From the time she was eight years old, Carter G. Walker made annual family trips to a Wyoming dude ranch, where she fell in love with purple mountain majesties and all things equine. After she graduated early from Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, with an English literature degree, Carter landed, sight unseen, in Bozeman, Montana, and made the West her home. In two decades as a Westerner, Carter has stoked the flames of her love affair by balancing her intellectual need to tell stories with her physical yearning to explore wild places. She has worked as a wilderness guide in Montana and Wyoming; as a naturalist guide in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks; as a wildland and structure firefighter and EMT; and as a publisher, editor, and freelance writer. She is currently the editor of Western Art & Architecture and a contributing editor to Big Sky Journal . She continues to travel the backroads and little-known parts of the West as fodder for countless magazine features and food for her soul. In 2002, after a ski trip to the north pole was unexpectedly and serendipitously re-routed through the archipelago of Svalbard, Carter met and married Bjørn Sæteren, an absolute Viking and her hero when it came to the pursuit of adventure.

The couple lives with their two adventuresome daughters, Sissel and Siri--both champion road warriors and cowgirls at heart--in Bozeman, Montana.