Dr. Larry Len Peterson is an award-winning scientist, physician, cultural historian, and author. Above all, he is a searcher. Peterson grew up in Plentywood on the Great Plains of northeastern Montana north of Fort Union and next to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. He graduated from the Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU) in Portland and completed an internal medicine internship, a residency in the visual field of dermatology, and a NIH research fellowship. His distinguished biographies on Glacier National Park include The Call of the Mountains: The Artists of Glacier National Park and John Fery: Artist of Glacier National Park & the American West. Other noted books by the author are Charles M. Russell, Photographing the Legend: A Biography in Words and Pictures; Philip R. Goodwin: America’s Sporting and Wildlife Artist; and L. A. Huffman: Photographer of the American West.

In its year-end Best of the West Collector’s Edition, True West Magazine rated Peterson 2018 Best Author and his American Trinity: Jefferson, Custer, and the Spirit of the West (Sweetgrass Books), as 2018 Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year. Its highly regarded book review and senior editor Stuart Rosebrook, Ph.D., wrote, “The end result of Peterson’s introspective journey as an author, scientist and Westerner is his publication of the most reflective philosophical history of American history published in the past 50 years.” 

Peterson is also the recipient of the C. M. Russell Heritage Award, Western Heritage Award, the Scriver Award, the High Plains Book Award, and the Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award. 

Dr. Peterson lives with his wife, LeAnne; Vizsla dogs Abby and Beau; and two horses, Big Sky and Sunny, on their Spirit of Winter Ranch near Sisters, Oregon, in the shadow of the Three Sisters Mountains—Faith, Hope, and Charity. The aroma of Sweetgrass makes him homesick.