It’s a marathon weekend in Missoula, in addition to runners gathering for the Missoula Marathon there was also the Norman Maclean Festival. This year’s theme was, Public Lands & Sacred Ground, featuring two days of authors and politicians discussing public lands, native peoples and the wilderness, A few of the authors included:
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan
On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in an eyeblink. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men -- college boys, day-workers, immigrants from mining camps -- to fight the fires. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them.
Egan narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire with unstoppable dramatic force, through the eyes of the people who lived it. Equally dramatic, though, is the larger story he tells of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by every citizen. The robber barons fought him and the rangers charged with protecting the reserves, but even as TR's national forests were smoldering they were saved: The heroism shown by those same rangers turned public opinion permanently in favor of the forests, even as it changed the mission of the forest service with consequences felt in the fires of today.
For years, America's national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. The Hour of Land, is a literary celebration of our national parks, what they mean to us, and what we mean to them.
Through twelve carefully chosen parks, from Yellowstone in Wyoming to Acadia in Maine to Big Bend in Texas, Tempest Williams creates a series of lyrical portraits that illuminate the unique grandeur of each place while delving into what it means to shape a landscape with its own evolutionary history into something of our own making. Part memoir, part natural history, and part social critique, The Hour of Land is a meditation and manifesto on why wild lands matter to the soul of America. Our national parks stand at the intersection of humanity and wildness, and there's no one better than Tempest Williams to guide us there.
Was It Worth It? : A Wilderness Warrior's Long Trail Home by Doug Peacock
In a collection of gripping stories of adventure, Doug Peacock, loner, iconoclast, environmentalist, and contemporary of Edward Abbey, reflects on a life lived in the wild, asking the question many ask in their twilight years: “Was It Worth It?”
Recounting sojourns with Abbey, but also Peter Matthiessen, Doug Tompkins, Jim Harrison, Yvon Chouinard and others, Peacock observes that what he calls “solitary walks” were the greatest currency he and his buddies ever shared. He asserts that “solitude is the deepest well I have encountered in this life,” and the introspection it affords has made him who he is: a lifelong protector of the wilderness and its many awe-inspiring inhabitants.
With adventures both close to home (grizzlies in Yellowstone and jaguars in the high Sonoran Desert) and farther afield (tigers in Siberia, jaguars again in Belize, spirit bears in the wilds of British Columbia, all the amazing birds of the Galapagos), Peacock acknowledges that Covid 19 has put “everyone’s mortality in the lens now and it’s not necessarily a telephoto shot.” Peacock recounts these adventures to try to understand and explain his perspective on Nature: That wilderness is the only thing left worth saving.
This festival is held bi-annually, so plan to attend in 2024
On top of these events, on Sunday night night famed ethologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall spoke at UM
Looking at the headlines--a global pandemic, the worsening climate crisis, political upheaval--it can be hard to feel optimistic. And yet hope has never been more desperately needed.
Told through stories from a remarkable career and fascinating research, The Book of Hope touches on vital questions including: How do we stay hopeful when everything seems hopeless? How do we cultivate hope in our children? Filled with engaging dialogue and pictures from Jane’s storied career, The Book of Hope is a deeply personal conversation with one of the most beloved figures in today’s world.
And for the first time, Jane tells the story of how she became a messenger of hope: from living through World War II, to her years in Gombe, to realizing she had to leave the forest to travel the world in her role as an advocate for environmental justice. She details the forces that shaped her hopeful worldview, her thoughts on her past, and her revelations about her next--and perhaps final--adventure.
There is still hope, and this book will help guide us to it.
These events all followed the news that Missoula Public Library had been short-listed for best Public Library of the Year the IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations
13th IFLA BibLibre International Library Marketing Award Winners Announced
Further details on the shortlisted libraries
Missoula Public Library MSR architects case study The winner will be announced on July 26 in Dublin, Ireland.
Thankfully not every week is this exciting!! But I love Missoula, come visit and I'll give you a tour of the library...
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