Dersu the Trapper

Apropos of the season,
if you want to get yourself a treat,
get or give 'Dersu the Trapper' by Vladimir Arseniev.

I believe this story to be one of the 20th century's greatest books. VK Arseniev was a Russian naturalist who met the aboriginal Dersu, I believe in the '20s who became his teacher, friend and guide in the Ussurian Taiga. Over there on your chart inland from Vladivostok.

Published in Russian in 1941, it wasn't translated into English until decades later. This isn't the 'wilderness and grandeur' of the ocean you'd might expect in a post here, but of the Siberian outback above the Sea of Japan in the days when settlers and entrepeneurs were having their deadly effect on natural habitat.

There is on PBS these days a lot of programs relating to global warming, which this book (and the movie "Dersu Uzala" by Kurosawa) are harbingers.
If it had been translated it could have had an effect on current events. But WWII changed the focus, and here we are. The writer is a scientist, not a moral novelist, but the book is obviously written as a remembering of events by a great observer.
Dersu, immortalized by his student, how he sees the world, that's who you want to meet. Who knew what was coming down back then. And the great Kurosawa pays him tribute too! You'll never forget him.