As a former university professor, I have to say I am impressed by the direction some educational trends are heading. Coming off the tide of Richard Louv's bestselling Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, more and more "nature classrooms" are springing up nationwide. These "place-based" educational facilities are designed to make students more environmentally literate and start by having class outside . . . in the woods! One such fine, forward-thinking school is the Wilderness Skills Institute in Scotts Valley, CA. I have been blessed by being asked to speak at WSI. The students will have no trouble guessing who their guest speaker is once I arrive: Like a country bumpkin fresh off the bus in skyscraping NYC, I'll be the slack-jawed fellow gawking at the never-ending redwood tree tops. |
Trail maintenance is an odd job in that, unlike like most occupations, those who oversee trails rarely have pissing contests about whose park and trails are more difficult to maintain. The reason for this is A) we're typically too tired to care and B) it's akin to a 82 and 84-year old bickering over seniority: When it's 95 degrees with 50 percent humidity, it doesn't matter which forest you're in, they all suck. That said, I can honestly say I'm grateful that I'm not the one responsible for the trails on Mount Hua Shan in China. I've been extended an invitation to speak and hold a book signing at the Minott House, a.k.a., the Thoreau Farm, birthplace and historic marker of Henry David Thoreau. What an honor! If I had to guess, I'd say it was more due to my stunning portrait of the transcendentalist than my having devoted an entire chapter to his life and work in Nature's Housekeeper.
My H.P. wife will be thrilled since it is on the National Register of Historic Places. Shhh . . . don't tell her. I plan to surprise her with the news. |
THE OFFICIAL
BLOG OF BESTSELLING AUTHOR MICHAEL GURNOW Check out Michael's new smash hit,
Nature's Housekeeper, the #1 Hot New Release in Nature Writing and Ecotourism on Amazon Introduction by the Aldo Leopold Foundation with an Afterword by Lawton Grinter, author of I Hike "Nature's Housekeeper
is a laugh-out-loud, page-turning memoir" Jennifer Pharr Davis
National Geographic's 2012 Adventurer of the Year "I was laughing my
survival a## off while reading Nature's Housekeeper" Les Stroud
Discovery Channel's Survivorman "Nature's Housekeeper
is a wild and hilarious masterpiece" Daniel Quinn
Author of Ishmael and The Story of B "Nature's Housekeeper is
intellectually profound yet outrageously funny" British Mountaineering
Council Ambassador Chris Townsend Archives
March 2017
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