Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This marvelous anthology provides the best collection of North American nature writing. This is a vast canvas, from Pehr Kalm's "Travels in North America" (1753) to Gretel Ehrlich's moving essay about her encounters with seals in the frozen wastelands of the Arctic Circle (1992). It combines pieces by well-known and much beloved writers (Audubon, Seton, Mowat, Thoreau, Matthiessen, and Peterson among them) with lesser known texts by writers whose work will come as revelations.
Here is a geographic diversity that ranges from Henry Beston's lyrical description of bird life on the St. Lawrence to Barry Lopez's account of Banks Island in the Arctic. These are writers who all felt the call of the wild, and who wrote about their experiences with passion for the land, compassion for its inhabitants, and a genuine sense of wonder--and often humor--that make for hours of fascinating reading.
Table of Contents
Travels in North America / Pehr Kalm -- A journey to the northern ocean / Samuel Hearne -- Swan River Country / David Thompson -- The Labrador journal / John James Audubon -- A Yankee in Canada / Henry David Thoreau -- Diary in Canada / Walt Whitman -- Notes from my old diary / Catharine Parr Traill -- The Springfield fox / Ernest Thompson Seton -- The Stickeen River / John Muir -- The last barrier / Charles G. D. Roberts -- The halcyon in Canada / John Burroughs -- The deep waters / E. Pauline Johnson -- Summer life in Banks Island / Vilhjalmur Stefansson -- Snow / Frederick Philip Grove -- A winter of hardship / Chief Thunderchild -- Canada, 1924 / Aldo Leopold -- All things both great and small / Grey Owl -- Small birds to the north / Henry Beston -- Wild swans in April / Florence Page Jaques -- Voluble singer of the tree-tops / Louise de Kiriline Lawrence -- The last of the curlews / Fred Bodsworth -- Patterns of local movement / H. Albert Hochbaum -- Sea cliffs of Cape St. Mary / Roger Tory Peterson, James Fisher -- Place des Cygnes / Roderick Haig-Brown -- Geese / Margaret Murie -- Fur countries and forest lakes / Peter Matthiessen -- The Mackenzie / Hugh MacLennan -- Ile §a la Crosse / Sigurd F. Olson -- Never cry wolf / Farley Mowat -- The island of auks / Franklin Russell -- Banks Island / Barry Lopez -- In praise of wolves / R. D. Lawrence -- Fire Dance / Harold Horwood -- The grass and the buffalo / Don Gayton -- Stubborn particulars of place / Merilyn Simonds Mohr -- The falcon / Se§an Virgo -- Time on ice / Gretel Ehrlich.