Trespassing Across America

Trespassing Across America: One Man’s Epic, Never-Done-Before (and Sort of Illegal) Hike Across the Heartland is a travel memoir about author Ken Ilgunas’s walk along the proposed route of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Published in 2017, the book’s arrival came concurrently with President Trump’s renewed interest in the pipeline after the Obama administration rejected it. It is the winner of multiple awards, including the Nebraska Center for the Book Award, Travel, and A Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award Notable Book.

As the book begins, Ilgunas is a dishwasher in an Alaskan oil camp hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle. While there, he realizes that he is indirectly supporting the country’s oil dependence and the environmental and social harm that comes with it. He and a friend go on an impromptu hiking trip to Prudhoe Bay in which they get lost, confront a bear, and trespass across government land to return to the oil camp. This mini-adventure reenergizes their wanderlust, spawning the idea to hike the proposed route of the Keystone XL Pipeline, a trip that would also involve trespassing. Ilgunas and his friend decide to do the hike together, but his friend is unable to cross the Canadian border due to a previous incident. After months of postponements for weddings and injuries, Ilgunas embarks on the trip alone.

On September 22, 2012, Ilgunas begins his journey. Already an accomplished hitchhiker with thousands of miles across North America under his belt, he hitchhikes from Denver 1,500 miles north to the Alberta tar sands, which is where he begins his walk to the Gulf Coast of Texas 1,700 miles away. The trip requires him to trespass frequently over privately held land. Some let him pass or openly discuss the pipeline or climate change with him. He talks to ranchers, oil workers, and town folk to gather a wide variety of opinions. Some arrange places for him to stay and have a hot shower. Others are less friendly and threaten to shoot him. When he must, he sleeps in ditches, the woods, and next to railroad tracks. When the weather turns colder, he sleeps in churches and the homes of welcoming people. He tries his best to avoid riding in cars, and he largely succeeds.



Along the way, Ilgunas battles bothersome injuries, troubling weather, difficult terrain, and fatigue. As he slowly makes his way south, he ponders the wildness of the continent and the fragile environment. He admires the wilderness as he pushes himself to the limits, both mentally and physically. He interjects the narrative with facts and figures about global warming and quotes from environmentalists.

Ilgunas begins the journey unsure of how he feels about the proposed pipeline. One-hundred-forty-six days later when he reaches an oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas at the end of his journey, Ilgunas is firmly against it. His trek through the Great Plains and his interactions with hundreds of people persuade him that the pipeline is a bad idea. Although oil is important, Ilgunas asserts, there must be a better way to accommodate energy needs than to build a massive aboveground pipeline across some of North America’s most pristine scenery.

Trespassing Across America is at once a memoir of a long hike and a consideration of global warming and its effect on the world. The narrative structure and sense of humor have elicited comparisons from critics to accomplished travel writer Bill Bryson and, in particular, his book A Walk in the Woods about hiking the Appalachian trail. “Ilgunas is something of an heir to Bill Bryson in his ability to find humor and irony in random encounters on the road,” writes Joanna O’Sullivan of the Asheville Citizen-Times.



Some critics, however, believe that Ilgunas is too clearly against the pipeline from early on, and therefore it is difficult to credit the book as a balanced report on the pipeline’s significance and effects on the environment. Kirkus Reviews finds the book “heartfelt and seemingly genuine” but “ponderous and occasionally preachy.”

As he pulls readers southward across North America, Ilgunas posits open-ended questions to the reader. What does it mean to be stewards of the land? Do individuals get a say against giant fossil fuel corporations? He also explores the effects of travelling alone. Whether it is more a memoir or a think piece, Trespassing Across America: One Man’s Epic, Never-Done-Before (and Sort of Illegal) Hike Across the Heartland is a provocative and informative tale of one man’s journey on foot for some perspective on a controversial issue.