I'm a natural history and environmental writer, an editor and photographer. I've lived in upstate New York, the SF Bay Area, Washington, DC, the Mojave Desert, and Los Angeles. My writing has appeared in publications ranging from Camas and Orion to Bay Nature, California Wild, the Boston Globe, and about thirty daily papers nationwide when I was a syndicated garden writer for the Knight-Ridder chain. No, I never got to meet the talking car.
I've traveled extensively in the Mojave, Great Basin and Sonoran deserts, as well as in the steppes and slickrock country of the Colorado Plateau.
This blog has existed in one form or another since 2003. At first it was called Creek Running North, after Pinole Creek, near where I lived back then. I moved in 2008 and renamed the site Coyote Crossing, but about a thousand people* still link here under the old name.
My publicist tells me I should mention that my writing here has frequently been called the best on the Internet.
* May not actually equal 1000

All content Copyright © 2011 Chris Clarke. All Rights Reserved.
Banner painting by Carl S. Buell.
My dog never leaves my side. Everyone knows he is my friend and protector. It’s an indescribable feeling to have this relationship which is not based on verbal language, but instinct, and heart.
The video is heartbreaking, but like all stories of the Holocaust, necessary. Hitler’s victims asked us to “never forget.”
This kind of work reminds us over and over what it means to be human. It reminds us that true evil exists. It proves that dogs have a moral center, a sense of right and wrong, compassion for the weak, and are willing time and again to knowingly sacrifice themselves for another. Truly man’s best friend.
What an absolutely incredible story. Thank you so much, Chris, for sharing this. My eyes are filled with tears, my heart with wonder.