Wilderness Visionaries: Leopold, Thoreau, Muir, Olson, Murie, Service, Marshall, Rutstrum

Jim dale Vickery profiles eight men who championed wildlife conservation, preservation, and environmentalism: Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), John Muir (1838-1914), Robert W. Service (1874-1958), Bob Marshall (1902-1939), Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), Olaus Johan Murie (1889-1963), Calvin Rutstrum (1895-1982), and Sigurd F. Olson (1899-1982). If you're an avid nature fan yourself, you've probably read about some of these men in other books. And yet, here each chapter is more than mere biography. Vickery highlights personal details that bring these men to life again, and we see not just the individuals, but also the natural places that mattered the most to them. We hear what they had to say about those places in their own words. Coincidentally -- or, not -- each of the eight spent at least a little time in Vickery's native Minnesota, and so it is from an additional love of his own land that the author relates the stories. Writers are always advised to write what they know, and that knowledge comes through in this book. An engaging addition to the environmentalist's bookshelf. Finding a used copy is well worth the search.