Full Review by Marina Richie
If there’s one takeaway from environmental champion Brock Evans’ autobiography, it’s this: “Every place in this nation that is now safe for all of us didn’t just happen.” In that 1975 speech to activists who would save the Congaree swamp as a national park, he reminded them of their power. “It’s a force called love. Love for our earth. Love enough to fight for it. Love enough to never quit.”
Evans’ grand opus of his life told through journals, speeches, essays, photos and reflections is one glorious love story. His writing is lyrical and passionate. His insights into how to save threatened forests, rivers, and wildlands are strategic, courageous, and relevant.
Editor George Venn did a masterful job of helping Evans sort through 700 speeches and manuscript stacks to select the gems that would portray his legacy, from the young lawyer hired by David Brower to be the Sierra Club Northwest Representative to his leadership roles with National Audubon and the Endangered Species Coalition.
The book is intensely personal as well. A prolific writer since his youth, Evans’ kept diaries and the chosen excerpts reveal his soul searching as an engine boy on a trade ship to India, his momentous first summer working in Glacier National Park, and years later, “Notes from the Cancer Time” that exemplifies his mantra of never giving up.
For conservation strategy, go straight to the chapters on protecting the North Cascades, Alpine Lakes, French Pete, Sparta Mountain, and more. Even here, you will find Evan’s poetic joy in wild places. “Arrow-clean flights of birds cut and wheel and arc through the evening river air,” he writes of his first float trip down Hells Canyon in 1967. And always the resolve. “There is in me not only great ambition, but also great love; I care, and I care very deeply about my earth and about my people. This great river just must not be lost. This dam must not happen.” And yes, the Snake River runs free through the deepest gorge in North America today..
For all who carry on the torch of environmentalism, there’s a ringing message. Don’t wait for a better time to save what’s left. Do it now—with love.
Evans’ grand opus of his life told through journals, speeches, essays, photos and reflections is one glorious love story. His writing is lyrical and passionate. His insights into how to save threatened forests, rivers, and wildlands are strategic, courageous, and relevant.
Editor George Venn did a masterful job of helping Evans sort through 700 speeches and manuscript stacks to select the gems that would portray his legacy, from the young lawyer hired by David Brower to be the Sierra Club Northwest Representative to his leadership roles with National Audubon and the Endangered Species Coalition.
The book is intensely personal as well. A prolific writer since his youth, Evans’ kept diaries and the chosen excerpts reveal his soul searching as an engine boy on a trade ship to India, his momentous first summer working in Glacier National Park, and years later, “Notes from the Cancer Time” that exemplifies his mantra of never giving up.
For conservation strategy, go straight to the chapters on protecting the North Cascades, Alpine Lakes, French Pete, Sparta Mountain, and more. Even here, you will find Evan’s poetic joy in wild places. “Arrow-clean flights of birds cut and wheel and arc through the evening river air,” he writes of his first float trip down Hells Canyon in 1967. And always the resolve. “There is in me not only great ambition, but also great love; I care, and I care very deeply about my earth and about my people. This great river just must not be lost. This dam must not happen.” And yes, the Snake River runs free through the deepest gorge in North America today..
For all who carry on the torch of environmentalism, there’s a ringing message. Don’t wait for a better time to save what’s left. Do it now—with love.
Marina Richie
Board member of Greater Hells Canyon Council and environmental writer
Board member of Greater Hells Canyon Council and environmental writer