Member-only story
The Novel that Made me Passionate About Environmentalism
Four Summers ago I was walking through a used book store and stumbled upon a copy of Nathan Coulter — a novel by Wendell Berry.
I’d heard of Berry by somewhat unconventional means. His name popped up numerous times in Nick Offerman’s (yes, actor Nick Offerman’s) autobiographical book, Paddle Your Own Canoe, which I’d read two years prior. Offerman lauds Berry’s work, in particular his novels, which I believe he describes as offering valuable moral lessons and scenes of characters creating adventures in the great outdoors of rural Kentucky.
The more Offerman described Berry’s fiction the more I was brought back to the books I loved as kid growing up — Hatchet by Gary Paulsen; My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighhead George; White Fang by Jack London; and I’ll even throw The Giver by Lois Lowry into this mix. I’ve just always loved these sort of nature, wilderness, adventure, survival narratives.
I’m perhaps fortunate in that I grew up in a time where spending endless hours outdoors, having an adventure and perhaps even getting lost, was the norm. There just wasn’t as much technology, as many screens, getting in the way of man (or child) and nature. So in a sense I saw myself in those survival narratives — I related to the fright and fear of getting lost or injured in the woods and having to, you…
