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Best
Book List:
The
Outdoor Experience
Copyright 2004 Ron Watters
The following is a list of
books that I use for an Outdoor Literature class that I teach at Idaho
State University. It also became the basis of an anthology that I
edited entitled The Outdoor Experience.
At first I thought that it
would be a breeze to come up with a selection of readings for an outdoor
literature class. There are literally hundreds of books on the outdoors,
including books on the environment, natural history, outdoor adventure,
and outdoor travel. But it was just that, the sheer number of books—past
and present—that
made things all the more difficult, and the task I found myself faced with
was winnowing the list down to a useful and representative sample of literature
that could be included in a reasonably sized book and studied in a semester-long
course.
To help reach a final list,
I consulted several "best reading" lists that have become available over
the last couple of years. Moreover, I was able to bounce ideas off
my fellow members of the National Outdoor Book Award Committee. The
National Outdoor Book Awards is a non-profit program which each year honors
the best in outdoor writing and publishing. One of the projects of
the committee was an informal survey on outdoor books that was administered
to over 300 professionals and academics working in the field of outdoor
education.
In addition to having access
to survey data and a list of books that academics and others recommended,
it was also necessary to narrow down the scope of the material. Outdoor
literature encompasses several different genres including writings in outdoor
adventure, nature, the environment, and adventure travel writing.
The emphasis of the course
I teach is on outdoor adventure writing: exploration, survival, sailing,
mountaineering, whitewater boating, kayaking, etc. But outdoor adventure
is very much connected to the other genres, a connection which can't be
disregarded. As I researched the literature, I found that there were several
key works, which although not technically outdoor adventure, had a profound
influence in all outdoor writing. One prime example is Thoreau's
Walden.
Knowingly or unknowingly, many of the reasons that people offer these days
on why they participate in outdoor adventure activities can be traced to
the pages of Walden.
In addition to covering important
works which had an influence on outdoor adventure writing, I also wanted
to provide some sense of history. Outdoor adventure activities such
as mountaineering and river running have a rich history populated with
fascinating men and women, and filled with triumphs and failures, and real-life
mysteries. A great amount of satisfaction is derived from knowing
something about the people and events which shaped outdoor activities.
Mountaineering, for instance, is much more alive and you have a greater
appreciation for the sport when you understand the struggles that climbers
went through in the past.
I eventually arrived upon
a term to describe all this: "The Outdoor Experience." Thus
the Outdoor Experience—and
the selection of readings in this list—encompasses
outdoor adventure, its history and the writings which influence outdoor
adventure. To provide variety, I tried to select readings from
a range of different outdoor activities. The list includes readings
on survival, mountaineering, horseback riding, river running, arctic exploration,
sailing, canoeing, kayaking, desert hiking, and backpacking.
I hope you'll enjoy the list.
If it increases your understanding of outdoor sports, gives you a feeling
for history, or it provides the catalyst to read more, then it's served
it's purpose.
The following is a summary of the list. Details on each title follow . . .
Walden
By Henry David Thoreau
Time Period: 1845-1847
In 1845, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great American essayist and transcendentalist,
gave Henry David Thoreau the use of a piece of property that he owned along
Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau was an admirer of
Emerson's work and had lived for a while at the writer's house. Emerson
responded inkind, encouraging Thoreau in his own writing and even asking
Thoreau to edit one of the issues of Dial, a transcendental journal.
On the Emerson property, Thoreau built a small cabin, planning to use
it as a quiet place to finish work on a book that he was writing about
a boat trip he and his brother had taken on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.
But he had something else in mind, an experiment of sorts. Having
lived with Emerson, and thoroughly steeped in transcendentalism, he wanted
to see if he could apply transcendental principles to his life along the
pond, working one day and spending the remaining six other days reading,
contemplating and developing his consciousness.
In 1846, Thoreau began work on a lecture which he would use to explain
to the townspeople of Concord just what he was trying to accomplish by
living in a small Spartan cabin along Walden Pond. The lecture soon
took on a life of its own and after much writing and re-writing, the lecture
gradually evolved into his most famous work Walden.
For all its impact in the literary and outdoor worlds, Walden
is not an easy book to read. Thoreau used many puns and clever turns of
words and phrases in his writing. Since he intended part of it as
a lecture, his playfulness with words and shifts of emphasis helped liven
things up and get a laugh from his audience, but his irony can be missed
by modern readers. Thoreau, after all, was writing for a Nineteenth Century
audience not a Twenty-first Century audience. Moreover, Thoreau also
utilized numerous literary illusions that can leave a good many readers
scratching their heads.
I really recommend that when you read Walden that you read it
from a version which has been annotated with short explanations of those
puzzling Nineteen Century words, phrases, puns and illusions. I can't
believe how much it helped me. When I first attempted Walden,
I was lost a good part of the time, but, later with the help of an annotated
version, I finally began to understand some of the richness and complexity
of his writing.
Walden is not an outdoor adventure book, nor is it a book about
finding solitude in the wilderness. Regular trains passed by on the
tracks on the other side of the pond from Thoreau's cabin—and he could
easily walk, and often did, to the nearby town of Concord.
But Thoreau's ideas expressed in Walden of living simply are
still very much with us today. It is a basic reason why people go
to the outdoors. In part, we enjoy camping, backpacking, climbing,
and other activities because they allow us to get away from the rush of
modern society and simplify our lives--even if it is just for just a few
days.
Moreover, Thoreau's ideas of cultivating our independence and marching
to the beat of our own drums (to paraphrase a famous Thoreau quote) is
basic to why people reach beyond the ordinary and climb mountains, run
rivers or explore far away places. Certainly the women that are included
on this reading list were individuals who marched to the beat of their
own drums. In the 1800's women simply didn't travel alone, but the
two women described later did just that and much more, completely defying
the conventions of their time.
One misconception that people sometimes have of Walden is that the book
is simply a reproduction of Thoreau's journal. Certainly Thoreau
used his journal as a basis for Walden, but most of the book was
written after he left the woods. In fact Thoreau lived in his cabin
at Walden for two years from 1845 to 1847; yet in the book, he condenses
those two years into one.
Walden is the result of extensive writing and re-writing.
It is a very carefully crafted work in which Thoreau repeats his ideas
and reasonings in slightly different guises while staying true to a central
theme. In the end, Thoreau, created a work that has stood the test
of time. Even though it was written 150 years ago, and even though
it uses language that is sometimes lost on modern readers, the basic content
still relates to us today. That's a sure sign of a great work of art.
The annotated edition that I recommend is published by Yale University Press edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer: Barnes &
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Roughing It
By Mark Twain
Time Period: 1861-67
Mark Twain, one of America's great writers, was born in 1835 and died
in 1910. Living a varied life, he pursued a series of careers—printer,
Mississippi river boatman, journalist, travel writer, publisher—all of
which provide ample fodder for his literary creations. He was a man
of extraordinary contrasts: refined, sentimental, and highly intelligent,
but also hot-tempered, cynical, and tortured by self doubts--all of which
added up, some might say, to the perfect combination of a literary genius.
Roughing It is a loose rendering of the events in Twain's life
beginning in July of 1861 when he departed for Carson City, Nevada with
his brother Orion, who was recently appointed Secretary of the Territory
of Nevada, and ending in early 1867 when he arrived in New York.
While in general, the book recounts Twain's experiences in the west, it
shouldn't be taken as fact. In Roughing It, Twain lets his
imagination hold sway over fact, rather showing off his artistry and his
talent as a consummate humorist.
Roughing It can't really be described as an outdoor or nature
book, at least under the definition that we've reserved for the readings
in this list. It's a rollicking, no-holds barred travel account,
but within the book, we can find examples of outdoor writing that do fit
our definition. Certainly Twain's outdoor writing, involving what
we now call outdoor recreation activities, could appear in present day
outdoor periodicals.
Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the
Years 1860-69
By Edward Whymper
Time Period: 1860's
Scrambles Amongst the Alps is one of the best representations
of writing from the golden age of mountaineering in the mid and late 1800’s.
Edward Whymper, the author, became interested in mountaineering when in
1860 he was asked by a London publisher to make sketches of the famous
peaks of the Alps. That led to an early and successful climb of France’s
Mount Pelvoux in 1861, and from then on, Whymper was hooked and made numerous
other climbs in the Alps.
Scrambles Amongst the Alps is partially a guidebook.
Whymper says in the Preface that he has endeavored “to make the book
of some use to those who may wish to go mountain scrambling.” But
mostly it’s a book of Whymper’s memoirs, his high points and successes,
and his failures. Concerning those failures, he is frank: “Undue
prominence, perhaps, has been given to our mistakes and failures; and it
will doubtless be pointed out that our practice must have been bad if the
principles which are laid down are sound, or that the principles must be
unsound if the practice was good. We were not immaculate. Our
blunders are not held up to be admired, or to be imitated, but to be avoided.”
While climbers came from a variety of nationalities, the British dominated
the late 1800’s mountaineering scene. In English male society, mountaineers
held an elevated status. It was truly a gentlemen’s sport, one which
tested one’s nerve and physical stamina and one that became the stuff of
good conversation in social clubs and gatherings back in England.
With the pungent scent of cigar and pipe smoke in the air, brandy sloshing
in glasses, and a fire roaring in a stone hearth, men sat and re-lived
the adventures of the summer’s mountaineering season.
Although deadly serious— it was, after all, a sport in which lives could
be lost—men like Whymper downplayed its heroic nature. “These scrambles
amongst the Alps were holiday excursions, and as such they should be judged.
They are spoken of sport and nothing more.” Such commentary, of course,
was expected of an Englishman. It was almost a tenet of the British
to play hard, fight hard, and make light of danger. Never let them
see you sweat. That’s simply the way it was, the way an Englishman
was expected to act.
The most interesting--and historic from a mountaineering point of view--are
the later chapters about climbing the Matterhorn. The great prize
in Whymper’s day was to be the first to climb the spectacular and breathtaking
mountain on the Swiss and Italian border. In the late 1850’s and
early 1860’s, the Matterhorn had repelled all attempts to reach its summit.
Whymper, himself, made seven unsuccessful tries at the mountain.
In 1865, Whymper was a hair’s breath away from the prize he so eagerly
sought. Something happened on the climb, something that to this day,
mountaineering historians still talk about. To find out, there's
nothing like going to the source.
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian:
John Wesley Powell and the Second
Opening of the West
By Wallace Stegner
Time Period: Late 1800's
We move now from the lush Alps of Europe to the dry and inhospitable
canyon country of the western US. This and the next book concern
one man, someone who is inextricably linked with the Grand Canyon, the
world’s most famous canyon: John Wesley Powell. Powell is famous
in the river running world for leading the first journey down the treacherous
rapids of the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. The account of his journey
is clearly one of the classics of outdoor adventure.
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, the first
of two books on this list about Powell, is a classic biography written
by Wallace Stegner. I had more than one reason for including
Stegner as one of the authors on the reading list. One important
reason is Stegner's work as conservationist. Stegner helped put together
the National Parks Bill and served at one time as the Assistant Secretary
of the Interior. While with the Interior Department, he knew and
expressed admiration for another author that is included on this list,
Sigurd Olson.
My main reason for including him is that Stegner is considered one of
the finest writers and observers of the western experience. Among
his works of historical non-fiction, his biography of Powell is considered
by many to be his best. Indeed, it's a wonderfully written biography--and
it's a good lead-in to Powell himself. I highly recommend that you
start by reading Stegner's biography first and then move on to Powell's
actual narrative of the Colorado journey (the next book on the list).
The Exploration of the Colorado River
and It’s Canyons
By John Wesley Powell
Time Period: 1869
The Exploration of the Colorado River and It’s Canyons is John
Wesley Powell’s report of his “journey into the great unknown.” Prior
to Powell’s expedition, virtually nothing was known of the huge swatch
of land between western Colorado and Nevada. It was a bleak, waterless
and tortured land. On maps, it was a blank spot covering several
degrees of latitude and marked “unexplored.”
It drew Powell like a horse to water. He wanted to be the first
to sketch in the features of the map, and most particularly the blue line
showing the course of the unknown Colorado.
Powell started at Green River, Wyoming and ran the Green River until
it joined the Colorado and from there, down the through the Grand Canyon.
When it was over, Powell would come back with more than simple facts of
geography and geology, but a lasting impression of the canyon’s incredible
beauty.
A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains
By Isabella Bird
Time Period: 1870's
A Lady’s Life is a rare, gem of a book which uses a series of
letters to describe an Englishwomen’s 1873 journey in the Colorado Rockies.
The woman is Isabella Bird, a remarkably independent woman, someone who
these days we might call a free spirit. But in the 1800s, free spirited
women were rare. Few women traveled alone abroad, and if they
did, it would be unthinkable for a woman to ride off alone on a horse into
a wild and largely unexplored mountain range, just to see the sights, and
maybe find an adventure or two. That’s exactly what Isabella Bird
did.
In her early twenties, Bird had been in ill-health, and to get some
fresh air, she took a boat trip across the Atlantic to America in 1854.
She spent a year, traveling in Canada and eastern and Midwestern US, and
from those experiences wrote a book (The Englishwoman in America).
In the process, the illness was forgotten and she had become hopelessly
addicted to travel.
In the 1873 journey which forms the basis of A Lady’s Life, she
starts in San Francisco, takes the train on the newly completed transcontinental
railway, and ends up on a spur line in Greeley, Colorado. She could
see the Colorado Rocky Mountains in the distance and she was irresistibly
drawn to them. “As I write I am only twenty-five miles from them,”
she told her sister in a letter, “and they are gradually gaining possession
of me. I can look at and feel nothing else.”
From Greeley, she hitched a ride in a wagon and after suffering through
a hot day reached Fort Collins. Her goal was to make it to Estes
Park at the base of Long’s Peak, Colorado’s highest. Gradually after
a series of memorable events, she makes it. As you’ll see, once there,
her adventure was only beginning.
Steep Trails
By John Muir
Time Period: 1870s
John Muir (1838-1914) is considered America’s most eloquent spokesman
for wilderness. He is often included among the list of great nature writers
(such as W. H. Auden, Gilbert White and Henry David Thoreau), but of all
the nature writers, he was the wildest. Muir physically immersed
himself in great unspoiled outdoors and was ever on the move, exploring
the hidden away treasures of the wild countryside. He hiked literally
thousands of miles and climbed dozen of summits. He spent the bulk
of his time in the Sierra Mountains, but he also traveled to Alaska and
made the first explorations of Glacier Bay.
Muir is best known for his role in the fight to preserve wild lands
in the western United States. His influence, writing and lobbying
was crucial in protecting two of America’s great parks: Yosemite and the
Grand Canyon.
Muir was influenced by the writings and philosophy of Emerson and Thoreau.
As far as Emerson was concerned, the feeling was mutual. Emerson thought
so highly of Muir that he included Muir on a list of men who were among
his life’s greatest influences.
Muir’s writing is vivacious, passionate and fervent. “Climb the
mountains,” he wrote, “and get their good tiding. Nature peace will
flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares
will drop off like autumn leaves.” It’s almost that Muir has a hard
time holding in his joy for nature and wild things, and it all comes rushing
out. To many of his readers, it’s an enthusiasm that is catchy.
Muir wrote a number of wonderful books—and it's hard to choose between
them. I selected Steep Trails for his account of surviving
a storm on Mt. Shasta, but there's certainly much, much more to read by
Muir.
Travels in West Africa
By Mary Kingsley
Time Period: 1890’s
A previous book included on this reading list was written by the intrepid
Isabella Bird who wrote the marvelous A Lady’s Travels in the Rocky
Mountains. This book is by another remarkable woman, Mary
Kingsley, whose writings cover the decade of the 1890’s about 20 years
after Bird’s journey to Colorado. Isabella Bird and Mary Kingsley
are alike in many ways. Both were British. Both were daring.
And both defied the conventions of the day and took off alone on adventurous
journeys to exotic places.
Mary Kingsley’s journeys as described in her book Travels in West
Africa are as fascinating as Bird’s. Although she writes in the
typical British style of her times not letting on to inner doubts and anxiety,
the danger she faces is palpable as she travels the rivers and dark forests
of Africa. Those dangers included disease, wild animals, poisonous
snakes, and the ever present fear of becoming lost.
Moreover, the places she travels are inhabited by primitive, warring,
tribes. As a white woman, she stands out, and certainly is looked
upon by some of those natives as a delicious prize. Rape is a distinct
possibility, as are torture and death, but Kingsley never dwells on such
thoughts and treats her journeys almost if she is taking a stroll in Hyde
Park.
She had less money than Bird, and had to earn her way about Africa by
engaging in trading. While it wasn’t lucrative, it was enough to
get her by. It wasn’t money, however, that took her to Africa.
She went to continue the work of her father, studying and recording customs
of African native tribes. While she made no new discoveries for science,
she did, in a few short years, pack in a lifetime of novel experiences.
Journals of Robert Falcon Scott
By Robert Falcon Scott
Time Period: 1912
One of the great dramas of exploration took place in 1911 and 1912,
when a British team under the leadership of Robert Falcon Scott and a Norwegian
team under the leadership of Roald Amundsen were engaged in a race
to reach the South Pole. Scott’s journey to the pole is the best
known, but it was Amundsen who made it to the pole first, a full month
before Scott.
Why the loser would become better known than the winner is at the heart
of this absorbing story. It certainly wasn’t because Scott was the
better leader. While competent, Scott possessed key deficiencies
in his leadership. He was haphazard in his methods. He scoffed
at some of the ideas of experienced explorers and his planning was incomplete.
Amundsen, on the other hand, was a well-rounded and effective leader.
From previous experiences and work with natives in cold regions, he knew
that the use of dogs would be key in a successful bid for the south—and
he was right. By using dogs, he was able to save his men’s strength
and get them to the pole and back safely and efficiently. In contrast,
Scott man-hauled his sleds the 700 miles from his base along the sea to
the pole. Compounding the complexity of his journey, just before
he left for the pole, he made a last minute decision to take one extra
person.
It was a fateful decision. Their inefficient method of pulling
the sledges and the extra mouth to feed stressed their food supplies, and
after a long and difficult journey back from the pole, exhaustion and exposure
finally did Scott’s party in. Despite Scott’s less than perfect leadership,
despite his lack of experience in Arctic travel—both of which had contributed
to his party’s death—the British media heralded Scott’s journey as an example
of British courage. It was hard not to see it this way. The
image was a powerful and romantic one: a small group of men pulling
their own sleds across the bleakness of the Antarctic, fighting against
terrible cold, plodding on against the ever present wind —and finally when
they could no longer move forward— Scott and his companions bravely faced
death.
This was the stuff of heroes, and his legend grew so much that it has
overshadowed Amundsen’s achievements. More recently, biographers
and historians such as Roland Huntford (see next book), have re-evaluated
Scott’s journey with a more objective eye. Fortunately because of
Huntford's work, Amundsen’s triumph is receiving greater attention, and
his skills as a leader are more fully appreciated.
Yet for all his failings, Scott stills remains a fascinating study,
and in this book, you’ll have a chance to read from Scott’s own words.
Shackleton
By Roland Huntford
Time Period: Early 1900's
Ernest Shackleton and Robert Scott (see previous book) were opposites.
Where Scott held himself aloof from his men, Shackleton was their friend.
Where Scott’s overriding concern was the cause, Shackleton’s was his fellow
companions. Scott drove himself and his men into the ground and died
on the return journey from the pole. Shackleton who also attempted
to reach the South Pole, turned back 97 miles shy of the goal, and in doing
so, gave up a long-held and cherished goal, but saved the lives of his
men. In 1916, he got his men—all of them —through one of the most
desperate survival situations in the annals of exploration. Of the
many things he is known for, he is known best for never losing a man.
The book, a biography about Shackleton, is by Roland Huntford.
Huntford is a contemporary chronicler of arctic adventures. He wrote
Scott and Amundsen, an erudite work on the personalities and events of
the race to the South Pole and helped dispel the myth surrounding Scott’s
ill-fated journey to the pole.
Roland's well-researched biography is a classic study of one of the
greats of Antarctic exploration, and, in particular, his narrative of Shackleton's
epic 1916 journey is as gripping and unforgettable as found anywhere.
To Build a Fire
By Jack London
Time Period: Early 1900's
What's my number one choice for a short read on a cold
winter's night? Jack London's "To
Build a Fire," that's what! If you
haven't read it, you must go to the nearest library and get a copy right
away. If you've already read it, read it
again. It's the kind of story that you
can read and re-read and it never gets old.
It's an American classic, one of the finest examples of a short story
ever written -- and it's about snow and cold.
This is a story that can be read in less time than it takes
to watch an episode of Survival -- and it's far more gripping and edifying. Let me whet your whistle with a few of the opening
lines:
Sky had broken cold and gray,
exceedingly cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail
and climbed the high earthbank, where a dim and little-traveled trail lead
eastward through the fat spruce timberline.
At the man's heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, the proper wolf
dog. The animal was depressed by the
tremendous cold. Its instinct told a
truer tale than was told to the man. In
reality, it was not merely colder than fifty below zero; it was colder than
sixty below, than seventy below. It was
seventy-five below zero."
The man in London's
story is a miner, one of the many that rushed to the Yukon
when gold was discovered there in 1896.
He is traveling to meet the "boys" at a cabin on the left fork
of Henderson Creek. A new arrival, a chechaquo, he has not learned the ways
and hazards of the north country. He is
chewing tobacco and as he spits he watches it crackle and freeze before it
reaches the snow. He has been warned by
an older, experienced "sourdough" that one shouldn't travel in
temperatures where a man's spittle freezes before it reaches the snow, but the
miner shakes off the advice and goes anyway.
The old sourdough is timid and unmanly, he thinks to himself, and he trudges
on confidently, sure of himself -- all the while the dog follows at his heels,
reluctantly.
The dog is a key element in the story. London
effectively counterpoises the instincts of the dog against the decisions and
hubris of the man. Not only is this a
story of survival but it is a story of how a series of small decisions, wrongly
made, can lead to disaster.
It's a spell-binding narrative written by a master story
teller-- and, I promise, it will stay with you.
Whenever I attempt to build a fire under trying conditions, the image of
Jack London's miner comes to me, and I'm reminded that humility in the outdoors
is as important as good sense and skill.
The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses
By Robert Service
Time Period: Early 1900's
Jack London's stories of the Yukon
gold rush helped make him the world's best selling and highest paid author of
the early 1900's, but London isn't
the only literary icon that mined the Yukon
for material. The Yukon
also figures prominently in the poetry of Robert Service.
Poetry you say? Oh
yes. And there's no better poet to quote
around campfires and cabin hearths than Robert Service. Here's a few lines from his famous "The
Cremation of Sam Magee."
There are strange things done in
the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret
tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The northern lights have seen queer
sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was the night on the marge of lake
Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee
No one has ever caught the feeling of cold with more poetic
force than Robert Service: Talk of your cold! Through the parka's fold
it stabbed like a driven nail. His
themes are bold and romantic: the great
white silence, the call of the wild, the loneliness of the north, the long
winter's night, and the stars that dance to and fro. It's chillingly wonderful!
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The Wildest
Dream: The Biography of George Mallory
By
Peter and Leni Gillman.
Time
Period: Early 1900's
Biographies don't get any better than this.
Supremely well researched and documented, erudite, and masterfully written,
this book isn't so much about what happened to Mallory in 1924 when he
and his climbing partner Irvine disappeared in the mists of Mt. Everest,
but rather it seeks the answer to another, almost more fascinating question:
who was this man Mallory? This is the book to read to find the answer.
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A Sand County Almanac
By Aldo Leopold
Time Period: Early
to mid 1900's
There was no question about including Aldo Leopold’s The Sand County
Almanac on this list. The Sand County Almanac is one of
the most important nature works ever published, and is often ranked as
the top environmental book of all time. It is included because works
on the environment and conservation have a very strong relationship with
outdoor adventure writing. Part of the reason that people enjoy outdoor
activities is that they take place in natural areas, wild lands or rivers,
free of development and chaos of civilization. Sand County Almanac
is an eloquent plea to preserve our natural environment.
The reason Sand Country Almanac has reached this stature is because
of Leopold’s informal and inviting style. The reader feels like he or she
can sit down with Leopold at a rest stop along a trail. The
book is composed of a series of thoughtful and often poetic essays.
If they were just essays, it would be another nature book, but Leopold
was the first nature writer to use his essays to relate fundamental principles
of ecology and evolutionary thought. Instead of a simple description
of a beautiful scene in nature, Leopold goes a step further and helps the
reader understand something about ecology and the interconnectedness of
all life.
This combination of engaging and informative style about natural principles,
helps readers develop a love and respect for the natural environment, something
that Leopold called the Land Ethic.
Leopold warns that man must change, that we can no longer destroy nature
willy-nilly. “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity,
stability and beauty of the biotic community.” Leopold said. “It
is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Wallace Stegner (see previous
book), labeled Leopold’s writing as “the utterance of an American Isaiah.”
The Singing Wilderness
By Sigurd Olson
Time Period: 1950’s
No selection of books on the outdoor experience would be complete without
a piece on the north country: that maze of lakes, marshes and rivers which
makes up the Canadian and American canoe country. Of the writers
of the north country, Sigurd Olson stands out.
Sigurd Olson taught natural science at a junior college in the small,
northern Minnesota town of Ely, often referred to as the gateway to the
Boundary Waters Canoe Area. In the summers Olson worked as a canoe
guide and ran a small canoe outfitting business.
Olson’s eloquent writings of the north country combine his understanding
of wilderness travel with his knowledge of ecology and the natural environment.
In many ways, Sigurd Olson and Aldo Leopold used similar techniques in
their essays. There are differences, however. Leopold was more
precise while Olson was more abstract, using his words to excite the imagination.
They both wrote of the loss of wilderness, and while Olson was sometimes
ambiguous in his essays, he has a more hopeful outlook than Leopold.
That’s not to say Olson did not believe in wilderness protection.
Quite the opposite. Of all our authors covered in this volume with
the exception of Muir, Olson fought the hardest for the wilderness cause.
He was president of the Wilderness Society, served on the National Park
Advisory Committee, and worked tirelessly with regional groups for the
wilderness preservation of the Boundary Waters in the U.S. and the Quetico
in Canada.
It's been mentioned (see previous book) that great western writer Wallace
Stegner had labeled Aldo Leopold an “American Isaiah.” Olson’s biographer,
David Backes, extends Stegner’s biblical comparison to Olson, but he terms
Olson a new testament disciple. “Where Leopold invokes the God of
power and wrath,” says Backes, “preaching the proper ethical behavior toward
the land and prophesying doom if society disobeys, Olson invites his
readers to experience the God of love, as made manifest in nature.”
Olson, through his writing, bears the good news of wilderness preservation,
and he used, just as Leopold did, ecological principles and knowledge of
science to make the outdoor experience more complete and satisfying.
Desert Solitaire
By Edward Abbey
Time Period: 1960’s
Edward Abbey signals a change in temperament of outdoor writers.
While previous writers were careful not to be overly offensive, Edward
Abbey can be down right rude—particularly if you happen to be a developer
or work for the Bureau of Reclamation: “The beavers had to go and
build another g--d----d dam on the Colorado. Not satisfied with the
enormous silt trip and evaporation tank called Lake Mead (back of Boulder
Dam) they have created another even bigger, even more destructive, in Glen
Canyon. The reservoir of stagnant water will not irrigate a single
square foot of land or supply water for a single village; its only justification
is the generation of cash through electricity for the indirect subsidy
of various real estate speculators, cottongrowers and sugar beet magnates
in Arizona, Utah and Colorado; also, of course, to keep the engineers and
managers of the Reclamation Bureau off the streets and out of trouble.”
Welcome to the writings of Edward Abbey, the sharp-tongued spokesman
of the desert and canyonlands of the American West.
Abbey began as a novelist. An early novel, The Brave Cowboy,
is about an iconoclast and loner, Jack Burns, who lives by the values of
the old west. Burns doesn’t have much regard for legal niceties and
refuses to carry any kind of identification including a draft card (which
was against the law in those days), and casually rides his horse through
a busy downtown area. Of course, he runs afoul of the laws of the
new west, and tries to escape to Mexico.
Brave Cowboy which was made into a movie re-titled Lonely
are the Brave is, in essence, about an individual who simply refuses
to accept the tyrannies of life in modern society. It is only in
the mountains and deserts that he is able to escape to find freedom and
true fulfillment, but that place of refuge is threatened by the long arm
of the government and its technology.
It was a theme that repeats itself in Abbey’s work: a lone person, holding
on against the forces of modern society. Other early novels included
Jonathan
Troy and Black Sun, and then in 1968, he came out with the book
that changed everything: Desert Solitaire.
A collection of essays on the western desert, Desert Solitaire thrust
Abbey into the national limelight. The book centers on Abbey’s experience
as a ranger in Arches National Park, but it also follows him on various
jaunts in the surrounding canyons and mountains. He warns of the
same things as Olson and Leopold did (see previous books), of the loss
of wilderness, of the need to protect wildlife and wild lands, but he turns
up the volume and comes across with a blend of anger, impertinence and
sassiness. “We need more predators,” Abbey proclaims in Desert Solitaire,
“The sheepman complain, it is true, that the coyotes eat some of their
lambs. This is true but do they eat enough? I mean, enough lambs
to keep the coyotes sleek, healthy and well fed.”
Abbey wanted to be known as a novelist, but Desert Solitaire
has remained Abbey’s most loved work. He was perplexed over its success.
Yet, it struck a chord with readers, transporting them into a new world
and different kind of natural place—dry and desolate but with secreted
places of beauty— delighting readers with stories, bringing romance, beauty,
humor and voice to a forgotten land.
The Man Who Walked Through Time
By Colin Fletcher
Time Period: 1960’s
One outdoor activity which grew by leaps and bounds in the 1970’s and
1980’s is backpacking. A number of books on backpacking were written.
Most were how-to instructional books, but a few narratives appeared like
Eric Ryback’s books of hiking the Appalachian, Continental, and Pacific
Crest trails.
The one author who is best associated with the increase in backpacking
is Colin Fletcher. Fletcher wrote two narratives on backpacking.
Like any outdoor narrative, he explained where he went and what he saw,
but Fletcher went a step further, giving us a glimpse into his inner thoughts,
his philosophy, and how the activity of backpacking fits into the scheme
of the natural world.
Probably Fletcher’s most well-known book is the Man Who Walked Through
Time, the story of his journey from one end of the Grand Canyon to
the other. There’s no death defying climbing or canyoneering found
in this book. He tells no edge-of-the-seat tales of becoming lost
or struggling without water. Yet, Fletcher makes the trek interesting
by taking us along, inviting us to be a participant and sharing with us
what he is experiencing.
Never Turn Back: The Life of Whitewater
Pioneer Walt Blackadar
By Ron Watters
Time Period: Mid
to late 1900's
An earlier book on this list is about the first run of Grand Canyon
of the Colorado by John Wesley Powell in 1869. This biography covers,
in part, another famous run, the first whitewater kayak descent of the
Alsek River through Turnback Canyon.
Turnback, located on the border of Alaska and British Columbia, is an
awesome stretch of whitewater squeezed in a canyon that is sometimes only
30 feet wide. On one side of the silt-laden river are the walls of
a mountain rising thousands of feet above, and on the other is a massive
glacier which at times surges over the canyon’s wall and spills ice into
the foaming river below.
Walt Blackadar, the subject of this book, made the first descent of
this remote river, piloting his fragile fiberglass kayak down its icy waters
in 1971. Blackadar’s feat—which he accomplished alone—shocked the
whitewater world. It was an adventure so bold and so far ahead of
its time that he has assumed a place along side that of Powell and other
great adventurers.
His extraordinary journey on the Alsek is only one part of the story.
He was a doctor. Trained at Dartmouth and Columbia, he moved west
to a small town in Idaho to be near good fishing and hunting. But
in time, the wilderness around him shrank in size and the once great salmon
runs dwindled. Alarmed, he began to speak out for the protection
of rivers and wild lands and took increasingly unpopular stands in a community
whose economy was tied closely to resource extraction.
He was also a man with faults and failings. Never Turn Back
is not a one-sided story. It is a carefully researched and objective
look at the complexities of Blackadar’s life. It is this honest portrayal
that makes the book such a captivating one. From the first page through
the unforgettable last chapter, it is a fascinating and candid account
of a remarkable individual.
Into Thin Air
By John Krakauer
Time Period: Late 1900's
It was John Kraukauer's book in 1997 which suddenly made New
York publishers sit up and take notice. Indeed, a book on outdoor
adventure could make money and lots of it. Into Thin Air describes
the diaster that unfolded on Mt. Everest in 1996 when several
parties were caught in a vicious storm. The storm and other
events on the mountain that year, made it the deadliest season ever.
The publisher's summary:
Kraukauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalaya as
a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the
world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had
summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and lead thirty-nine
climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to
Hall's team was a guided expedition lead by Scott Fischer, a
forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had
climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither
Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May of
1996.
One of the primary reasons why I included Krakauer's book on
this list is that it dramatically illustrates the contrast between the
mores of early mountaineers such as Mallory with the mores of today's
commercialized mountain culture. Some things are the same, of
course--the ambition and the egos of the men and women involved--but
some things are clearly different, and it's those differences that
makes fascinating foder for speculation on what has become of the
outdoor experience.
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