Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu is provocative look at the vital connection between human beings, the natural world and meaningful knowledge.

While tracking a lion with a Samburu headman and then, later, eluding human assailants who may be tracking him, Jon Turk experiences people at their best and worst. As the tracker and the tracked, Jon reveals how the stories we tell each other, and the stories spinning in our heads, can be moulded into innovation, love and co-operation — or harnessed to launch armies. Seeking escape from the confusion we create for ourselves and our neighbours with our think-too-much-know-it-all brains, Jon finds liberation within a natural world that spins no fiction.

Set in a high-adventure narrative on the unforgiving savannah, Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu explores the aboriginal wisdoms that endowed our Stone Age ancestors with the power to survive – and how, since then, myth, art, music, dance, and ceremony have often been hijacked and distorted within our urban, scientific, oil-soaked world.

Dr. Jon Turk is a scientist, author, and National Geographic award-winning explorer whose worldview was altered by extended visits with Moolynaut, a Siberian shaman.

He earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1971 and was nominated by National Geographic as one of the Top Ten Adventurers of the Year in 2012. Between these bookends, Jon co-authored the first college-level environmental science textbook in North America, followed by 35 additional texts, and five books about my adventures. At the same time, he kayaked around Cape Horn, across the North Pacific from Japan to Alaska, and around Ellesmere Island. Jon has also made numerous first ski descents and first rock climbing ascents around the globe. 

Jon's current work focuses on honoring the power of Nature as a means of achieving Presence within the modern opulent, scientific, corporate, and uber-political 21st century. He relies heavily on the teachings of indigenous peoples who lived sustainably on this planet for millennia.

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The radio version of the show includes copyright music and premieres Sunday nights at 6 MST. You can live online at Trail1033.com & locally (Missoula) on the Trail 103.3 FM

This episode was recorded on location in collaboration with Xplorer Maps.

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