilderness, photography, and adventure travel. I’d be delighted to present for your group! Over the past few years, I’ve delivered dozens of talks for nature clubs, libraries, schools, and community organizations. Most recently, I spoke at the Parks and Trails Council’s annual Gala, presenting to an audience of 150. In addition, I gave a presentation for a corporate gathering of 250 people - how disconnecting from technology and finding tranquility in nature can refocus and energize employees when they return to work. In 2026 I will be presenting for the Linnean Society of London (https://www.linnean.org/)
Whether it’s an intimate gathering or a large event, I bring an engaging, energetic style that makes the wonders of the natural world come alive. If you’re interested in hosting a presentation, just reach out—I’d love to connect!
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John Rust has spent a lifetime exploring and living in earth’s most wild places; pristine and primeval areas where both predator and prey exist. He has visited Yellowstone National Park and Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness a multitude of times. He has hiked and paddled the wilds of Alaska over two dozen times including backpacking Denali National Park, kayaking near tide water glaciers in Kenai Fjords National Park, explored Katmai’s desolate “Valley of 10,000 Smokes,” and paddled Katmai's backcountry and Admiralty Island’s “Fortress of the Bears.”
John has been charged by brown bears in Alaska and Bengal tigers in India. He has been confronted by growling wolves at night in Yellowstone and has spent lazy afternoons laying hidden in snow while large wolfpacks napped nearby. John has kayaked braided glacier rivers with Alaskan brown bears, paddled rivers alongside porpoises, freshwater springs with manatees, and estuaries with basking alligators. He has winter trekked the Boundary Water's maze of frozen lakes and hiked the Superior Hiking Trail while being confronted by wolves at night. All, with a keen eye towards observation and detailing wildlife in a journal.
John has Bachelor of Science degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science. His day-job is in IT quantifying geospatial risks for the insurance industry. He is the father of two children whom he has taken on many adventures. With his grandchildren, John plans to continue to explore nature anew through their eyes. John has organized many public events describing the beauty and wonder of nature and written articles for the Izaak Walton League of America describing nature, ecology, and the value of ecosystems, and was president of the Minnesota Division of the Izaak Walton League from 2020 - 2024
What would you do if a six-hundred-pound grizzly bear approached your campsite during an evening rainstorm in Denali National Park? How would you react if you heard a wolf growling just few feet away at night outside of your tent in Yellowstone National Park? Would you be able to survive alone in remote Alaskan wilderness after your kayak fills with water on a cold rushing river surrounded by hundreds of hungry coastal brown bears? Have you experienced the electric jolt of a charging tiger in the wilds of India and lived to tell the story? Could you find your way back to civilization after losing your map while trekking across a maze of frozen lakes in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness?
This book could save your life. Read it, and you will gain insight into surviving these and other nerve-racking situations in the wilderness.
Even in today’s technological world, we can still venture into wilderness and reduce our existence to the basic necessities of survival. We can elicit the same feelings and emotions as those who lived long before civilization and technology had engulfed the world. We can rekindle ancient feelings of connectedness to the natural world: contentment, serenity, and sublime happiness. But if during our journey we encounter a predator, an entirely different set of emotions is conjured. Stripped of civilization’s safety net, human frailty in the face of a predator’s teeth and claws makes us but another link in nature’s food web, generating the ancient and primal feelings of trepidation, vulnerability, and fear. Our reaction to such an encounter can make the difference between surviving and not.
This book is dedicated to two sets of people. The first are those living at the time of this writing. May you seek, if you so choose, renewal of spirit in nature and find solitude and peace in the natural world as well as the thrill of exploration and adventure in a wilderness that contains predators. The second set of people are those that are to come two hundred years hence. Despite what unimaginable changes will have taken place six generations from now, may you as well, have the opportunity to experience the raw, natural, and primeval world, one that contains wilderness filled with predators. May you be able to experience wilderness on equal terms with predators, as humans have for eons, and thus be humbled while in their presence.
A few screen shots from random pages in the book.
Section - Dedication
Section - Forward
Section - Introduction
Section - Early Experience
Section - Ideal Travel Companion
Section - Wilderness
Chapter - Circle of Life (Town of King Salmon, Alaska, United States) (Aug. 2001)
Chapter - Panic (Saskatchewan Glacier, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada) ( April 1993)
Chapter - Erratic (Slough Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States) (Dec. 1996)
Chapter - Celestine (Celestine Lake, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada) (Sept. 1999)
Chapter - Druids (Slough Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States) (Nov. 2000)
Chapter - Toklat (Toklat River, Denali National Park, Alaska, United States) (Sept. 2002)
Chapter - Vigil (Slough Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States) (April 2004)
Chapter - Nightmare (Lake Brooks, Katmai National Park, Alaska, United States) (August 2004)
Chapter - Supplication (Britton Peak, Superior Hiking Trail, Minnesota, United States) (Oct. 1991)
Chapter - Winter Solitude (Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota, United States) (March 2011)
Chapter - Frustrated (Savonoski River, Katmai National Park, Alaska, United States) (August 2013)
Chapter - Kootznoowoo (Seymour Canal, Admiralty Island, Alaska, United States) (August 2010)
Chapter - Death Gulch (Cache Creek, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States) (Nov. 2009)
Chapter - Sombra (Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona, United States) (Dec. 2017)
Chapter - Humbled (Satpura National Park, India) (April, 2018)
Afterword
Appendix: Cautions when Travelling in Wilderness
Wilderness Memoirs and Nature Essays
True Stories from Remote Wilderness Expeditions
Encounters with Wolves, Bears, and Wild Landscapes
Exploring Untamed Places: From Alaska to India
Personal Reflections on Ecology and Wildness
Backcountry Travel and Survival in Harsh Terrain
Natural History Through the Eyes of a Wilderness Writer
Journeys into National Parks, Forests, and Glaciers
Tracking Predators and Understanding Ecosystems
Adventures in Conservation, Solitude, and Wonder
Solitude and Discovery in Wild Landscapes
A Naturalist’s Journey Through Untamed Places
Canoeing, Camping, and Living Close to Nature
Chronicling the Beauty and Brutality of the Wilderness
Reflections from the Edge of Civilization
Writing the Wilderness: Stories of Earth’s Rawest Places
From Grizzly Country to Glacier Fields
Encounters with the Wild: A Memoir in Motion
Sacred Silence and Survival in Remote Terrain
Where Science Meets the Spirit of the Wild
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