Cameron MacDonald 
The Endangered Species Road Trip 
A Summer’s Worth of Dingy Motels, Poison Oak, Ravenous Insects, and the Rarest Species in North America

Bill Bryson meets John Vaillant in this life list quest to see the rarest species in North America.



Crammed into a minivan with wife, toddler, infant, and dog, accompanied by mounds of toys, diapers, tent, sleeping bags, and other paraphernalia,
Cameron Mac Donald embarks on a road trip of a lifetime to observe North America’s rarest species. In California, the family camps in the brutally hot Mojave, where he observes a desert tortoise—’the size and shape of a bike helmet and the colour of gravel” sitting motionless in the shade of a scrubby sagebush. In Yellowstone, after driving through unseasonal snow, he manages to spot a rare black wolf and numerous grizzlies, which, unfortunately, call forth a crowd of ‘grizzly gawkers.’ The journey takes the Mac Donald family from British Columbia, along the west coast of the U.S., through the Southwest and Florida, up the east coast of the U.S., and finally to eastern Canada and then back home to BC.



Along the way, Mac Donald offers fascinating details about the natural history of the endangered species he seeks, as well as threats like overpopulation, commercial fishing, and climate change that are driving them towards extinction.

About the author

Cameron Mac Donald teaches biology at Langara College in Vancouver, BC. He has also worked as a wildlife biologist across much of North America. His writing has appeared in the
Globe and Mail, the
Toronto Star and PRISM International.