Loose on the Landscape: An Ecologist Looks for Meaning in the Wildest Places

By Joel Everett Harding

Indie author, 2023

Genre: Non-Fiction – Memoir/Anthology/Nature/Ecology

Pages:  430

Via: Author Request

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pssst! Buddy, can you keep a secret? Good. Cuz I’m about to let you in on one. Sort of. Here it is:

One of Mom’s favorite movies is A River Runs Through It. Not necessarily because of the story, although the movie parallels Norman Maclean’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated novella pretty close. But the movie is a Mom fave for two other reasons: 1) Mark Isham’s masterfully moving musical score, and 2) The spectacular landscape and scenery of Montana.

 

 

Maybe that’s why Mom had the movie’s musical score in her head on auto-play when she opened this book. I’ll let Mom fill you in:

Vibrant & Fine

Told in vibrant prose by a professional field ecologist with a fine eye for detail, Loose on the Landscape takes readers into a wide variety of outdoor settings and situations as they join the author in everything from a chilly November pre-dawn in a flooded corn field in Michigan to mapping radiation vectors in Missouri and a “reconnaissance-level ecological investigation” in the Pacific Northwest. There’s also water cycles and crop cycles. Food webs. Chinook salmon. The law of unintended consequences. Tracking bighorn sheep in Yellowstone. Much more.

“Sometimes nothing was more important than going off into the woods and contemplating the frog chorus of a vernal pool.”

Beautifully written, the narrative crackles with pithy prose and incisive observations. Most chapters begin with a “keep you guessing” flavor. The author describes a time and place coupled with an event without telling you exactly where or when said event takes place. Then he tosses out a trail of “breadcrumb” clues. Just enough to reel you in and keep you guessing without giving too much away too soon before the Great Reveal. It’s quite effective.

“Many people have done as much or more, allowing them to collect such ecosystems and personal memories (about their visits to national parks). For me, the best were those slower journeys where I melted into the landscape, felt its pulse, and discovered its secrets.”

Chapters

Speaking of chapters, who can resist chapter headings like Umatilla Reconnaissance, River Morphing, Guardians of the Enchanted Isle and Into the Kootznoowoo? Personal favorites include Bootleggers of Cranberry Lake and Final Call from Wild-Base One.

A favorite line: “A sense of peace surrounded me. I turned around and hiked back with the sunshine on my shoulder. Rocky Mountain high.”

How clever is that?

Style

Equal parts inspiration, perspiration, information, and education, the style is as effervescent as champagne on New Year’s. The voice is intelligent, approachable, and neighborly. So Loose is a little Walden. A bit A River Runs Through It (Bonus points). With a splash of Travels With Charley. It also reminded Mom of Floyd Schmoe’s A Year in Paradise. Another personal fave, so… Well. You know.

“I learned early on that nature is abundant with hidden layers of meaning. But uncovering landscape layers requires a good deal of digging and understanding them comes from keen observation.”

The prose is lyrical, rich, and often deeply evocative. It’s an eclectic blend of memoir, history, geography and geology, botany, nature, ecology and travel guide. There’s also plenty of action and adventure. And some laughed-so-hard-I-snorted-lemonade-out-my-nose moments. (Don’t ask.) A whole lot more. In fact, Loose on the Landscape is hard to peg in the “genre” department. It’s pretty much in a class by itself.

“Like Thoreau at Walden…. He found soul-satisfying value in natural landscapes, self-reliance, and wilderness experiences.”

Detailed

As indicated above, the first part of this book is detailed and thorough. It recounts a plethora of fascinating facts regarding various eco-systems and habitats and such throughout the United States. We found this slow-going. It picks up steam about mid-way through as the author begins to recount Family Camping Adventures and Disasters (?) Du Jour. The tone is warm and personal – even if you’re facing the prospect of spending the night on an island during a raging storm after your boat’s engine conked out in the middle of a lake. Later chapters chronicling adventures in the Colombian rainforests are also noteworthy as the tome winds down to its final elegiac chapter. And a deep sigh.

“Most of the drive from Portland passed through sagebrush plains grilled well-done, seared on top and piping hot.”

Prodigious

Clocking in at 430 pages including an Appendix, Loose on the Landscape is a prodigious read. Hence, it’s not the kind of book you skip through merrily, one eye on the page and the other on an incoming text message. Nope. Loose on the Landscape requires your full attention.

So, Mom and I? We especially appreciated the themes of conservation and preservation that are skillfully interwoven throughout the narrative. Also awe and respect for nature. Thus, outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers will enjoy this rich and finely crafted Ode to the Great Outdoors. So will anyone who’s vertical and breathing. Oh yeah.

 

Mom and I were at loggerheads regarding a rating for this book. (It doesn’t happen very often. Think Hailey’s Comet.) So we’re gonna take a page out of the Mary Poppins playbook and just say: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Got that?