Part memoir, part scholarly exploration of the psychological and societal dimensions of "place-creation," Canyon, Mountain, Cloud details the author's experience working and living in several American parks and protected areas: Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Denali National Park and Preserve, and Adirondack State Park, with a bit of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve stirred in. Along the way, the author searches for fossils, protects rare and fragile vegetation, learns and shares local natural and cultural histories, questions perceptions of "wilderness", deepens appreciation for wildness, and reshapes understandings of self-in-place.