Wilderness Book Club
Join us for a new book pick about wilderness, conservation, wildlife, and adventure every other month!
Sign up for our email newsletter to learn about the latest pick, read the book, and submit your thoughts and reflections to share. Have a book recommendation for the club? Submit it below.
If you’re having trouble submitting your reflections or recommendations via the forms, feel free to email us at margosia@wildernesslandtrust.org
Summer 2024 Wilderness Book Club Pick
by The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
With kids home from school for the summer, we wanted to feature a children’s book for our next Wilderness Book Club pick. Bull Trout’s Gift is a story about the gifts we receive from our rivers and the communities of life they support. It is also a story about reciprocity, about respecting these gifts and acknowledging them by giving something of value in return. Beautifully illustrated and narrated in the tradition of the Salish and Kootenai Tribes, this account of conservation as the legacy of one generation to the next is about being good to the land that has been good to us. Bull Trout’s Gift is steeped in the culture, history, and science that our children must know if they hope to transform past wisdom into future good.
Bull Trout’s Gift is available in print or free online courtesy of the CSK Tribes.
Submit your thoughts to share with the book club by September 27!
Spring 2024 Wilderness Book Club Pick
Edited by Elizabeth Hightower Allen
For our spring book club pick we’ve chosen First and Wildest: The Gila Wilderness at 100 in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of America’s first wilderness area. In the summer of 1922, Aldo Leopold traveled on horseback up into the headwaters of New Mexico’s Gila River and proposed to his bosses at the Forest Service that 500,000 acres of that rough country be set aside as roadless wilderness. Thus was born America’s first—the world’s first—designated wilderness. A century later, writer–activists, including Indigenous voices, come together to celebrate this vast, rugged landscape, the Yellowstone of the Southwest. Contributors include Michael P. Berman, Philip Connors, Martha Schumann Cooper, Beto O’Rourke, Martin Heinrich, Pam Houston, Priyanka Kumar, Laura Paskus, Sharman Apt Russell, Jakob Sedig, Leeanna T. Torres, and JJ Amaworo Wilson.
Submit your thoughts to share with the book club by June 24!
Winter 2024 Wilderness Book Club Pick
Our winter book club pick is Two in the Far North– perfect for a cozy winter read, it is a Northern classic and beloved favorite chronicling the incredible story of Margaret “Mardy” Murie, called the Grandmother of the Conservation Movement. At the age of nine, Margaret Murie moved from Seattle to Fairbanks, not realizing the trajectory life would take her from there. This moving testimonial to the preservation of the Arctic wilderness comes straight from her heart as she writes about growing up in Fairbanks, becoming the first woman graduate of the University of Alaska, and meeting-and then marrying-noted biologist Olaus J. Murie. From adventures of traversing over thin ice with dog sleds, camping in woods surrounded by bears, caribou, and other wildlife, to canoeing in streams with geese nearby, and more, Murie embraced nature as a close neighbor and dedicated her life to advocating for wilderness protection and conservation.
Submit your thoughts to share with the book club by March 24th!