This is a collection of Lisa Loucks Christenson's wildlife documentaries.
Summer 2021:
I decided to add more chapters to my Struggling for Existence book. New release date TBA
On the Wings of Cardinals
My observations of a family of cardinals rearing their young.
Some of Lisa's documentaries are works-in-progress.
Lisa's Winter Bugs! (Hardcover 2006) sold out
Winter Bugs! 2024 Edition
2022 Releases:
WALK THE BURN
HAPLESS HARRY: THE Minnesota Muscovy Duck Documentary
Book Publisher: CoyWolf Entertainment™
Author, Photographer, and Illustrator: Lisa Loucks-Christenson
Series: Stories of the Whitewater Valley, Minnesota
Pages:144 pages | color illustrations, sketches, and photos
Formats: e-book, paperback, and hardcover.
ISBN-13: 978-1-970165-05-0 | Hardcover
Price: $32.00 USD
Release: February 10, 2022
Summary
A wildlife documentary recorded in the Whitewater Valley—in The Blufflands of southeast Minnesota. The true story of a Muscovy Duck who followed a unique path into the wild and our hearts.
Hapless Harry, the Minnesota Muscovy Duck, is the diary of a duck’s life, documented with real photos, illustrations, and hand-drawn comics created by the author and based on her unlikely hero.
BLURB
The true story of a Minnesota Muscovy Duck, this documentary was created as a photo record, diary, sketchbook, and memory of sorts of our time together in the spring and summer of 2009.
In the shadows of the scum-covered pond behind some swamp plants, the moment this author realized it was a Muscovy Duck peeking out, Hapless Harry’s future looked short.
Without a single flight feather, this extraordinary duck gave rise to the spirits of others, speaking their language, connecting with their hearts, and sharing answers to their every call.
We don’t know how Hapless Harry made it to shore through tributaries, ponds, or streams. But he and this author would not have crossed paths had he traveled in any other direction—or just a few miles further north to the Mississippi River.
During Hapless Harry’s brief visit here on earth, he taught us a lot about the human condition, how friends came in all shapes, sizes, and species. All their adventures are here, as witnessed and recorded through the eyes of a nature journalist covering her daily outdoor beat.
The author hopes this story will continue blessing those who find it, a reason to visit and re-read Hapless Harry: The Minnesota Muscovy Duck Documentary. A duck, who, in retrospect, may not have been such a lost duck after all.
“Finally, a story from nature where the underdog fights and wins a few battles anyway, before their last departure.” Lisa Loucks-Christenson
Updated Final cover on 12/23/2021 (It may take a day for this to populate on Amazon)
12/23/2021 3:35AM
Walk the Burn: Beauty & True Crime is a:
#1 Hot New Release in Photo Essays
#1 Hot New Release in Environmental and Natural Resources Law (books)
#1 in Natural Resource in Environmental and Natural Resources Law (Kindle)
Updated hourly by Amazon
------------------------------------------------------------------------
12/22/2021
12/22/2021 Walk the Burn (old cover) is #2 on Amazon Hot New Releases in Environmental & Natural Resource Law (this changes hourly)
Nothing bad happened to me the first week of WALK THE BURN, just a guy standing behind the tree branches by my truck while I was heading out from my day at the eagle nest. He eyed me as I stepped out of the grasslands. I kept walking through the open woods, keeping my chin up to preserve my stoical expression, trying not to show a trace of fear.
After I stepped off the grassland and onto the blacktop, I had officially entered Minnesota State Highway 74, the road that ran between the parcels of state land. As I walked closer to my truck, I was ready to break another chain in my life and snatch up the bottle of pepper spray, a one-inch brushed steel can of trust that dangled just inches away from my face on the breastplate of my tripod. My check-out counter special that caught my attention twice in one day.
That’s what I thought about as it reflected the light of the afternoon sun into my eyes. Maybe the light beams hitting my vision were God’s way of saying He was nearer than He appeared. My thoughts waved between hoping it was Him or someone he sent.
I watched his face and his dead stare closely, expecting him to move at any moment. My pocket-sized mace didn’t pack enough power to cause a tear––probably mine in a lightning fast altercation. At that moment, I realized how inadequate and undersized its value was. Was my life not worth more than a one ounce bottle of this false sense of security?
A spray bottle dressed in a white label and with ingredients that may as well have included fleeting hope. A handful of stinging nettles could inflict more harm––if only they were at a height I could grab at; I’d take their sting without a second of hesitation. For the first time since seeing the man, I was fully aware of the situation I was walking into.
I kept walking. I tightened my grip on my tripod, the same one I’d use in the future, in 2007, when I’d become future me, to protect myself from a cougar running behind me, then alongside me before it jumped at the face of my future me.
Just in case I didn’t get out of the woods I reached down pressing the shutter on my Canon camera hanging over my shoulder and across my hip, I snapped at least a ten shots of him, trusting the autofocus was working and someone would see the photos if something happened to me and I could leave the camera behind.
The man was about 25 feet away. He continued to observe me, but he didn’t move. His eyes lifted and dropped as he began sizing me up. I hated when men did that disrespect my existence as a woman didn’t measure up to his standards. The Whitewater Valley didn’t have cell phone coverage, so I didn’t bring a phone with me. I repeated my passcode in my head so I didn’t blank out if he came at me as I neared my truck. I kept my eyes looking toward my truck, hoping he’d think I didn’t see him.
I felt myself tensing as I entered my door lock code, 05975, into the keypad on a truck that was as seasonal as my journey into the first couple of years in the valley. I entered my truck, locking the doors, and looked ahead into the turnaround and stared at what had to be his truck. Using my eagle eyesight––I memorized his plate. I still remember it. He followed me for 15 years.
It turns out, per a Minnesota State Trooper, he was a pot farmer, known in the area to law enforcement for his farms. I didn’t overstep his boundary line that day, or care that I was on his turf that first week: I marched right over his divide and I continued to walk anywhere I wanted to walk in those miles of public land, and also the private land I’d secured permission to use during my projects there over the next 15 years of my life.
WALK THE BURN started out as a 30-day documentary showing the daily changes following a controlled burn. A photo essay documenting the actual fire and the black canvas it left behind in the ghost town I studied, now a wildlife refuge that superseded the former town of Beaver, Minnesota.
It’s a story about how life rises from the ashes and into a picture-perfect summer. Ironically, it became a crime and faith story about how God used it to break me into His service; transforming me into someone He could use to serve other people that were hurting deeper and broken harder than me.
This is Lisa Loucks-Christenson’s unique faith-walk. It’s her adventures as she earned the fad names: The Town Joke, The Nature Photographer, The Bug Lady, The Eagle Lady, names that grew into The Lady of Whitewater. WALK THE BURN includes her first steps into the first seven seasons covering a controlled burn and what followed in the former town of Beaver, Minnesota, a ghost town in southeastern Minnesota. These are the opening stories she experienced there. This is her GOD ON A HARLEY meets GRIZZLY ADAMS dining with CRIMINAL MINDS while inspired by TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL.
*****
*****
WALK THE BURN: A BEAVER, MINNESOTA GHOST TOWN DOCUMENTARY & TRUE CRIME STORY
WINTER BUGS EXHIBIT EDITION
A featured exhibit at the National Eagle Center, and so was Lisa's Bald Eagle Documentary
Currently on display at Silver Lake Books
HAPLESS HARRY THE MINNESOTA MUSCOVY DUCK DOCUMENTARY
Struggling for Existence: What Nature Shared (in progress)