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A Yearlong Search for the Continent's Natural Soul
by Scott Weidensaul
Book Reviewed by:Retracing the journey that birding guru Roger Tory Peterson and naturalist James Fisher took in 1953 (recorded in Wild America), Return to Wild America is likely to become a classic in its own right - a sweeping survey of the natural soul of North America today.
In 1953, birding guru Roger Tory Peterson and noted British naturalist
James Fisher set out on what became a legendary journey - a one hundred day
trek over 30,000 miles around North America. They traveled from
Newfoundland to Florida, deep into the heart of Mexico, through the
Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and into Alaska's Pribilof Islands. Two
years later, Wild America, their classic account of the trip, was
published.
On the eve of that book's fiftieth anniversary, naturalist Scott
Weidensaul retraces Peterson and Fisher's steps to tell the story of wild
America today. How has the continent's natural landscape changed over the
past fifty years? How have the wildlife, the rivers, and the rugged,
untouched terrain fared? The journey takes Weidensaul to the coastal
communities of Newfoundland, where he examines the devastating impact of
the Atlantic cod fishery's collapse on the ecosystem; to Florida, where he
charts the virtual extinction of the great wading bird colonies that
Peterson and Fisher once documented; to the Mexican tropics of Xilitla,
which have become a growing center of ecotourism since Fisher and
Peterson's exposition. And perhaps most surprising of all, Weidensaul
finds that much of what Peterson and Fisher discovered remains untouched
by the industrial developments of the last fifty years.
Poised to become a
classic in its own right, Return to Wild America is a sweeping
survey of the natural soul of North America today.
ONE
Atlantic Gateway
In the early 1950s, just getting to Cape St. Mary's was an
adventure. The Avalon Peninsula is the easternmost prow of North
America—a vaguely H-shaped chunk of land that is very nearly an island
itself, attached to the rest of Newfoundland by the slenderest of
threads. It is rimmed by sheer cliffs, by beaches of dark quartz-shot
cobblestones and wave-smashed capes. Where there is forest, it is
somber and mossy, spruce and balsam fir hung with long pale sheets of
lichen dangling from the branches like rotting curtains. But much of
the Avalon is tundra, known locally as barrens—an open, windswept land
home to flocks of ptarmigan and the southernmost wild caribou herd in
the world, where the trees, if they grow at all, cower in dense,
waist-high thickets known as tuckamore.
...
Pulitzer Prize finalist Weidensaul retraces Peterson and Fisher's journey and chronicles the changes, both good and bad, in this in depth account. Amongst the bad news is the spread of invasive species, chemical pollution, global warming, species decline, over-logging and urban sprawl (for example in 15 years Pennsylvania has increased its "urban footprint" by 47% while its population has increased by only 2.5%)...continued
Full Review
(683 words)
(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Kenn Kaufman, author of Kaufman Field Guides
Peterson and Fisher's Wild America was one of the all-time great nature books. On the golden anniversary of its publication, Scott Weidensaul, one of the greatest living nature writers, proves himself a worthy successor to the original authors as he examines what has been lost and celebrates what remains of America's wild nature. Part investigative reporting, part lyrical celebration, this is one of the most important books of the decade, and it should be required reading for all who love the outdoors. William Souder, author of Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America
News from the natural world is so rarely heartening these days that Scott Weidensaul's bracing inventory of America's wild places and all that still lives in them comes as a bit of a shock. With a keen eye for all that we've lost and all that yet remains, this book is a tale both cautionary and optimistic. Best of all is the presence on every page of Weidensaul himself, an enthusiastic observer who gives generously of his own sense of awe.About the author: Born in 1959, Scott Weidensaul has lived almost all of his life among the long ridges and endless valleys of eastern Pennsylvania, in the heart of the central Appalachians, a landscape that has defined much of his work.
He has written more than two dozen books on natural history, including Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds (1999), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. He lives in the Pennsylvania Appalachians.
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