Nowick Gray harks to the tradition of Emerson and Thoreau in portraying his "life in the woods": "I spent the last two decades of the twentieth century nestled in a mountain valley in southeast British Columbia, sequestered in a home of my own making. I had wished to enjoy the privilege of proximate wilderness, and I was willing to take on the challenge of creating a sustainable livelihood in such a place." The setting of wild nature served as backdrop to the writer's internal landscape—personal explorations of body and spirit, creative nonfiction mingled with like-spirited tales of magical realism.