Wild America

Wow!  What a great book!  I completely loved reading every single page of this classic.  The book journals a journey of two of the great naturalists of their time, Roger Tory Peterson of the United States and James Fisher of England.   Roger wanted to show his friend and colleague his Wild America.  The setting was in the spring and summer of 1953.

If you can check two of the three of the following, you too will love this book.

__  Love Road Trips

__ Have an intrigue in nostalgia and life in a low-tech simpler time

__ Fascinated by how the natural world works

Getting across the Atlantic Ocean by air in 1953 was no easy feat requiring multiple fueling stops along the way.  No Heathrow to JFK direct flights in 1953.  That story kick-started my interest in this book.

The first item of real nostalgia for me was the trip into Florida.  Cypress Gardens and Marineland were all the rage in 1953.  Orange groves were everywhere.  Mickey Mouse was still 20 years away.  Of course, I wasn’t around in 1953, but I do remember the Florida that Roger and James described.  I lived in Gainesville in the 1960s and early 1970’s.

I smiled when James described Orlando as a “quaint little town”.

I laughed as they ran out of gas on more than one occasion while driving from Florida to California.  No bells and whistles on cars back then.  You better be watching the gauge.

James had some homework to do from his job in England.  He needed to collect a few specimens of specific bird species along the way.  So, while Roger was pulling out his camara for photos or film, James was pulling out a shotgun.  Such was the way it went back in the early days.

One story was told by Roger of how three Parula Warblers of the tropical race showed up in Oregon a couple years earlier.  There was quite the discussion of “collecting” them (shooting them) for proper identification.  Imagine showing up at a rare bird sighting today with a shotgun just to be certain of the ID.  Wow.  Things have changed.

One of the final stops was in the Pribilof Islands in the Bearing Sea where in 1953 the fur seal pelt trade was a sustainably regulated program.  They describe in detail the near extinction of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, and the international agreement of 1911 to carefully maximize a sustainable harvest.  They then proceed to participate in a round-up of seals, driving them to the killing fields and the dispatching and processing of thousands of fur seals.  The method of killing is described as the most humanely possible but it sounded very gruesome to me.

I envy Roger and James for having careers that allowed them to explore and deepen our understanding of the natural world around us.  I thank them for sharing their adventure with the rest of the world.

Joel Stephens

When Daniel Boone goes by at night

The phantom deer arise

And all lost, wild America

Is burning in their eyes

STEPHEN VINCENT BENET, “Daniel Boone”