[1][2] When he was a teenager, he also spent at least three summers working at the Fort Laramie National Historic Site as a "living history interpreter.

[1] Upon graduation from Cornell Law in the 90s, Punke worked as a government staffer for Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana),[2] who was later ambassador to China.

[4] Punke has also worked on international trade issues from the private sector, including as a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Brown, Rowe, & Maw.

In February 2017, Punke joined Amazon Web Services as Vice President for Global Public Policy.

He came up with the idea to write the novel while on an airplane, after reading a couple of lines in a history book about real-life frontier fur trapper Hugh Glass.

[1] The book took a total of four years to complete and according to his brother Tim, Punke actually caught pneumonia at least four times during the writing process.

[1] Punke also performed extensive research on Glass, which included setting up and testing real hunting traps.

[1] During his time as ambassador to the WTO, Punke was permitted to receive royalties from sales of his books, though he was prohibited from promoting them in any way, due to ethics policies preventing federal officials from self-enrichment.

Punke wrote the introduction to a contemporary reprint of Mari Sandoz's 1954 book, The Buffalo Hunters: The Story of the Hide Men.