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OUTDOOR BOOK REVIEWS HOME PAGE
NEWS & COMMENTARY
WINNERS OF THE NATIONAL OUTDOOR
BOOK AWARDS (NOBA)
NOBA WINNERS BY CATEGORY:
OUTDOOR LITERATURE
NATURAL HISTORY
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THE REVIEWS 10 MOST
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SURVEY: BEST BOOKS
RECOMMENDATIONS:
TRAVEL LITERATURE BY
JEFF TUCKER
OUTDOOR LITERATURE
BY LIAM GUILAR
RIVER LITERATURE BY
LIAM GUILAR
THE OUTDOOR EXPERIENCE READING LIST:
READING LIST FOR AN
OUTDOOR LITERATURE
COURSE
OTHER SUGGESTIONS:
HUMBLE SUGGESTIONS
(A Few of Our Editor's
Own Works)
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Winners
of the Outdoor Classic Category
National
Outdoor Book Awards (NOBA)
The most important book award
program in the outdoor field is the National
Outdoor Book Awards. Past winners of the Outdoor Classic Category are
listed below:
 Winner:Two
in the Far North
By Margaret Murie. Published by Alaska
Northwest Books.
This book, first written in the 1950s and still
in print, is authored by the grand dame of the wilderness movement, Margaret
Murie. Margaret has helped generations of men and women understand
the need to preserve wild landscapes. In Two in the Far North,
she describes her life in Alaska: her growing up in Anchorage and
her adventurous trips into the Alaska wilderness with her husband and biologist,
Olaus. It is a wonderful read and a true American wilderness classic.
 Winner:Mountaineering:
The Freedom of the Hills
Edited by Don Graydon and Kurt Hanson.
Published by The Mountaineers.
Freedom of the Hills is the classic English-language
text on mountaineering and the best selling climbing instruction book of
all time. First published in 1960 and now on its sixth edition, this
authoritative and expansive book has evolved with the times, while maintaining
its high and exacting standards. It is an essential part of any outdoor
library.
 Winner:Cache
Lake Country: Life in the North Woods
By John J. Rowlands with illustrations by Henry
B. Kane. Published by The Countryman Press.
This book, first published in 1947, carries the
reader back to an earlier, simpler time in the twentieth century.
It's about John Rowland's life on Cache Lake, a lake located in forests
of northern Ontario reached only by canoe. Rowlands writes of the
seasons, the wildlife, and his explorations with nearby northwoods neighbors
including a Cree Indian chief and an artist. The book is interspersed
with descriptions and drawings of Rowland's hand-made backwoods inventions
and woodcraft projects of all manner and shape. Full of a down-to-earth
eloquence and commonsensical backcountry wisdom, it's a cozy and heartwarming
book to curl up with.
Winner:
A
Sand County Almanac: A Sketches Here and There
By Aldo Leopold
Published by Oxford University Press
What can be said of Sand County Almanac? It is simply one
of the great works of nature literature and from it has sprung the environmental
movement. This special edition of Sand County Almanac, published
by the original publisher, is a tribute to Leopold, commemorating the one-hundredth
anniversary of his birth. It was over 50 years ago that the book
was first published, but his words and insights are as fresh as ever. Another
Review | Barnes & Noble.com: More
Information or Purchase
Winner:Wilderness
and the American Mind. By Roderick Nash.
Published by Yale University Press, New Haven.
This groundbreaking book, first published in 1967,
is Roderick Nash's classic study of American attitudes toward wilderness.
Beginning with the Old World's roots of opinion and reaching through the
early twenty-first century, it ties together disparate elements of philosophy,
history, politics, and popular attitudes into a concurrent and understandable
whole. Scholarly and perceptive, Wilderness and the American Mind
numbers among the great works on the outdoors.
Honorable
Mention. Backwoods Ethics: A Guide to Low-Impact
Camping and Hiking. By Laura and Guy Waterman. Published
by The Countryman Press, Woodstock. VT. ISBN 088150257X.
Laura and Guy Waterman weren't the first to write about the impacts
of recreation on wild lands, but their book Backwoods Ethics, originally
published in 1979, is still with us today, and still remains a thoughtful
and sensible call to action. The book has a significant following,
particularly in the east, where many of their original suggestions continue
to guide trail building and land management programs.
Winner.
Alone. By Richard E. Byrd. Published by Island
Press, Washington, DC. ISBN 1559634634
Alone is the story of Richard Bryd's six months of isolation
in a remote weather station in Antarctica in 1933. The lack
of companionship, coupled with the long, black days of the interminable
polar winter, extract a mental and physical toll from Byrd. Yet there
is something else, some other sinister element at the root of the explorer's
deteriorating condition. Almost before it is too late, Byrd discovers
that he has been slowly poisoned by a carbon monoxide leak from a defective
stove installation. Reissued by Island Press, this classic story
of Arctic adventure is now available to a new generation of readers.
Winner. Walden. By Henry David Thoreau.
Edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Yale
University Press, New
Haven. ISBN
0300104669
There is absolutely no question about Henry David Thoreau's Walden.
Walden is a literary and outdoor
classic. Knowingly and unknowingly, many
of the reasons that people offer these days why they participate in outdoor
activities can be traced to the pages of Walden. "Simplicity, simplicity,
simplicity," wrote Thoreau. Indeed,
in part, we enjoy outdoor activities because they allow us to get away from the
rush of modern society and simplify our lives—even if it is just for a few
days. For all its impact on the literary
and outdoor worlds, however, Walden
is not an easy book to read. That's why this
new annotated version, edited by Thoreau scholar Jeffrey S. Cramer, is so
invaluable. Cramer's explanatory notes
accompanying Thoreau's text help readers understand the richness of his
writing—and why Walden is truly a
great work of art.
 Life-time Achievement Recognition. Farley Mowat for Sea of Slaughter, Never Cry Wolf and other works. (Sea of Slaughter. By Farley Mowat. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg,
PA.
ISBN 0811731693.) Note: Never Cry Wolf and other Mowat books are
available from a variety of publishers.
This year, with the submission of Sea of Slaughter by Stackpole Books, the judges decided to take the
opportunity to honor Farley Mowat for a lifetime of work of writing about the
outdoors. Mowat's most well known, and
perhaps most far reaching, book is Never
Cry Wolf. First written in 1964, Never Cry Wolf is often credited with
helping change the public's image of wolves as wanton killers. Now several decades later, the wolf is seen
correctly as an integral part of the wild environment, contributing to the
balance between prey and predator.
In Sea of Slaughter, Mowat centers on the marine environment of the North Atlantic coast from Labrador to Cape
Cod. Backed
up by extensive research, he documents the years of human exploitation and the
resulting decimation of coastal sea life.
At the end of the book, Mowat offers one glimmer of hope. He sees small signs that we are making progress
towards protecting sea life. "We
may succeed," he writes "in making man humane . . . at last. And then the Sea
of Slaughter may again become a Sea
of Life." Let us
hope that Mowat's wish may some day come to pass.
 Honorable Mention. Sleeping
Island: A
Journey to the Edge of the Barrens. By
P.G. Downes. Heron Dance Press, New Ferrisburg,
VT.
ISBN 1933937033
Sleeping Island is
the story of P.G. Downes' 1939 canoe expedition through unmapped
country in the
remote northern corner of Manitoba
and Saskatchewan. His journey takes him to the edge of the
Canadian
Barrens, a desolate arctic wasteland known to the Indians as the "Land
of Little Sticks." What helps elevate this book over many of the
chronicles of early twentieth century canoe excursions is Downes'
intimate
knowledge of the trappers, traders, and especially the Indians who live
off the
land. This is what it was like on the
cusp of change, just before the advance of civilization and titanic
forces that
would forever transform the face of Canada's
north country.
End
of Listing
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