The following are a few of my favorite authors – those I enjoy and learn from each time I read their books.  I dare you to read them, study them.  If you do you will not be the same.

If you read these books you will not want to be the same.  You will want more than you have and it will be different.  Your views toward conservation, environmentalism, even your views on religion will change.

1. One of the great, if not the greatest, conservationists of the twentieth century is Aldo Leopold.

His Sand County Almanac is a must read for its insight as well as for pure entertainment and poetry.

“Conservation is a state of harmony between man and the land.  By land is meant all the things on, over, or in the earth.  Harmony with the land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.”  Page 176

The Aldo Leopold  story is available on a DVD called “Green Fire”

2. Sigurd Olsen, a writer, teacher, North-Country Guide and explorer wrote nine memorable books, among which was Reflections From The North Country.

 “I hope those who travel with me may hear the almost imperceptible note of harmony that runs through the grand symphony of the land that I have known.”  Page xii

“The longer I contemplate this world of living things and look at the earth itself, the more I am convinced there can never be an end to wonder and awareness, and that one of the real tragedies in life is to waste time when there is so much to see and learn.” Page 72

3. For the more studious – the more philosophical – one must read “The Dream of the Earth” by Thomas Berry.  Thomas Berry was a catholic priest, scholar, and environmentalist.  In The Dream of the Earth, copyright 1988, he writes:

“We are acting on a geological and biological order of magnitude.  We are changing the chemistry of the planet.  We are altering the great hydrological cycles.  We are weakening the ozone layer that shields us from cosmic rays.  We are saturating our air, water, and the soil with toxic substances so that we can never bring them back to their original purity.  We are upsetting the entire earth system that has, over some billions of years and through an endless sequence of experiments, produced such a magnificent array of living forms, forms capable of seasonal self-renewal over an indefinite period of time.” Page 206

“The human at the species level needs to fulfill its functional role within this life community, for in the end the human community will flourish or decline as the earth and the community of living species flourishes or declines.” Page 43

The reference section of his book, alone, is reason enough to have it handy.

4. Other authors and books I revere are:

a. Henry David Thoreau Walden

b. Jim dale Vickery  Wilderness Visionaries

c. Chris Highland  Meditations of John Muir

d. Sigurd Olsen  The Singing Wilderness

e. Sigurd Olsen  Songs of the North

f. Sigurd Olsen  Wilderness Days