Sacred Sea follows veteran environmental journalist Peter Thomson as he sets off from Boston with his younger brother for one of nature's most remarkable creations: Lake Baikal.

A gargantuan crack in the Siberian plateau, Lake Baikal is the world's largest body of fresh water, its deepest and oldest lake, and a cauldron of evolution, home to hundreds of unique creatures, including the world's only freshwater seal. It's also among the most pristine lakes on earth, with a mythical ability to protect itself from the growing human impact-a "perfect," self-cleansing ecosystem.

But at Baikal the brothers also find ominous signs that this perfect piece of nature could yet succumb to the even more powerful forces of human hubris, carelessness and ignorance. They find that despite its isolation, Baikal is connected to everything else on Earth, and that it will need the love and devotion of people around the world to protect it.

On their trek halfway around the world by train and cargo ship the author and his brother encounter a stream of people who are also lonely, displaced and yearning for something beyond the limits of their own lives, but many of whom are also big-hearted and deeply connected to their own communities and the world around them. What begins as a search for restoration in nature becomes as well a discovery of the restorative power of trust, faith and human connection.

Sacred Sea is a story told in three and a quarter parts...

Part One: The Sacred Sea

...tells of the arrival of our narrator and his brother at Lake Baikal, their exploration of the lake, its natural and human history and communities, and why they came.

It is a most excellent job, this of being a man upon the Earth; you see so much that is wondrous....
–Maxim Gorky, Birth of a Man

Part Two: 180o

...tells of the brothers" journey by boat and train from Boston to Siberia.

To believe in the journey is to have already arrived.
–Harvey Oxenhorn, Tuning the Rig

Part Three: Baikal, Too, Must Work

...tells of the environmental threats to the lake and its inhabitants, introduces readers to local residents who are workingto protect the lake and others who say it needs no protection, weighs the possible futures for this extraordinary place and then follows our brothers back around the other half of the world toward home.

Don"t spit into the well water—you"ll need to drink it later.
–Russian proverb

Epilogue: The Great Baikal Chain

...tells of the author"s return to Siberia to help build a network of low-impact hiking trails..

The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The Time is now.
–Tony Kushner, Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika