The Wilderness Reader

by Frank Bergon (Editor)

Many articles on the Wilderness and it's appeal.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction

372 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1980

Reviews

[Scott Bilodeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished this collection of essays that had as a common thread the exploration of, adventure in, and appreciation for wilderness - that which lies beyond what has commonly been explored and experienced. Accountings spanned a couple centuries and ranged from prospecting and exploring new colonial lands in the American southeast to the great deserts and basins of the West to Alaska to the hills and mountains of Maine. Many of these stories were written in the 1800s but mountains and landscapes and rivers change at such a slow pace that I, some 200 years later and with the assistance of all the new technologies at my disposal, could pull these geological features up and look at them and understand what they wrote about so long ago by a picture that was taken just last year. Some of the things that stick out in my mind as I reflect on the book... The man who was mapping out new rivers in the Southeast who had to bat away alligators that would leap up from the water at the canoe he was riding on and that would creep up near him while he was trying to sleep on the ground at night. Theodore Roosevelt’s hunting for antelope in North Dakota in which he gains an appreciation for individuality vs the collective and for the beauty and deceptions of the prairie. A trip through the Southwest on a river that involved riding a boat through harrowing rapids and down waterfalls and cliffs that ended with half of the party deciding to leave because of fear of not making it alive. Two instances of climbing down mountains at night in the pitch dark (!!). One because of the prospector’s relentless pushing of his crew to accomplish more and more and more and the other a group of youth that have an experience that reminds how quickly and with no compassion, the laws of nature and physics are enacted resulting in a tragic consequence. A woman joins a team of men to climb Long’s Peak in Colorado, in the 1800s, with equipment (or the lack thereof) that lent for some harrowing moments. In the midst of all these and many other tales, there are beautiful descriptions of all that the authors are seeing around them. /This/ is the wilderness part. I was confused and not really seeing this at first and it didn’t seem to me that the book was about the wilderness at all. But then as I reflect, why else would people have gone into wild places back then? People didn’t do it for fun like we do today and in fact, it had the potential to be extremely dangerous to do so. So of course it was the prospectors and map makers and explorers who did this. And that is reflected in the roster of authors, including the aforementioned Theodore Roosevelt, Meriwether Lewis, Henry David Thoreau, John Janes Audubon, John Wesley Powell, John Muir, etc. Many of the landmarks they were detailing now bear their names in the history books that their people have written. I say this in recognition of Native Americans who are portrayed as curiosities and friendly guides to be hired, a threat, and an example of a race looked at as somehow not as intelligent as implied by the authors’ writings. This despite the fact that time and time again, the writings mention very realistic and fortuitous warnings that Native individuals - or “Indians” as they’re referred to - would give the explorers about the weather or the terrain or other aspects about the experience. Each time the explorers disregarded this information and every time they seemed to meet up with some level of hardship. Funny how I as the reader could see this reading their own words but they couldn’t. One thing that really struck me was how they killed literally everything. They would see a beautiful, unusual bird and they described how captivated they were by it and describe it in great detail. Then they would shoot it. There were a number of different examples of this. Yet increasingly as time went on through these chronological writings, they would become increasingly concerned with the encroachment of mankind onto the wilderness and the resulting exploitation of it as detailed by the passage at Arches Monument (now Arches National Park) of government officials who had arrived with plans to build a road through this land that did not previously have one. I probably was in a car that drove on that road. The author references geological landmarks that I was able to trace and picture and map out in my head having just been there. I guess in my view, it seems completely different to have a road that might bring more people in to gain an appreciation for a place than to actively extract resources from it. Although an explorer of Alaskan lands set aside for such parks wonders who will come to such a place. Who can afford the trek there or the time or the dangers? My interest was held throughout this book. I was intrigued both by their accounts of these lands and the adventures that brought them there. The title of the book isn’t really fully and accurately indicative of what you’re about to get into but it’s the thing that is the most common of the threads. I found it engaging and I learned a number of new vocabulary words including “rills” and “scree”, pulling up google images to see pictures of each. I also looked at various plants, animals, rock formations, mountain ranges, bodies of water, etc. It definitely added a layer of enjoyment to my experience.

[Foster · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got about halfway through this collection of journal entries and essays by all the most well-known names in American nature writing. While it had some great moments, overall I thought the editing was lacking. Most of the text was mundane details, or repetitive geologic descriptions. I could only take so many pages of descriptions of the rapids of the Colorado, for example.

That said, it is probably a great way to check out the authors to determine which ones you prefer. There were some here who I hadn't read that I'll take a second look at.

[Gina Jew-Vay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will take you back in time when the first conservationists were uncovering the mysteries of the new land. The mountains and desserts come alive in this and create an unsettling emotion of how we are distroying our land, our spirits.

[David Kessler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short excerpts of a bivy of authors all the way from 1700's to the 1990's. Big names like Teddie Roosevelt or Aldo Leopold, Isabella Bird or John Burroughs. Twenty six authors all experts in writing about natural history are previewed in this book. Frank Bergon make a fine selection.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection that captures a variety of nature writing styles from eco. vigilante to transcendental mysticism.

[Greg Golz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I would have rather read the full versions of many of those books over short segments.