Another Name for Paradise: A Journey through the History and Nature of Northern Colorado

“I cannot say with certainty when I came to love the place that I call ‘home’,” notes writer James C. Hess, in the introduction to an effort that spans time and space, history and nature. “I can, however, cite reasons for why: It is a wonderful and wondrous place of light and sound at once mysterious and magnificent, savage and pastoral, defined by and recognized for the landscapes and the land, the geological and the geographical, the people, the legends, the myths, and the mysteries manifested as History and Nature.”

So begins a journey that starts in the cold of winter on New Year’s Day and ends the last day of fall among the forgotten dead, with one pursuit in hand: To know the place called Home, and why it is so.

Along the way he comes to an understanding about his place in this place, which involves snowshoeing with bison, starring contests with mountain lions, moments of joy with curious bobcats, and the acceptance of the truth of mortality we must all face as we are watched over by the sentinels of time made of sandstone and granite, that rise to meet the sky and the heavens beyond.