Will to Live: A Saga of Survival       by Gary Edinger

This book is a dramatic story of a Wisconsin logger who miraculously and heroically survives a woods accident in 2007 when a falling tree shears off his left leg below the knee. Because he was bleeding profusely and knew he would soon go into shock, he believed he only had 30 minutes to live. His predicament was compounded by three inescapable facts. He was alone at the time, it was well below zero and he was almost 20 miles away from emergency services. How he survived, is of course, the centerpiece of the story laid out in this book and you will find this story intriguing in it's own right. But that's not the full story. Most of Gary's life has been realized in the face of a struggle for survival and literally of improving himself, of making a success of things in the face of overwhelming odds.

Gary grew up in Wisconsin's backwoods in the 1950's.  Electricity and other conveniences were slow to arrive in that part of the world. Cows and horses, saws and axes, wood stoves and woodpiles, guns and traps and fishing poles were common and crucial elements of life.  Hardship, toil and free-ranging self-reliance kept alive a frontiersman-like spunk and vigor rarely seen these days.

The book chronicles his family history, his early life in Kennan, (which includes other life threatening accidents) his experiences as a boy learning to become a hunter, racing sled dogs at the international level of competition, becoming a commercial fisherman on the Yukon River, and becoming an elk hunting guide in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Montana and Idaho, where he learned how to pack with horses and mules. 

Since losing the lower half of his left leg in the tragic logging accident, he has set out to prove just as he's done all of his life, that he can still do whatever he sets his mind on doing.  The book gives you clear but subtle insights into how his mind works and the unique ways he can summon his sheer force of will to overcome insurmountable odds. In the final chapter, Edinger describes how he overcomes this new challenge in his life.  He includes the details of returning to the Montana/Idaho wilderness to undertake elk hunting once again, of subsequent camping trips to the mountains with his family and of returning to the logging profession that nearly killed him. After you have finished this book, you will have been entertained by his stories and inspired by his triumphs.

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