From the Olympics to the Everglades, 'Campfire Stories' takes on the nuance of place

Rosette Royale has always been an avid admirer of nature. As a kid, they watched bugs in their backyard and marveled at pileated woodpeckers probing tree trunks.

As Royale grew older, their love of birds, trees, and animals melded with their love of essays and journalism, and inspired them to pursue nature writing.

Despite all of that, it wasn’t until Royale, who is also the managing editor of the South Seattle Emerald, was in their late 40s that they tried backcountry camping for the first time.

While writing for Real Change, they met and interviewed Real Change vendor Bryant Carlin, who often traveled out to Olympic National Park for weeks or months at a time.

Carlin kept inviting Royale to join him on one of his trips and Royale eventually agreed, despite not knowing anything about backcountry camping.

"Bryant suggested we go out there for 10 days, and I was terrified at the prospect of going for 10 minutes, much less 10 days," Royale said.

Royale has lived in cities for a long time. That’s their natural environment.

"I can figure out subways and maps and talk to people. That's fine to me, but I don't know how to read the wilderness," they said. "I was afraid that I would hurt myself. I was afraid that I could get lost. I was afraid that an animal would attack me. And I was just afraid of this big huge space that I didn't understand. So I was terrified."

Bryant took Royale into the rainforest in May to try to see a baby Roosevelt elk.

Royale wrote about this first trip to the Olympics in a story titled "Under the Spell of the Roosevelt Elk," which appears in "Campfire Stories Volume II: Tales from America's National Parks and Trails."

The book collects writings about the Pacific Crest and Appalachian Trails, along with five national parks: Olympic, Glacier, Joshua Tree, the Everglades, and the Grand Canyon.

The stories are often told from the perspectives of writers with complicated cultural connections to the places explored, juxtaposing their apprehensiveness of the wilderness with their reverence of it.

"We were looking for something, number one, that was compelling to read, whether to yourself or out loud around a campfire," said the collections co-editor, Ilyssa Kyu, "but most importantly, told you something about place, that says something about the authentic experience of being in Olympic National Park."

Ilyssa Kyu co-edited the book with her husband, Dave Kyu. For the first volume of "Campfire Stories," they traveled across the country, looking through books, interviewing people, and going to parks. They found a limited number of perspectives represented in this method.

Dave Kyu said he was excited to include more authors in the second volume, like former Washington State Poet Laureate and enrolled member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation, Rena Priest.

"Her writing and other indigenous writers are actually capturing this idea of that it can be a little complicated to visit these national parks," he said. "If you know that your ancestors used to call these homelands, that you were kicked out, that you were removed, that these homelands were stolen from you, but you still get to come back, they're still preserved."

Ilyssa and Dave Kyu will be hosting events across Washington State with authors featured in Campfire Stories Vol. II. You can learn more about those events here.

You can also listen to the full interview with Dave and Ilyssa Kyu, plus a reading from Rosette Royale by clicking the play button above.