BCJ_WINTER18 Digital Edition

Heart and Blood by Richard Nelson
When I first read Heart and Blood more than 15 years ago, I was still a vegetarian. It fundamentally
changed my understanding of hunting and wildlife conservation, opening my eyes to the profound
historical and ecological interconnection between deer and humans. What impressed me most was
the nuance and respect with which Nelson explores the viewpoints of diverse groups – from farmers
to anti-hunting activists to suburban gardeners to high-fence trophy hunters – while staying rooted in
his own perspective as a dedicated conservationist who grew up in a non-hunting family but learned to
hunt among the Koyukon in Alaska.
-TOVAR CERULLI, Author of The Mindful Carnivore and New England BHA
Chapter Co-chair
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walden is a seminal text of the Transcendentalism movement in the mid 1800s that explores man’s
relationship with nature and questions our values as a society. Thoreau’s experiment over the course
of two years took place in a cabin he built on Walden Pond in forest owned by his mentor, friend and
fellow transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau’s writings were some of the first to address
issues that began to shift America’s values toward our conservation heritage as we know it today.
While there are many subjects of discussion prevalent in Thoreau’s writing, perhaps two of the most
important are the ideas of self-reliance and simplicity, illustrated by the famous line, “I went to the
woods because I wished to live deliberately.” Any hunter or angler can relate to these virtues, whether
on a few acre plot of woods in the Northeast or a vast wilderness in the West. These are qualities we
seek within the respite of our public lands and waters.
Furthermore, Thoreau’s relationship with nature and animals throughout his experiment at Walden
Pond is not through the lens of a naturalist, though he does recount the habits of some creatures, but
rather as a man looking to learn aspects of morality from the natural world and its inhabitants.
-SAWYER CONNELLY, BHA Campus Outreach Coordinator
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
When I think of Desert Solitaire I remember a little riverside camp I scraped out of the grass and
brush by the Colorado, not far from Moab, Utah, near the mouth of a canyon that’s since been renamed
Grandstaff. I was a year out of college and living on public lands: national forests in South
Dakota and Wyoming, national monuments in Arizona, BLM lands in Utah, for seasons at a time.
Edward Abbey woke me to the rare and piercing beauty of remote Western landscapes – and the
looming threat of their dissolution. Desert Solitaire tells those tales but is also rowdy and profane,
funny and sexy. For me the book was the gateway drug to Abbey’s other works, novels like The Brave
Cowboy and The Monkey Wrench Gang, essays like Blood Sport, Snow Canyon and Death Valley. I’d be
lying if I said that the writing of Edward Abbey had nothing to do with my young and growing conviction
that these lands and waters – places owned in common by us American people – represent
our most valuable possession, impossible to replace, easily lost … and worth fighting for.
For how can any reasonable individual remain unmoved by Abbey’s call to action?
“This is not a travel guide but an elegy. A memorial. You’re holding a tombstone in your hands. A bloody rock. Don’t drop it
on your foot – throw it at something big and glassy. What do you have to lose?”
-KATIE McKALIP, BHA Communications Director
The Big Burn by Timothy Egan
Through the smoke of the Big Burn and heated politics of 1910, Egan artfully weaves the story of
Teddy Roosevelt and the giants of conservation as they laid down the markers by which conservationists
still navigate. Parallels to current public lands battles are unmistakable. So too is the courage and
foresight which arose in Roosevelt as he battled the forces of rising industrialization. This is a riveting
must-read for all public land owners.
-RYAN BUSSE, BHA Chairman of the Board, Catcher of Fish,
Chaser of Elk
40 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL WINTER 2018