EUGENE, Ore. (AP) – Barry Lopez, an award-winning writer who tried to strengthen the bonds between people and places by describing the landscapes he saw in 50 years of travel, has passed away. He was 75.
Lopez died Friday in Eugene, Oregon, after years of battling prostate cancer, his family said.
An old friend Kim Stafford, a former laureate of the Oregon poet, said Lopez’s books are “landmarks that define a region, a time, a purpose. He is also an example of a life of dedication to craftsmanship and learning, to being humble toward all kinds of wisdom. “
As the author of nearly 20 books on natural history studies, along with collections of essays and short stories, Lopez received the 1986 National Book Award for “Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape.” It was the result of nearly five years of travel across the North Pole.
His latest work was “Horizon”, an autobiography that recalls a lifetime of travel in more than 70 countries.
Born in 1945 in Port Chester, New York, Lopez grew up in San Fernando Valley, California and, after his mother remarried, in New York City. In ‘Horizon’ he wrote that during those formative years he ‘developed a desire to just leave. To discover what deposited the skyline. “
He spent his later years with his wife, Debra Gwartney, in a wooded area along the McKenzie River east of Eugene. After years of writing about the natural world and humans’ effect on climate change, he mourned the loss of acres of wood, not to mention personal papers, at the Holiday Farm fire in September 2020.
The wildfire damaged Lopez’s house so badly that he couldn’t live in it. The fire also destroyed a building that used his original manuscripts, personal letters, photos, and a typewriter to write his books. The IBM Selectric III was quickly replaced by an identical model by his friends.
“Just an incredible amount of work and memories,” said stepdaughter Stephanie Woodruff. “Very carefully maintained and organized. That (loss) was certainly devastating. He wrote every book on a typewriter. “
In 2013, Lopez wrote the essay “Sliver of Sky”, in which he revealed that he had been sexually assaulted by a family friend since he was 7 years old. Lopez said the essay was an attempt at catharsis.
Woodruff said the essay may have contributed to “Horizon,” a book that has been more than twenty years in the making. In a 2019 review, The Associated Press said the book felt like the crowning glory of Lopez’s illustrious career, describing it as part travel journal, part history, part science reading, part autobiography, and utterly unique.
“I really think (the essay) unleashed something in him to really ground and round out ‘Horizon’,” Woodruff said. “Everything he wrote was of course personal.”
In a statement Saturday, his family encouraged financial support for the McKenzie River Trust, with which Lopez had worked on conservation efforts.
Lopez leaves behind his wife, four stepdaughters and an older brother. A younger brother died in 2017.