00:00:01 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the modern whitetail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyon, and today in the show where you're discussing ten books that all aspiring conservationists should read, and joining me is Ed Robertson of the Mountain and Prairie podcast. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light. We're here for what I think is going to be our last episode of Conservation Month, and I wanted to wrap this one up with a little bit of um I guess suggestions for those of you who want to go further. If you've been interest did in some of the conversations we've had over the last month, if you've been inspired, if you're just a person who loves deer hunting and deer and open spaces and other wildlife hunting, fishing, public lands, anything like that, and if you want to try to do some of the stuff we've talked about and you want to learn more about how you can give back to these animals and places and causes, I want to give you some suggestions for where you can go to learn more or where you can go to be inspired further or to dive into these topics even deeper. So we're gonna go through a set of book recommendations. This is gonna be our little Wired to Hunt book club set of reading resources for those who want to dig into this even more. And the guy joining me is Ed Robertson. He's the host of the Mountain and Prairie Podcast, a really, really, really good podcast that I listened to personally, UM exploring all sorts of issues related to the American West and conservation issues of all kinds UM. He's also the conservation director at the Palmer Land Conservancy, and he's the writer of a terrific newsletter that comes out I think every other month, full of book recommendations. The reason why I want in this show in particular is that he's one of the only people I know who seems to read as voraciously as I do about these types of things. So I'm always looking forward to his book recommendations. Whenever he mentions the book, I'm always on it. I'm always looking it up. I know it's gonna be a good one. So he seemed to be the perfect person to come on here and talk about this kind of stuff. So you know, what we're gonna talk about is, of course book recommendations, but we also do get to some other media suggestions. We talked about some favorite documentaries, we talked about some newsletters, we really like, a couple of podcasts we like. Um So, if you want to learn more about anything along these lines, we've got ideas for it. But I will say, if you are not a big reader, if you don't buy a lot of books and sit there in your chair at night and read, I would at least you know I'm biased here, but I would still suggest you tune into this one because man, if you're listening to a podcast, you can listen to an audiobook, and audio books are often just as just as much fun and just as engaging as listening to a conversation like this. So tune in and try a couple of these through your earbuds, go on your morning run, go on your drive to work, whatever might be. And you know, while I of course would hope you still listen to this podcast, add one of these audiobooks to your listening repertoire as well, because I think you know, we talked about this later in the show, a book allows you to go deeper into a subject. You can engage it in a just totally different way than you ever could with a podcast conversation like this. You know, we're only ever able to go surface level with these kinds of conversations. A book can take you down many, many, many layers deeper. And I'm a big advocate of that kind of thing. I'm a big advocate of all these books. I'm a big advocate for reading in general and continuing to learn and grow. Um And of course I love to do that when it comes to actually deer hunting. But as we've been talking about this last month, there's more to being a deer hunter than just hunting deer and uh, I think these books will help inspire and form and educate and empower us all to to do a little bit of that. More so, ten books all aspiring conservations should read with Ed Robertson. That is the conversation we're going to have. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this one. We go back and forth, we bounce back. Each of us had five ideas. We each share our recommendation and we kind of discuss why we like it, what the books about many of these books both of us read, so we kind of riff off of each other and dive into not just the book topics themselves, but also just talk about these issues in general. So this conversation really ends up being more than just a set of like, read this, read this, read this. It really ends up being Hey, I love this book, here's why, and then let's talk more about this kind of stuff. UM. So I enjoyed it. I think a lot of you will too. I appreciate you tuning in, So let's get to my chat with Ed. Alright with me now on the show is Ed Robertson. Ed, Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. Thanks for having me Mark. I'm I'm really excited for this one. And this is a oh. This is like an intersection of two different circles on a ven diagram that that maybe wouldn't be as obvious to some folks, but to me, it's a perfect fit. Um. I've been a big fan of yours, a big fan of your work for a number of years now, and I've just been waiting for the right excuse to pull you into my world, and and this seemed to be it. So I'm glad, I'm glad we're here. Thanks for making the time. Oh yeah, man, Well I'm saying, you know, right back at you. I've I've been a huge fan of everything you're doing. And I think it's you know, you said there two ven diagrams, but I think it could possibly be like or fifteen different circles and then we're right there in the middle. But you know, everything you said, I say back at you tenfold. You know, I'm just a huge fan of everything you're doing and how you've built your business up and how you you know, you really add a lot of value. I'm not, by by any means, I'm not a hardcore big game hunter, but I still, you know, get so much value at every out of everything you do. And uh, anyway, it's just great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate it. So let me give you a little context and and and some of this. You know, But over the last four or five weeks or so, I've been doing a series here on Wired to Hunt kind of exploring a number of different conservation related topics, um questions, issues and at different kind of levels of how directly relevant it is to the core audience of wire Hunt, which is you know, we're mostly pretty darned hardcore white tail hunters, but we're also outdoor enthusiasts more generally hunt other things. We fish, we hike, we can't, We do a lot of different things. So I know that these people listening uh are like you and I and that we we generally love the outdoors and want to make sure it's around into the future for us and our kids and grandkids and other people to enjoy. So this this Conservation Month series has kind of been all over the place. We've talked about things directly tied to white tailed deer. We've talked about things related to white tailed deer habitat. We've talked about things like the influence of some of our forefathers like Aldo Leopold and the legacy he left um. But one of the topics we really focused on last week was what does conservation look like in in a regular life? Like we talked about this idea of like being a conservationist, but what does that mean, you know, on a day to day basis? Uh? So, So I wanted to talk to you and because of because of two things. Number One, from the outside looking in, it sure seems like you are a person who's taken this love of the outdoors and this desire to give back in some way. You have seemed to have found some really great ways to put that into day to day practice in your own life. But then you've also been someone who seems to be fascinated and curious and interested with the whole suite of ideas and philosophies and adventures that all are related to these topics, and and like me, read about those things a ton and engage with a lot of media. So so my my mission here today as twofold number one, I want to get a little bit of insight into how you got to where you are and why you went to where you are, And then the bigger discussion will be kind of having a two person book club here if you're willing and talk through a number of different book ideas, and maybe some other things too, podcasts or films or anything like that that folks can take a look at if they want to go further in this kind of exploration, if folks want to learn more about conservation or for an ideas or different people are different. I don't know the history or the future of any of these issues. I want to give folks a bunch of options, a menu of what they could turn to next to keep dive into this stuff. And with your podcast Mountain Prairie and your book recommendations that you send out in your newsletter and everything you do. UM, I know that you are similar to me, very well read on a lot of these things. UM, so I thought you'd be the perfect guy to talk about this stuff. Are you? Are you game for that? Oh? Yeah, man, I just again, I appreciate you have me on and um I was getting ready to say, well, that's actually uh, that's actually a character I play, is that the conservation GUYDA work for actually work for excellent. But it's been quite a cool story, I mean as far as that how ended up in this conservation world. But I think you and I are very similar in that we're um, you know, both curious, it could possibly be curious to a fault, um just trying to absorb this this information across a wide, um you know, wide spectrum of of any different kind of media we can find. And so I, UM, yeah, I think we will have a lot to talk about and I think, if anything, the challenge is gonna be to keep it within uh like ten hours yeah, well give me, give me a little bit of that backstory. Ed, Um, how did you get to this point where so much of your life does revolve around conservation related issues? What was kind of impetus for that? And how did it go from maybe uh uh an inkling of an idea to a vocation and career. Yeah, well, I mean to to go way back. People can tell by this accident. I'm not from the West Originally. I grew up in eastern North Carolina, and uh, I always loved the outdoors, you know, I spent I think I spent the vast majority of my childhood hanging out in this ditch in my neighborhood, uh, chasing frogs and catching, you know, trying to fish and doing all this just outdoor type stuff. And I think I went to college in North Carolina. Uh, and I always wanted to go out west and move out west. But I think at HWO, I took myself too seriously just to go out and be a scheme bum like I think I probably should have been. And so when I got out of college, Um, you and I share a similar um, you know background in the early days of our careers, and I decided right it's time to be a grown up. I'm gonna go get a job at Merrill Lynch and I'm gonna wear a suit every day, and I'm gonna be a serious grown up. And I mean, it's, uh, it's funny how how we we do that? And you know, you're trying to be responsible and trying to follow this well worn path. And I think, you know, for some people with works and some people they love it, but for me, it just didn't click. And I couldn't quite figure it out because I'm like, well, I'm doing what I feel like I'm supposed to do, but this is very boring and I don't really feel fulfilled doing it. And I eventually got into the commercial real estate business, which is really more the same in North Carolina, wearing a suit, you know, trying to sell warehouses and office buildings and things like that. And I just had this urge like I really want to move out West. I want to move out West. And I didn't even really know what that meant. I mean, I'd had a few trips, like my dad and I rafted the Grand Canyon when I was in high school, and I went on a like a backpacking campig trip in Colorado, but I just had this urge to be moving west and so eventually, um, I just made up my mind, all right, I'm gonna move to Jackson Hole. And I don't I don't really care if I have to if I have to wait tables or do whatever. I just I really want to live out there. But it was during the real estate boom, um, you know, around two thousand and four, two thousand and five, and I found out about this job selling ranches called a ranch broker, and I was like, what, like, that's a real job. You get to broker the sale these and these you know, these big ranches, like the kind of things like Ted Turner spots and um. And so I just kept hassling different companies and sending my resume out and finally one of them was like, hey, we're interested in talking with you. And so I flew out, flew out of Jackson Hole, had a meeting with them, and they ended up hiring me. So I moved to Jackson Hole. And at the time, you know, it was awesome. Um it was I was in the real estate business doing what I had been doing, and I was able to kind of step up my real estate career because I was, um, you know that everything was just crazy during that time. The the real estate market was wild, and um, so I was able to be out west. I wasn't married, didn't have a girlfriend. I just had a dog. And so I was traveling all over Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado doing these ranch deals. And this is where it's kind of funny because a lot of who I was working with were real estate developers, and I had this idea that, well, if they're doing that, if these guys are doing this, I know I could do it. And you know, I felt like for every dollar I was making, they were making a hundred dollars. And so I got in my head, all right, I want to be a real estate developer. I don't know how to do that. So I'm gonna go to a business school. And so I started applying to different NBA program, got accepted to one, got a full scholarship, which was kind of a surprise, and went back to business school. But I saw halfway through the program, so this would have been uh oh, seven oh eight. Halfway through the program, and two different things happened. One the whole real estate market collapsed, and I saw that a lot of these so called developers that I've been working with out West were not really developers. It was just kind of a scam. And a lot of these big plans they had to turn, you know, ranches into these shared communities or whatever, just fell apart and in there in the wake of their poor business, left kind of a destroyed landscape. And so, you know, this obsession with the West I had had forever I was I was just I wanted to live out West. I wanted to play a part in it. I had moved out West, and in some ways I had helped facilitate the um screwing up of a lot of these landscapes that I love so much. And then I also had a terrible health scare during business school the summer between my first and second year. Um, I went to the doctor one day and they're like, yeah, you got to testicular cancer, and uh, it was a it was quite a it was like I had a midlife crisis at age thirty. And so the combo of all those things, I ended up being fine with the with the whole health scare, no big you know, no big deal in the in the long run as far as my my health. But it was a big deal as far as my outlook on things. So the combination of thinking I was gonna die there for a little while, combined with seeing this destruction that had taken place in this area of the West that I love so much, it just made me really start re evaluating my choices and what I wanted to do. And so I didn't want to be a real estate developer anymore. But I really didn't know what I wanted to do. But I did have all these skills in real estate, and so when I got out of business school, my wife and I actually lived abroad for a year, and then after that I got back into the real estate business, but with the conservation focus, and so I worked like, for example, I did a deal with Cresty Butte um Ski Resort where they owned some property and we sold it to a land trust. Um it was conserved in perpetuity and there was some trail access that was put in place in perpetuity. I worked with some different counties in Colorado to turn private ranches into open space through acquisition, and I realized kind of over the course of doing these deals that I really felt a connection to the conservation side of things more than I did to like the deal making fast talking like selling stuff. I mean, it's a cool it's a good way to make a living, and you can make a lot of money doing it, but I just didn't. I didn't really feel that much of a connection to it. And there's a lot of um that that ranch brokerage business can be very adversarial. So even though we were doing some cool deals that led to conservation outcomes, it was it was kind of a rough business, and so I just just I was on the board of a local um, a regional land conservation organization, and I got I got a pretty big deal done with a county open space program up in the mountain here in Colorado, and then I went to the executive director. I said, hey, I don't know if you'd have a need for somebody like me with my background, but if you would, I I'd love to do this full time. And thankfully she was able to find a spot for me. So now for about the last four years, I've been doing full timely and conservation, which is you know, it's basically real estate, but at the end of the day, it's for what at least what I consider to be a greater good. So that's kind of the it was supposed to be short but long version of my weird career trajectory. It wasn't. It wasn't too long. Um So, now you work for a land conservancy, right, can you can you describe real briefly just what that actually means, Like, what does a group like Palmer do? I mean, I know involves easemans and different things like that, but how does conservation and real estate, you know, intersect. You mentioned a couple brief examples they are in crestedbut but can you just kind of describe that a little more. Yeah, Palmer has three main buckets that we work in. One is public open space. So there are a lot of public parks here and called the Colora Springs area that we have conserved, and we use a tool called a conservation easement, which is is basically a deed restriction that prevents development on a property. So there are a lot of really beautiful hiking and mountain biking trail areas here in Colora Springs and we have protected those in perpetuity they will always be open space. We also work with a lot of farmers and ranchers and that's mostly what I do. One of my big projects is trying to figure out a way to balance the water needs here in the West, which is a you know, that's a big issue obviously, and trying to figure out how do we keep irrigated farm land irrigated but not at the expense of um cities and municipalities being able to grow because they need water. And so we work with farmers and ranchers really to try to keep their farms and ranches as farms and ranches and not be turned into uh, you know, housing developments or shopping centers or anything like that. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we do you know, we obviously need farms and ranches for a lot of reasons. And then the second, the third bucket is just scenic views. You know that if if you drive from here in Carra Springs up into the mountains, there's this big view of Pike's Peak, and we have conserved all the ranches along the highway there so you'll always have this really you know, beautiful big view of Pike's Peak and those ranches will always be open space and they'll never be you know, track houses or anything like that. Man, It's it's such important work these days. That kind of thing all across the West, with you know, just so many more people wanting to live these places, and so many ranchers or farmers aging out and trying to figure out what to do with their land once they don't want to work it anymore, and kids not wanting to carry on the family work. And you know, I mean, I'm sure you deal this all the time, but just locally around like the places that I've spent the last decade, when I go out West and Idaho and Wyoming and stuff, just seeing more and more houses and developments popping up. It's just it's scary, you know, thinking about one of my locally content their twenty or thirty years if there aren't more things done like what you're describing. So, oh yeah, it really is. And and I think as more people want to move out here, and you know, I'm one of them, North Carolina and I've moved out here. And but the as the property values increase, as these you know, as the generations, um, you know, as as the properties moved through generations, when somebody dies, the you know, it's a big deal for some of these farmers and ranchers are being to pay the estate taxes as the real estate value UM increases, and so that's where these conservation easements. They're a tool that can allow that can generate some income and can reduce the property value so that that's not as much of an issue because you know, some of these farmers and ranchers they don't have any choice other than to start selling off their land because the value is so high now. So it's UM. You know, it's it's a challenge and it's tough, but it's it's fun to be working on and it's fun to spend. You know. I'm I'm forty four, so I've been working for quite a long time now, and to be able to UM, you know, kind of apply these skills I've learned over the years to something that matters to me UM, and I think matters to a lot of people. I think it's it's a real it's a real honor to be able to do that. Yeah. So, so how about this other half of your life? Though? You host the Mountain Prairie podcast and you you know, do this. You've got this terrific reading list that you send out every month with book recommendations, and it seems like you've you've filled up any other gaps in your life with you know, learning more about conservation and wild places and these things you care about and discussing these ideas of other people that also care about them. Um, do you think there's as okay as a person who wants to let's let's just say, as as an individual who says, you know what, I care about these places, whether it's you know, an open farm in Michigan or the National forest in Colorado. I care about wild places. I care about wild animals. I want to do some then I want to be some kind of positive Um. I want to have some kind of positive difference. So, like, let's let's just say that is a feeling that one of us has. Is there is there actual value, like intrinsic value, or is it in some way a good thing to read about this kind of stuff, learn about this kind of stuff, dive into a library of books related conservation, or listen to podcasts like yours who talk with folks to do this kind of stuff. Is that valuable to the cause or is this just entertainment? How do you look at like all the hours you spend at night, probably sitting in your chair or your bed reading these books and learning about this stuff. Is that just entertainment for you or do you think that that actually serves a greater good in some kind of way. Yeah, you know, I've always said that. And and one of the books actually that I was gonna recommend this by a guy named David Gestter, and he talks about um. He talks about how in order to want to protect something, you have to love it and it or in in order to to buy into some calls and to to make it be, you know, rise to the top of your priority list, you need to love it. And so I feel like whether it's going out for a hike or a run, or going on a hunting trip, or you know, spending time outside with my girls or reading these books. You know, I read a wide variety of books, but when it comes to the Western conservation, like, yeah, it's entertainment, yeah, and enjoy it. But if anything, it just kind of fuels this love of the place and of open space and of wild places that causes me to want to devote more and more time to it. And so, you know, when I was working at Merrill Lynch, I was reading all these books about the West. Whether it's likely you know, adventures of mountain climbers or people on these river trips, or then you know, dreaming about fishing on Flat Creek and Jackson Hole or whatever, and that is kind of a yeah, that kind of obsession, um is eventually lead me to where I am, which is where I'm doing it full time. And I don't think, I don't think if anybody wants to make a difference, whether that's you know, devoting their career to it or even just donating fifty bucks to a local land trust, no matter what, you've gotta be, you've got to be kind of obsessed with it or buy into it, and and and and it's got to be important to you. So I can't speak for for anybody other than myself, but for me, this endless reading and just curiosity about all this stuff that is yes, entertainment because I enjoy it, but it just fuels the work. I mean, I think all the stuff you do with you know, with the back forty and and your podcast and everything on Meat Eater like that, that is fueling people who are sitting at home and maybe they're you know, a job that they need to pay the bills, but it's not necessarily the best thing in the world. But I would guarantee that there have been a lot of people who have sent their money to like back country hunters and anglers because of watching you and your colleagues at meat Eater, And so I think it's kind of both. Really, it's both entertainment and fuel to make you to to make you fall in love with something and make you care about something so you'll devote your resources towards it. If that makes sense, Yeah, yeah, it does. At think it falls very much in the line with with with my view, I guess too. I feel like I if I were to sit and I had this debate myself often, not terribly often, but ever once in a while, I'll watch and we'll watch a couple episodes of some comedy series or something, and I get done with it, and I kind of feel like I just ate junk food, like I just ate a meal at McDonald's. But if I were to sit down and read a book or something, I always, always, always, even if it's mostly for entertainment, I always feel like I did something more valuable, like I ate my vegetables, um and particularly if it's a book about wild places or conservation or history of these things or something like that. It just it like fills up you said, fuelly, it kind of fuels you. I feel like it fills my reservoir. It like fills my gas tank, both with Sometimes it's just actual tactical knowledge, like how do you make a difference, Like how do I do something that's going to keep this chunkle land wild? Or sometimes it's teaching me how to keep hope or how to get piste off. Or it inspires me, or it shows me that oh wow, these people did this a hundred years ago. You still you can do it too, or or your generation can do it too. Or sometimes it changes my mind on things and makes me look at stuff in a different way. Sometimes it further uh solidifies my passion for something. Sometimes it points me in a brand new direction that I need to learn a whole bunch more about so that I can start working on the right things. Um, I just feel like, and I'm obviously biased, but I do feel like if if if I want to say that I care about these things and want to do something about it, I have to constantly be engaging with it and learning about it to make sure that my tanks full and then my compass is point in the right direction. I think that. And you know, and then also still like have that you talked about, have that like love and passion for it, and this is a way to engage that thing to um. So I think that's why I keep on buying these things in stamp late and night reading them. No, I agree, And and I also think, you know, in school, and you know, I've had this, I've had the fortune of having this fabulous education, probably too much education. But the reality is in school, like when you're learning history, you're reading these you know, quote history books, and it's just this like laundry list of one thing after another. But what what I found as a as I found I realized it probably midway through college when and and I've you know, kind of gone crazy with it as a as an adult. But they're all these books out there that are really, really, really fun to read. It's not like just boring history. And because I didn't really like history when I was in school, in high school or college, but when you can have access to books, and I mean, I think yours is a perfect example of of a book that's kind of like a personal journey, you know, some adventure, but by by reading this book about this guy who's out exploring all this public land, you kind of sneak in all this this very specific knowledge about the history of public lands and issues facing public lands. And so I think for for people who may not be like big readers now, or may not or may think readings boring or whatever. I mean, in some ways, I've been there and I know that. But I think, what if you if you find the right books, and they don't have to be hardcore just straight up academic history books. They can be a biography about somebody you know or like, like Hampton Sizes for example, I think he's the master. He wrote The Blood and Thunder, which is basically a biography of Kid Carson. And but by reading this crazy story about Kit Carson, you also learned the history of the American Southwest. And and so I just think, you know, for people who read a lot, this is all you know, it's nothing new. But I think if if you just one of these people, and I get it, who's like I'd rather watch TV you're reading? You just you're probably reading the wrong books. And so go for these awesome books. And I know, I know you've got some really good ones to recommend here, but I think yours is a great place to start for this kind of stuff. Off, so anybody Mark's pro bono publicist, read that book immediately, that Wild Country and that Big Journeys to the Past President Future of America's Public Lands, available at all bookstores. Blah blah. I do appreciate the kind of words, d um. But you're right um about the about the other stuff. Um. I do think you know one thing that I think is helping a lot of folks these days who maybe weren't historically readers engage more of books. Which is a cool thing is is how accessible and convenient audio books are now. Yes, you know so, So we're about to get into a bunch of book recommendations. If you're not a person who likes to sit down with a physical book, but you're listening to a podcast right now, well this is just like a podcast these books, you know, grab a subscription to Audible or go to Libby and get these for free. Some of these you can get on like that. This is Libby is like a like a digital library for adio books. Um, and listen to some of these. It's it's a great way to fail your time while taking a run or driving to work or whatever. Um. So there's a lot of ways to get this kind of stuff, but I do think that books have have a unique way of diving deep into something and really like taking you on a journey that very few other media forums can. Um. Like, podcasts are great, but I don't think I can do here on my podcast anything like what somebody can do in a book. Uh, same thing for like a magazine article or you know, a TV episode or something like that. You just can't do the same thing as a book can, in my opinion, which is which is why I think they're so powerful. I completely agree. So that said, I guess ed, should we should we get into these book recommendations. Um, you've got some good ones. I've got some good ones. The idea here is I want to give folks a set of ten maybe more by the time, and we dive into some of these and kind of related books, but a bunch of different ideas of books they can pick up and listen to or read if they want to learn more about any number of different issues related to conservation. So I I've got five recommendations, and I think you've got five recommendations UM, let's just let's run through this list and talk about a little bit. All right, who want you want to go first? How about you? Ed, You're you're the guest. What's your first one on the list. Well, anybody who listens to my stuff or has seen my reading list, they know that I've got possibly a weird obsession with you or Roosevelt, really everything about the guy, Like obviously from a conservation standpoint, but I always talk about THEO Roosevelt, his operating system of just going as hard as you can every day, you know, being being very very focused and doing purpose driven work and living what he called the strenuous life, just working working very very hard towards a purpose that means something to you. And so I could recommend, you know, Roosevelt books all day long, but when it comes to conservation, I feel like one of the best books out there, and it's it's of all the ones I'm gonna recommend, this is probably the toughest read. Um is The Wilderness Warrior, Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley. And I know this is an important book to you and you reference it in your book A lot um, but it is probably I mean it's close to eight hundred pages at least, and it is thick, and it basically goes through every part of Theodore Roosevelt's conservation legacy, from his time as a child and how he became so obsessed with the outdoors all the way through his presidency. And you know, when I know a lot of folks who listen to your podcast or public land advocates and I feel like, if you're gonna, you know, gonna be involved in the public lands world, in public lands advocacy these days, which is more important now than ever, you really need to understand this time period when Theodore Roosevelt was was around um and when because a lot of the work that he and his colleagues did set the stage for where we are now and to understand kind of the the challenges facing public lands. It really helps to kind of understand the foundation of it. But I mean, everything from the Boone and Crockett to the Lacey Act to the Antiquities Act, all that stuff is is based um, you know, during on Theodore Roosevelt's time both before he was president, when he was president, and then one of the things I always look for in books and is I like to read a book that makes me want to go out and read like ten more books on the same subject. And this is probably the ultimate example of that because like he talks I remember I read this probably, I mean it was probably ten years ago when I read this, but he talks about Gifford Peen Show, and I thought, man, that guy seems like an interesting dude. And that's I when I first read this, I've never even heard of him. And then it's kind of led me down a rabbit hole of reading different books like The Big Burn for example, and um, and so this is it is a tough it's a tough read, um, just because there's just a lot of info in it. But uh, it's not like you need to read every single word and absorb every single word. But I think if you can just kind of crank through it, it will expose it at least exposed me to all these new ideas and new people and kind of during this very formative time of conservation the United States. And so it's a it's a wonderful book. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, um, since you you used it when writing an actual book. Yeah, now a percent agree with you. Basically everything you just said is is exactly what I think about it. Um. It is. It is a like you said, it's a big, comprehensive book. So it's not light, easy beach reading. It's not at all. It's the book that you read, like if you want to get a PhD. And this stuff, Like if if you read that Wild Country, if you read my book and you enjoyed that and you left that thinking, man, I really want to get more into the details of this history and more into Teddy. Like that's the first one to jump to if you're willing to, like, if you really want to dig in, if you want to come out of this and like be a you know, a a an expert of sorts, like within you know, just regular life type of people and you want to really get it. You can't find a better resource than that one. Um. But what's particularly interesting about this for hunters is that it's it's not just you know, a heady history of politics and conservation. There's also some fun stuff in there about Roosevelt's early years as a hunter and rancher and cowboy and all that kind of stuff. Um, So you get a little bit of that adventure side of things. And really, I mean it's the dude's fascinating and in his his impact is so far ranging. It wasn't like he was just making a big difference when he was president, which is what he gets a lot of the you know, the uh rightfully still the publicity today for what he did as president, but also as the governor of New York, also as one of the co founders of the Boone and Crocker Club, also as you know, just what he was doing in those early years. I mean he uh, he really had his fingerprints on things for a very very long period of time that you know, as as hunters or anglers or hikers or anything. Today, if you do something outside you are you're enjoying something that Roosevelt had his his his his thumbprint on. Oh yeah, definitely one of them. And I think, you know, if somebody wants to, I get all these questions because I'm so obsessed with t R publicly, and people were like, well, what's the one book I should read, Like, if you want to read one book on him, my favorite book ever is called The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edward Edmund Morris, but there's another one called The River of Doubt that just focuses on his expedition he did in Brazil after he was president. And those are good entry points just to the man um But if you want to go deep, I don't know of a better book than this one. Yeah, now, I'll give it like a complimentary recommendation off this one that's not on my list. But if you if you are willing to dive deep into that one and you're interested in that, Brinkley wrote another book that kind of acts as a sequel to this one, and it's called Rightful Is It? Rightful Heritage? Rightful Heritage? And that story that book is is just like this Theodore Roosevelt book, but it's with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, so it's about his cousin, and it covers the same type of things. It covers basically the conservation history of this time period from basically where Theodore Roosevelt leaves off, all the way towards till the end of Franklin Roosevelt's life and really going extending a little past that, even talking through everything from what went on during the dust Bowl and the Depression and the conservation, civilian conservation Corps, all sorts of things related to actually Eldo Leopold's involvement in some programs in the thirties and forties. UM. I mean there was those to that family, the rose Up family. Between the two of them, they really had a an enormous influence on public lands and conservation and in early environmental protections here in America. So if you really want to dive deep, that would be the next one to kind of keep it get you down the road a few more decades. Um. Both of those were super helpful as I was exploring the history of these things, UM. And I read somewhere that Brinkley was actually working on another one which covers like the sixties and seventies, UM. But I haven't seen news of that in years, so I don't know if that one got if that one fell off his radar, or if he got lost with other product projects he's working on. But he's a he's a great writer in his story, and I hope that that one comes out because because I've really enjoyed his stuff. If you like to get deep into it, he does it about as good as anyone. Oh yeah, he's great. I when I when I see books like this. I just I wondered, just from a very practical standpoint, how they go about writing something like that, because it's just it's just an amazing piece of work and there's so much info. I don't I don't even like him or Doris Currents, Goodwin people like that, and it's just it's really amazing that they're able to compile that much info in a readable form. So those are great, no easy task, great, great recommendation there, I second it, all right, Can I give one go for it? Okay? So I I kind of I kind of looked at my set of recommendations almost as um they kind of fall in a chronological timeline of sorts. So so my recommendations start by looking back and the end by looking forward. And so my first recommendation is a book called American Serengetti by Dan Flores. And I've talked about this book in the past. My buddy and colleague Steve Ronelle has had him on his podcast and talked about it. So probably people have heard of this one, um, but if you haven't, I can't recommend it enough. And I recommend this as a book that you should read if you want to you know, live out a life focused on conservation, because this book documents documents a series of real mistakes that I think our predecessors made in the decades preceding us. It talks about the Great Plans, It talks about how the American planes were some of the most wildlife rich and vibrant landscapes in the entire world, on par with with like the African Serengetti Um. Just incredible both during the Pleisto seeing you know, fifteen thousand years ago, when there were cyber saber tooth tigers and short faced bears and all those kinds of critters run around, but then also more recently, you know, three years ago, prior to Lewis and Clark and then the preceding um March West by Europeans um, there were just these unbelievable herds of buffalo and prong horns and and packs of wolves and grizzly bears, and just the wildlife was was unbelievable. And so this book takes a look at that history, and it uses a handful of specific species to kind of illustrate, you know, what this looked like. So we get to dive deep into the story of pronghorn, coyotes, wild horses which interestingly evolved first here in North America and then disappeared. And then we're also later uh they had crossed BARRINGI and went over to uh Asia and then that's where they ended up being domesticated and brought back here. Um so wild horses, grizzlies, buffalo wolves. So we we take a look at those six species or seven species and dived into their stories, like what these critters were doing three d four hundred years ago, and then what happened when uh, you know, Americans moved west and proceeded to basically decimate the populations of all these animals and many others. And then we we dive a little bit into within each chapter how each of those two varying degrees has recovered. And I think it's it's just this very interesting look. It's it's both fascinating because I love reading about what these places were like and what these what these wildlife populations were likely. I can't help but read something like this, and then when I'm driving out west and going over the plains in North Dakota, I can't help but come over hill and think in my mind, man, what would have looked like with a million strong buffalo streaming across this grassy valley or something like that. So so I read it and part of me is just like a kid imagining this amazing thing. And then the flip side, when you get into just the this the destruction that we wrought on these places too, it's it's it's then very sobering. So I think it's it's useful to remind us what's possible, both the good and the bad. Right, It's it's possible, like this is what this landscape could support, and then this is what the worst inclinations, the dark side of kind of human nature can also lead to overexploitation. Right, So many stories of ever overexploitation um. And then again the good, which is two different degrees. We kind of right of the ship, we figured out whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't just take take take, take, take, kill, kill, kill, kill kill. We have to moderate, we have to protect and conserve. And because of that, we do have great populations of pronghorn, and we have recovered grizzly bears to a degree, in wolves to a degree, and you know, buffalo to a smaller degree um and and so it's it's both sobering and inspiring to me when I read this book. UM, and it's it's one of those books where it's talking about history and kind of biology and conservation history and all those kinds of things which could be kind of deep text, kind of text heavy, tough reading. Um, but this is actually a very easy reading book. Uh. Dan does a great job of of really telling these stories in a way that um kind of pulls you into the landscape and and makes it um not like not as easy reading as like a fiction book, but but one of the easier reading books that where you're gonna learn a lot about history and about wildlife. It's just it's just a fun and interesting book that I think really can inform what got us to this point. Um, I don't know, have you read that one? Yeah? I have, and I love it. I mean, I think that book and then his other book, Coyote America. He's actually had Dan on my podcast long time ago. I didn't even know him. I just I've gotten to know him since. Um, but I'm kind of cold reached out And I remember my mom listened to that episode. We were talking about coyotes, and we talked a bit about like wild horses and that kind of think. My mom said something like, you know, I don't I don't care one single bit about coyotes. I've never thought anything about coyotes. But I couldn't stop listening to to him talk about it because it was so interesting. And I think he writes just as he speaks, And I think you don't have to have a connection with any of those animals to just be drawn in and completely fascinated by the stories of the animals and then the stories of human interaction. But I'm with you, and I hadn't really thought about it to you said it. But I think, if anything, the books are are very interesting or a historical perspective, but they if they're kind of like uh, advertisement or something for for um game management and wildlife management and what how humans can you know, for better or worse, humans are here. We're here to stay with you know, humans have have always been here since we came across the Bearing Strait. But um, and we're part of the ecosystem. But we can with with uh, with thoughtfulness and with effort, we can manage things so that these wildlife still can thrive, you know, in spite of all the development and in the human interactions, and so I I can't recommend that book enough. I love it, and I think, as you know, especially for for myself and other hunters listening like it is, it is exceptionally important to understand the history of hunting in America, and like we have this dark past that we have to we have to recognize, we have to acknowledge, and we have to think and keep that in mind as we look at what we do today and making sure that we don't ever fall prey to the same ah, I don't want to say instincts, but the same, the same temptations. I think that that drove a lot of what happened in the eighteen hundreds can still pop into day to day life today. It wasn't like not all, but many of these folks that are part of this back in the eighteen thirties, forties, sixties, seventies, whatever. It wasn't like they were um, you know, um malevolent. It wasn't like they're going out there trying to extrapate species. It wasn't like they were going out there thinking that they were destroying um buffalo populations. A lot of these folks were out there just trying to get there's They're just like, I just want to go out there have a good time, or I just want to go out there and feed my family, or I'm just gonna go out there and try to make pay the bills. Right. They were all just doing their thing, which is kind of what most of us are still doing today. We're all just trying to go out and have a good time or get ours or fill our freezer today. But none of these folks were able to zoom out enough to see what was going on at the next level up the bigger picture implications of millions of people all trying to do that. And so today we're fortunate that there are, like you said, there's game management practice at the state level, and nationally there's different things, and and we have we have restrictions and regulations, and we have a North American model of conservation that has helped inform how we can do this, but it also has to play out on the individual level. So I think, you know, having that historical foundation is it's just this little thing that's in the back of our minds. I think is is a is a useful and important, an important kind of insight to have as as a modern day hunter. Um, and I think this book does a good job of providing that in a way that's still enjoyable to read. So it's, uh, it's right up there at the top of my list. Yeah, I keep I keep that book like on my desk. I put a bunch of them stacked up in front of like in front of my computer when I'm working. It is one that I keep set up and I look at it all the time, just because it's a very important book and it's just it was very eye opening to me. I mean I learned stuff that now it's second nature and it's it's just important facts that that I considered just kind of standard facts. But at the time when I read it, I had no idea about it. Like about horses. Now they disappeared and then came back. I mean it's so interesting. Yeah, highly highly recommended. Yeah, I'm gonna throw to bonus kind of supplementary recommendations on that one. If if anyone's read that book already and enjoyed it, or if you read it and then you're like, I still want more on this, you gotta read American Buffalo by my Pale Steve Steve RENNELLI amazing, amazing book, really fun read. You learned specifically about the history of Buffalo, UM and you go on this great adventure with him. It's one of my favorite books of all time. That's a great one. And then another one called The Last Stand Um by Michael Punke or Punk I can't remember how you say his last name, but that is about the history of Buffalo as well, but UM with a more specific focus on the impact that George Bird Grinnell had, who was another one of those guys who sits on the conservation kind of Mount Rushmore there with Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford pin Show. Um. George Berg Grannell was one of the first editors of Field and Stree. Uh did a did a ton and so you get to learn about his story and his conservation impacts and and that's really right within the same Um family of books. So those are two others that are great. Yeah, I was I was thinking that exact same thing. Um. I was flipping through it as you were talking and looking at the Buffalo chapter in Steve's book, and Uh, I guess, Punky, I guess that's how you said. But I've read both of those books. I remember. I remember I got them both from the library and Boulder when I still live there. And um, again, just just eye opening and easy and fun to read. So we're on the same page there, all right, So what's your next one? I got another one that's kind of kind of related to American Serengetti is called Losing Eden, An Environmental History of the American West, by Sarah Dance, doctor Sarah dan who is a history professor at Webber State. I think it is it we were Webber State, but I think I think it's Yeah, it's like the opposite one. I think it should be Weber State. And and Sarah uh is married to Dan Flores and which I mean, that's a that's a power couple if there was one. Yeah. But um, I met Sarah at a event that I went to a few years back, to my conference about the West, and she's just she's super fun and obviously just sharp as a web and um she I got a copy of her book there and I read it and it's really just it's relatively short. I mean, I think it's less than two hundred pages, but it's just this broad overview of the history of the American West, from kind of an environmental slash conservation perspective. So it starts out talking about the natural history a lot of the same things that are covered in American Serengetti and about Native Americans, Um, you know, before European settlement. And one of the title that Losing Eden, and one of the themes that she's trying to get through, you know, over the course of the book is that, um, there's this myth that when white people showed up and started you know, quote settling the West, that they were going into this eating the garden of Eden and it was untouched in this beautiful, unspoiled wilderness. But what she lays out in a lot of different ways is that ever since humans have been in North America, it's never been a straight up eating I mean they're there have always been hunting grounds, and there's always been different forms of agriculture. And and while you know, obviously it was it was a lot closer to a Eden ten thousand years ago than it is is today. Um, she really is trying to bust this myth of of Eden. But you know, over the course two pages, she she lays out, um, you know, the Native American, Um, how they you know, how they hunted, and how they made the West a place where they could live even though they were the resources and the natural resources were were slim, you know, water and all that kind of stuff. And then she talks about there there's a big portion of the book where she talks about UM the Mormon and how they played a really big role in the settlement of the West, and how they introduced um a lot of irrigation on large scale, and how they were able to kind of really stretch particularly water resources very thin to to um, you know, to to allow for a lot of people to thrive in a region where that's pretty harsh region. And then she there's one chapter where she talks about the difference between preservation and conservation, you know, conservationist versus preservationist. And Theodore Roosevelt was the kind of the the definition of a conservationist. Whereas, yeah, he wanted to use all the natural resources we had in North America UM in the most effective way possible. So Theodore Roosevelt is not necessarily hey, let's look at that big forest at hillside over there, Let's keep it a forest at hillside wherever. He was more in the mindset of right, there's a lot of timber over there that can help fuel the United States, and so let's consider this a renewable resource that we need to take care of. But you know, there's nothing wrong with cutting those trees down and then growing them back. Whereas John Murro was more along the lines of let's preserve this how it is, don't touch it, leave it completely as it is. And she doesn't really take a side one way or the other about which one's right, but really lays out out both sides of the argument, which I really appreciated. And then she goes through a lot of the kind of booms and busts that make that have made up the history of the American West, whether that is the fur trappers in the very very early days, and this goes to a lot of things you were talking about in um in American Serengetti. You know, the fur trappers came out and basically eradicated all the beaver, all the different furs, and this has been the history of the West for about as long as white people have been around. We come in, extract resources until they're gone, and then leave, and so you could think about fur mining forestry. Now, energy is a big part of that, and she she just kind of digs into all the different um time periods and the different different things that have happened as as we people have have tried to kind of extract value from the landscape of the West, and then as we kind of learned our lesson and had to had to to balance things out a bit. And then she talks similar to like in your book. She she mentions a few of these names of historic people that I've heard forever, but I never really um known the details. But one that stuck out in my mind was she tells about Frank Church and he was a senator, and there's the Frank Church Wilderness I believe in Idaho. She talks about him and everything he did as far as the Wilderness Act, the wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and um. And then she kind of finishes up in modern day with a lot of the clashes between industry and like the Endangered Species Act and so again less than two hundred pages, but really really sets the gives you a good framework to go out and read different, you know, dig in a lot deeper. And it's kind of the perfect book as I mentioned, of allowing you to giving you this menu of really really interesting things at at kind of a high level, and then you can go dig in as needed. And she has um suggested reading or further reading in every single chapter, so she even does that part of the work for you. Um. But really a great book and fits in well with your recommendation. Yeah, you know, I own that book, but I actually have not read it. I hate to admit, UM, but I was. I was gifted it like right after I finished writing mine, and I remember thinking that I was just kind of burnt out on the history of this stuff. Is like, it's probably all the same stuff I already just researched and wrote about. So I never ended up picking it back up again, and it's just sitting at the like in the bottom corner. And as you're describing this to me, you're making me realize what a mistake I made, because there's a number of things you mentioned in there that are are different than stuff I covered, or that dive into different avenues that I wish I had. UM. So, so I got to pick that up and dive into it. And and something you mentioned there that sounds like she led her book with is uh is the history of of the Native American perspective and and uh impact that they had on the land and how they were to live with the land, in the the ways that they worked the land, and this idea that you know, the myth I think that so long has been thought like you you said it right, they you read about Lewis and Clark coming across this untouched wilderness when actually there have been millions of people, millions of people living there for thousands of years, um, and we just kind of conveniently forget about that. Um. One of the greatest regrets I have with my book is that I didn't talk about that at all, UM. And I think that I just it wasn't It wasn't on purpose, it was it was more so like I didn't even I didn't know how to handle that. I didn't know how to dive into of that appropriately. Um. And And because of that, I think it just seemed like that just seemed like a totally other book for someone else, and I thought I could only butte off so much. UM. But in retrospect, I wish I had tried to at least at least cover it in some kind of way, because I think, unfortunately it's it's this big glaring black hole in the beginning of my book that I ignored completely and and I wish I had. So I'm glad that that, you know, this is something that's being talked about more often and something of this book is a good place to to dig into that a little bit. So I'm definitely gonna check that out myself. Yeah, it's definitely worth a read. And it's not a you know, it's not a huge time investment. It's not like Wilderness Warrior, where you gotta you gotta really clear the calendar to to tackle that. I mean, it's it's and for you know, for somebody who specializes in academic writing, it's not at all an academic type book. I mean, I think it could be used as a textbook. But I enjoyed reading it and uh actually at Sarah on the podcast to talk about it, and so she's just very charismatic, very funny, um, very very wise when it comes to all these topics. So yeah, I highly recommend it. Yeah, I'm I'm gonna put that back at the top of my list. Okay, next one for me. So if if my first recommendation was looking way back at um some of our historical crimes I guess to to the natural world here in America. My next book is a little further down that timeline to one of our awakenings, one of our kind of ecological awakenings, uh to how we might do things better. And this book is a book I've talked about a million times in the podcast, and just recently, like two or three weeks ago, talked about in the podcast. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time because people have heard about it plenty of times before. But I couldn't have a podcast called the ten Books that all aspiring Conservationists should read and not mention a sand con The Almanac by Aldo Leopold. UM. I look at this as like a foundational text, Like anyone who who wants to do anything related to conservation or the natural world or or anything along those lines, just like has to read this. It's it just seems like required reading. Um. It's this text that really I think helps you know. It's kind of a three part book. It's sorts. The first part of the book is just a beautiful series of essays about Leopold's experiences in nature, working this little farm he had in Wisconsin, watching wildlife, UM, it's it's it's kind of easy fun reading. It's it's it's great to sit on the porch and kind of, you know, just kind of soak in these these great ideas and thoughts and experiences that al those A will put on the page. UM. I do think that through these short, simple essays he does like illuminate some interesting ideas and like a very powerful way. But you know, it's it's easy reading. UM. And it's all kind of that midwestern Wisconsin focused It's it kind of walks through month by month these different vignettes across the year on his little stand farm there, so so interesting. And then the next series of essays follows him on some of his travels across the continent, stuff that he experienced as a young man down in Arizona or New Mexico working for the US Force Service, things he did later in life. UM. Some really famous foundational essays like UM, Thinking like a Mountain, in which UM, he really really powerfully writes about the challenges that we have had as people living and coexisting or trying to co exist with predators. UM. I think it's very poignant and a really important read for hunters. UM. That one in particular. UM. But again it's it's mostly stories about these experiences. But then you get to the third part. I think he calls this part like the up shot, and and this part of the book is where he really this like it's a good different thing. The second the third part of the book is like a different book almost, in which he kind of said, Okay, you read about these stories and experiences that kind of shaped who I am and why I care about things. Well, here's now how I make sense of what all that means to us moving forward. UM. And he has a series of I guess essays or chapters or something would be how you describe it, where he he dives into ideas around protecting wilderness and hunting and um outdoor recreation and how that impacts wild places and wild animals, and then finally diving into this whole idea of of a land ethic, which I think, is this this idea that has really defined a lot of what modern conservation is and how we think about things today. UM. And so I think, better than probably anyone before, he helps put words to a lot of ideas that many of us have felt or considered and helps kind of um focus a lot of these emotion is maybe we have to, so I won't. I won't rant anymore about sand kind of alminact because I've done that plenty. But uh, but I had to mention it. I don't know, would you add anything on that one? Is there anything that I missed there? I mean you've read it, right, yeah, And I think it's one of those books. It's it's like when when I had kids and you hear people they say all these things like, oh, they grow up so fast, all these cliches. I'm like, well, those things are cliches for a reason because they're percent true. And I feel like saying County Almanac. It comes up so often and on my podcast, you know, I have such a wide variety of guests, but I mean, just all the top of my head that there have been like some ultra professional athlete, ultra runners that mentioned it as one of the most important books they've ever been. There's a guy who was a lawyer in Chicago and read that book and quit his job and started a bison ranch in Montana because of that book. Um, you know, I've heard your buddy Steve Rinella talk about it. I've I've you know, I've got some art of these, you know, world famous Western artists. They talk about it, and so it's one of these things where everybody's talking about because it is that important and because it's it really is. Um. I think he took all these ideas that are floating around in people's heads and that people kind of knew these universal truths or truths about the land and in anybody who has spent um you know, connected to the land in one way or another, understands this stuff at a at a real base level, and he was able to put words to it. And so um, I mean, there's nothing I can add to all the great stuff that's been said about it other than if you haven't read it, you need to read it. It's not hard reading. You can you can crank through it. I've got like three copies of it in my in my little ship. I'll buy That's funny. You mentioned that I was at the Elder Leopold Foundation a couple of weeks ago, and I saw all these different, you know, additions of the book and different covers and things like that from over the years, and I had this this urge is like, man, I gotta buy some of these other editions that I really like that cover this one, and then I thought that's kind of a aiculous to buy multiple copies. But at the same time, like, no, it's not. It's yeah, it's not so like is I don't know who's listening, but like I can tell you that's normal by by like ten of them, it's worth it. Um So, yeah, that's that's my next one. What's what's your next? Um So? My next one is it's called Down River, Into the Future of Water in the West by Heather Handsman who she is a journalist writer. She writes a lot for Outside magazine, and so in my daily work at palmer Land Conservacy, most of what I do is working with water. And it's funny because I'm from East North Carolina, where if anything, there's too much water, you know, every time a hurricane comes through, the whole town floods and so and then out here there's there's none. But one of the challenges that I found with water, even for somebody like me who that's my job, is it is unbelievably boring talking about water rights and you know, the doctrine of prior appropriation and all this kind of stuff, and water rights attorneys make tons of money because it is just such a complex and confusing subject that really it kind of makes sense, but it kind of doesn't. There's a lot of gray area in there. And so there's this one book called Cadillac Desert, which a lot of people refer to as like the Bible of water in the West. And then there's Beyond the hundred Meridian by Wa Stegner, which is another great book that will help you kind of understand water. But if you want to get a good overview of water without having to invest, you know, months of your life into to reading all this really detailed stuff, Down River is the book, and it's in a lot of ways it reminds me of your book more because she's this adventure she has. So she this Heather starts at the base of the Wind River mountain range the headwaters of the Green River and floats down mostly solo by ourselves, floats the whole length of the Green River down to where it the confluence with the Colorado River in Utah. And so that story is kind of the structure of the book. And along the way she examines all the different issues or challenges facing water in the West, and she gives you this education, and it's kind of a perfect book for somebody like me who doesn't want to read like hardcore just straight up history, but wants to learn. And she sneaks in all this really really interesting info and and so, you know, she she kind of hits all the different aspects of water, everything from you know, cities and how cities are taking water um, to outdoor recreation and what that means for water, to the to agriculture. You know that agriculture is a huge use of water in the West. We you know, divert water out of these streams, irrigate fields and then the water goes back in. Talk us about it from an ecological standpoint, particularly about fish um. But it's just it's really fun and she's a she's very she's very funny. And one of the things I thought was cool unrelated water in this book is she talks a lot about how a lot of these books that feature women adventurers are you know, like one of the women, whoever the protagonist is, the woman who's going on this venture, has had some traumatic life experience and she's kind of like, all right, screw and I'm gonna go on this crazy adventure. I'm gonna hike that pleach and trail or hip the Pacific Crest Trail. Whatever. But in her mind she says, I just want an adventure for the sake of adventure. I'm not running from anything, I'm not trying to change my life. I just want to have a cool adventure and I'm gonna do this. And so if if anybody is interested in water, and it is a endlessly fascinating subject, I mean, basically, the whole West is a is a big plumbing system. Like my city of Colorado Springs sits on the front range of of Colorado sits on Colorado's front range on the east side, and we get eighty percent of our drinking water from the Colorado River basin, which is on the western side of the continent or divide there. So the water is being pumped underneath the mountains to this city of five thousand people. And so, you know, everybody talks about Las Vegas and Los Angeles and how it depends on the Cold River, Well so does Colorado Springs. And um so, if you want to really understand conservation, particularly in the West, you have to have some understanding of water. And if you want to learn about water without being bored sinceless and actually being very highly entertained. That is the book. Man. That's good to know. I've had that one in my on my Amazon booklist for a while now and I haven't committed to it yet, but it was, it's been in there. It's one of the one of those like I should probably I should probably read that. I've been recommended a few times or I've seen it recommended a few times, so I thought, I gotta do it someday, and I think this is the push to finally hit by UM. So I read another one this past summer. I can't remember what's called, and I think it's on my bookshelf in Idaho, so I can't find it right now, but it's it's got this like orange and like orange and yellow and green like topographic map kind of cover. It's written by a guy named Dave something. Where the water goes. That's David. Yeah. That's a good one. That's a good one too. Yeah. I thought that one was pretty good. Um, But at times I wish the adventure was more of an adventure, Like I think that what you're describing with Heather's trip would have pulled me along and I would have had more fun with it. Um, So I think I want to dive in further and go on that journey too. Yeah. Heather's great, and I'm not trying to like shamelessly promote my podcast, but I've had her own twice, once for this book and then once for a new book she wrote about ski towns and their impact on the West, and she she's just super, super cool and and obviously extremely talented writers. So um yeah, people ask me all the time about water, and that's the one I tell them to read. Yeah. Man, that's my favorite kind of book, and that's why I wrote the book I wrote, and why I want to write more books like that. I think it's like a super like that kind of book. And my this is my opinion, just my opinion, but that is just such a great format if you can take some And maybe it's just because this is what I'd like to read, so maybe I'm completely wrong, but I love with I love reading a book that takes you on an adventure. You're gonna have fun, you're gonna live vicariously through this person, and then along the way they slip in all this fascinating information that you you come out the other side having learned a bunch too. I mean, that is just like the ultimate combination for me. It's just such a such a great kind of book to read. I could just if what's interesting that there's there's so many topics where I find myself, like in a bookstore or looking online, thinking I really wish there was a book that would take you like down this thing or to do this thing, and then I could learn about it. And I keep on finding that there's not books about those topics or in those places, and so I have this long running list of all these books now that I feel like I need to write because I want to read this book, and I want to read this book, and I want to read this one. No one's done it yet, so I feel like I guess I need to do that. So I have this long list. You definitely need to do it. Um, but you mentioned American Buffalo. I think that's kind of the great exam ample that you know, this cool hunting adventure in a wild place, and then when you get done with you're like, wow, now I have all this these facts and figures about buffalo that I never knew before. I mean, I think it's for me, I think we're wired pretty similarly when it comes to our reading taste. But like there's nothing better than that, And so I think, and I think with anything, whether it's a business or a podcast or or writing, like you want to be scratching your own itch, you know, and so like if that's what you want to read, there's there's you know, hundreds of thousands of other people out there who would want to read it as well. So as I've told you, you need to just keep writing. It's so it's soundly to do list. It's definitely on the to do list. Um, okay. So I've got another recommendation that kind of falls in line with them, and that it is it's kind of one of these books where you you go on a series of trips and you don't even realize that you're really learning a ton along the way. And this is like the most sneaky of those types of books. Um. It's called Encounters with the Arch or the Arc jur I don't Arch Steward or archcharg Archward by John McPhee. Have you read this one? Yeah? I read it and it was like it blew my mind. I read it. So I read it probably twelve years ago something like that. I was so glad to see that you were going to recommend this book is phenomenal. UM. So John McPhee is one of our He's an absolute icon of nonfiction writing in America. I mean, he's he's pretty well recognized as one of the very very very best to have to have ever done it. Um. He's a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and written a ton of books and every one of them is just like beloved UM. And he he just has this wonderful way of examining seemingly very very random topics and making them interesting and making them both worth reading and learning about. UM. I mean, he's written about oranges, He's written about Chad. I think he's written about I mean, just bizarre things. But just like one tennis match, he wrote a whole book about a single tennis match, and then you read it, you're like, wow, it's incredible. So this book, though, is is this book he wrote that really does an interesting job of examining the conservation and environmental movement and I think a series of philosophies, and he examines this larger topic by zooming in on one person in a series of experiences. This person had a very influential person in the sixties and seventies and and really before that even um. And so this book, the author, John McPhee goes on a series of trips with a guy named David Brower, who was who who is or sorry was a very famous and influential environmentalist conservationist. He headed up the Sierra Club at one point, uh, Friends of the Earth at one point maybe Earth First. I'm gonna I should have had this written down. Um. But was one of the main main voices for a lot of these important environmental issues back in the sixties and seventies. He was one of those major faces of the movement back then. Um. Sometimes controversially, Um he was. You know, he took things pretty far in some instances, but he did plenty of good and um. This book follows John along with David Brower on three different experiences of sorts where he is paired up with someone who feels very differently about these things. And so what you end up getting is this very interesting examination of the push and pull between the conservation of natural resources in wild places versus the use of them. And so I think it's I think it's a really helpful thing for anyone to do who cares about these things, who wants to be an advocate, because I think we need to understand and look at these things from all points of view. And I think you do yourself a dis service if you go into any kind of conservation issue and only look at it from your point of view. If I were to go and if I were to think about, Okay, the Boundary Waters are an incredibly special place. I loved hunting there, I love canoeing there, and damn it, I'm gonna do anything to keep them as they are. I think that's a place. I think that's something a lot of us can relate to. But I think it is useful if you want to fight for those places, to also be thinking about what are the folks that work at minds think about? What do the people who depend on those jobs think about? What's their point of view in this You know, I think it's oftentimes better not to just demonize folks on the other side, but try to understand them, because that might help us get to a a better place. In this book, in a very sneaky way, does that, And in no way in this book does John McPhee really take a stance on anything, or advocate for anything or push anything on you. Instead, you are just like a fly on the wall. As you follow this character David Brower on these trips with these kind of confrontational people or people that he has confrontations with different sorts, um, and they kind of go back and forth on all these different things, and somehow you come out the other side of this book, you know, really in a different place. So the first part of the book follows Brower on a trip into a newly designated wilderness area in Washington with a geologist and mining engineer. I think the guy's name was Charles Parker something like that. UM. And so you they're they're on this trip, they're hiking and backpacking through this wilderness area while also you're you're learning about Brower's history, You're learning about some of these early stories of the environmental movement. And then you're hearing Brower and then this mining engineer debating whether or not there should be a new mind put into this wilderness area. There was, there was a mind that was being proposed there. They're working on starting to survey it and do all this stuff. And so you're you're kind of getting this back and forth push and pull between these two guys who have very different views on what should happen here. Um. And then also sometimes they have similar views on what should happen there. So again you kind of go on this adventure with them while you get a two sided conversation happening between two people, UM on this just tough topic, and you never McPhee is just a master at doing this in a way that you don't realize it's happening. It's just like you're you're like a parrot on the shoulder on this adventure and it all seems so natural through dialogue and back and forth between these guys. Um, I wish I could somehow do what he does, because really he does it better than anybody else. But the first part of the book is this, this backpacking trip into the wilderness. The second part of the book follows Brauer out to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, where he tours what's going on here in the island. This is back in you know, I don't remember, and these or eighties or something like that with a developer and this developers wanting to you know, Um, he's wanting to build. He's wanting to plan what's going to happen on this island. Where can we build houses and where can we do things? And so it's it's this idea. Now we're exploring the push and pull between the conservation and preservation of places versus development, and is there a way to responsibly develop and plan development in ways that's better than others? And so you're you're getting that push and pull here. So that the first one between the push and pull of wilderness and resource extraction, the second part of the push for preservation and preservation versus development, and then the third book or sorry, the third part of the book follows Brauer on a rafting trip down the Grand Canyon with Floyd Domini, who was the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, which, as you know and anyone who knows water, is the government agency that manages our dams and water resources and things like that. So Domini is is kind of he was viewed as a as a villain of sorts back in the day because of his um you know, his his part in damning the Colorado River, putting up the Glen Canyon damn and a series of others UM that I even wrote about in my book UM, where basically, basically you've got the guy who represents the oh for better for lack of a better term, like the rapacious use of water versus browers ideas of keeping these rivers running free and wild, and Floyd Domines saying no, we've got to use these rivers. We need to, we need to bridle them for human use and energy. And so you have this back and forth between those two while on this trip. So what's interesting in each one of these is that you have this confrontation like one side versus the other, conservation versus use, preservation versus development, um, wilderness versus resource extracts, and you've got these confrontations. But also in each one of these situations, you also are getting to be this fly on the wall of these two people who seemingly in each instance seemed to be so far on either side, actually realizing they have a lot in common along the way to UM and coming out the other side. I think it it's both inspiring, it's kind of informing of how we might be able to think about these things. You do learn some really interesting stuff about the history of some of the environmental and conservation movement back in the fifties and sixties and seventies. Um, And you get to go on these very interesting adventures. You get to backpack into the wilderness of Washington, you get to float the Grand Canyon. Um So it's it's a fun read in that regard. You learn some interesting things. You kind of have to mentally push through these like tensions that I think are still present today in different forms, but the same push and pull between those two different things are still going today. And uh, it's like a short, quick book that actually covers a massive, massively important topic. UM So that's a long winded, rambling way of saying, you gotta read this one. No, that's I agree with all that, and I think it's um I think that book in some ways I hadn't really thought about it until just now, but it's it could be seen as more important now than ever because people just seem to be so divided across no matter what the issue is. Ums. People just kind of hold up in their camp and they're not interested in listening to the other side. And I mean, you think about it's probably hard to really understand, but how polar opposite Browler is from these three guys that he goes on trips with. I mean, it's it's the equivalent of like if you took somebody from that that organization called c Shepherd that smashes into uh smashes into whaling boats and and made him go on a camping trip at the CEO of a whaling a whaling company. And but but I mean, I think it speaks to the importance of conversation, the importance of curiosity, and the importance of really trying to understand what you know quote the other side is thinking. And I'm I think you are to A big fan of Adam Grant, the Professor and and I read it recently, read his book Think Again, and he's always he talks about how if you approach things that maybe you don't agree with with with curiosity instead of just like bolstering your opinion and refusing to budge, but really trying to understand what the other side, where the other side is coming from. You know, I think, best case, you might learn something and maybe adjust your views a little bit. Worst case, you keep your same views, and you you are you, You're more confident in what you already think. And I feel like this is a perfect example. I mean, you think if you, no matter what the issue is, if you took some money on the other side and you had to go on a three day backpacking trip with them, like, you'd probably end up realizing that you have a lot more in common than you don't. And so, um, I think, Uh, I remember when I just stump it across that book in the bookstore a long time ago and read it, and I was like, this sounds like one of the coolest things I've I've ever seen, and it is. I mean I I think about it often, so I think that's a great recommendation. Yeah, it's one that you know, I feel like you don't hear about a whole lot anymore. It's it's not one that gets prot um, but I think it I think it deserves to be. It Really, it's the slim little book that I feel it really encapsulates a whole lot more than I think maybe it's given credit for. So it's uh, it's worth reading. I agree completely. Alright, my turn, Yeah, what do you got? Alright? So this may not come off as conservation at first, but for me personally, it was. It was really created a foundational shift in the way I think about things, and I think it connects in well with your American Serengetti recommendation, as it seems like almost all these books do. But uh, it's called for the Love of Land, Global Case Studies of Grazing in Nature's Image by Jim Howell. And on the surface and by the title and subtitle, what appears to be just a book about ranching. And so you may be thinking, well, I don't I don't care about ranching, or I don't want to know anything about ranching. But what this book does is it basically lays out the importance of grazing for grasslands and for grassland health and the need for grazing and how grazing can be used to make grasslands more healthy. And so you know, like I said, I used to be in the ranch brokerage business and now a lot of my conservation work is working with ranchers to to help them conserve their property. And when you're out here in the West, you know, you're up there in the big mountains, and pretty much anytime you look down in a valley that that is, for the most part is private land um and a lot you know, the vast majority of it that's still intact is being used um as as grazing land and grasslands throughout the entire world are one of the biggest um ways to sequest or carbon um. You know, it's right there, right up there, and my even be more I should know this. But then the then the rainforest as far as sucking in carbon and and helping to keep the you know, keep carbon levels at at their normal rate. And so basically what Jim does this book is is split up into two verse two two halves. The first half is kind of like a natural history of North America combined with um talking about the history of grasses and the natural history of grasses. The second half is really case studies about how he's implemented this this work that he does. But basically he lays out how grass, lank, grasses and ruminants evolved together and one cannot exist without the other. And so as grasses grow, they need to be grazed, and then they need to have herds of large animals that have hoofs come over and disturb the grasslands, pee and poop on it, tear it up, eat it down, eat the grass down, and then move on to another area. And by doing that, the grasses thrived, and that's what they that's what they evolved to do, and and so you can, you know, in private land, you can actually mimic that with certain grazing techniques. But one of the things that stuck with me about it is how a lot of nowadays, I think there's some movement where I guess there has been for quite a while, that that cattle are bad and that grazing is bad, and we need fake meat, we don't need regular meat anymore. Um. And what he lays out here very clearly is how grassland health is directly related to how it is grazed. And he does all these case studies, like he goes down the southwest. I think it may be near Canyon Lands National Park, and he shows this photo and there's a fence line and on one side is the national park where no grazing is allowed, and this is a very arid environment, and on the other side is a private ranch where grazing is allowed. And on the no grazing side it looks like a desert. It looks like the typical desert that you think of when you think of that. And then on the grazing private land side, is this lush grass that has been UM, that's healthy, that prevents erosion, UM keeps moisture on the ground, the little moisture that there is. And that is because that that side where the grazing has happened, has been grazed very intentionally over a very long period of time, whereas the other the grasses just died. And this, this book, it really helped me. It really kind of nailed home this idea that livestock can be if used properly, it is great for the land. And you know what, you know, for better or worse, or maybe neither, it's just how it is. We are never going back to the days of wide open spaces out here. You know, there's private property, there's fences, and so in order to keep the grasses as healthy as they can be, the really the only way to do it is to use livestock. And so this book lays out specific techniques. But and and so you can go a is in depth as you want to the techniques of how this happens. And he lays out case studies everywhere from rand Is in Colorado to sub Saharan Africa. But I think what really stuck with me is just how hoo of the animals that eat grass or linked to grasslands forever and we need to have the two together. And Jim has actually been on my podcast several times talking about all this stuff, as has his wife, whose name is Danielle Howell, who's the CEO of US the Savory Institute, which UM really implements a lot of this holistic range management work. But I think, as you know, as we talk about public and private lands and grazing on on both, this is a great book to kind of get you up to speed on that topic. And it was. It was very formative to me. Yeah, it's interesting. I I don't have a like a direct touch point to grazing, like I don't have UM obviously experienced with that. But when I worked on the back Forward A project, I I dove deep into a lot of ideas around regenerative agriculture UM and and the ways that can be implemented, you know, on a smaller scale with food plots and growing crops and things for wildlife. Right, and that's like very very adjacent or you know, basically it's it's part of you know, the regenera of agriculture, ideas of grasslands and grazing and all that kind of stuff. So I ended up learning a lot about that and was really fascinated by it. There's a lot to it and and understanding, you know, better more natural ways to manage grasslands or grow either growing grass or crops, I mean, finding natural ways to mimic nature, finding ways to work with nature versus fighting it, um so often leads to better outcomes for everything, um, whether it be the health of grass or the production or um, you know what, what you can actually get off the get off of a ten acre plot of corn. So um. Yeah, highly recommend diving into that topic in general because there's a lot of stuff there that is actually relevant even to white hill hunters that managed land too. So interesting stuff definitely, And this this book, I believe he's got tons of uh, you know, further reading and that kind of thing, and you can go deep down like the Alan Savory Holistic management. I mean, there's just unbelievable amounts of information about there but out there about this topic. But for me particularly the first half of that book was very eye opening too to the whole concept of regenerative agriculture. It's it's interesting stuff. Okay, next one for me, I'm I'm gonna go to well, I guess if I first started by saying, let's look back, which was the American Serendetti, and then I moved us forward a little bit to like the awaking of an of an ecological consciousness with the Sand County Almanac. Then with uh McPhee, we kind of then moved into the sixties and the seventies and understanding the push and pull between conservation or preservation versus use UM and development and extraction. UM. Now I want to look into the future with a book called The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Colbert. And this book and a series of other kind of related books that I mentioned to UM talk about this this crisis of sorts that's been going on slightly under the radar. UM. That's that's that's becoming more and more UM obvious, I think. And that is this this serious bio diversity crash across the world, even here in America. UM. Basically, this book, The Sixth Extinction examines five major mass extinction events that have occurred on Earth up to now. There have been five big moments of history where there's been dramatic crash is in animal populations across the world, and now there has been a sixth We're in the beginning of a sixth mass extinction event. Over the last you know, decades, UM, there have been a disproportionately high number of animal species disappearing off the face of the earth, faster than ever before in the millions of years other than these five other events. And so what the author does in this book is takes the first part of the book and examines the history of these past events and how scientists discover them and what we can learn from them, stuff like the dinosaurs, stuff like, um, you know, the Pleistocene animals, mammoths, that kind of stuff. Um. So we we get some very interesting like big history. But then the next part of the book she then explores like what's happening now, how are we losing these animals? Why are we losing these animals? What's being done about it? Um? What's going on here? So she travels to the rainforests in South America and coral reefs and uh, different places all over the world and and examines and explores this issue UM in a way that I think is pretty pretty illuminating in an important I think this is like one of those big, big things like you hear a lot about, and for better or worse like that, it's become politicized global global warming, climate change, whatever you want to say about that. It's Unford's become a polarizing issue. But but this whole other and related crisis of of bio diversity and extinctions across the world, this is something that's that's just as important and tied very much along with that, and um, this book is is probably the best one I've found that that dives into this um and I think it's something that as somebody who hunts and fishes, if you care about animals and you care about fish, and you care about wild places, this whole disappearance of of animals across the country and the world is has got to be concerning. And there's so many animals that you know, you learn about and to hear about um that might not be here five from years from now, or twenty years from now or ten years from now, and that's having kids now. For some reason, that just seems like so much more tragic when I think about the fact that there's you know, a hundred of these leopards left, or there's fifty of these or there's seven hundred of these and thinking like, gosh, my kids won't even know about this someday. Um And and that's that's I don't know, it seems it's it's seems morally, I don't even know what the right word is. I don't know. It just seems really damn wrong. And um And I wish and I hope and I and I and I aspire to hopefully someday be able to see that change in some kind of way. I don't know if it will, but but I guess reading about it, learning about it is a step one. So this book does a pretty good job at you and that I will say it's it's a little bit I don't want to say it's dense dense, um, but its denser than some of the others um. And it's not all focused on like big charismatic animals, So I think it's I think it's easy to like dive into this topic and read about like a Sumatran rhinoceros and how that's disappearing and like care about that. It's a little bit harder when you're learning about a little frog or something, which she talks about two. Um. But but I would encourage folks to give it a shot. I listened to a lot of this one. This is a good book to listen to. UM. I got through a lot of it through that avenue. I'd recommend that if if this sounds like a book that maybe you're intimidated by because of what I was saying here, UM, maybe try listening to it. UM. There's another couple of books along these lines, one called Half Earth by EO. Wilson, another one called Rescuing the Planet by Tony Hiss, which also talk about this issue and um some proposed ideas about conserving larger swaths of the remaining natural landscapes we have across the world to try to stem the bleeding of sorts. Those two are more recent books that I think cover this one too in interesting ways that if you're interested in this kind of stuff, might be worth checking out. UM. But yeah, I think that I think that this is one of those topics that we all have got to be aware of and thinking about, and this is a good entry way into that one. So that's that's why I recommend The Sixth Extinction, because I think this is going to be one of those big issues that we're talking about and trying to tackle for the decades to come. So that's that's one that I thought would be worth mentioned. Have you read this one? No, I haven't read any of those that you um that you just recommended, and they all sound great, and I was just I was thinking, it's it's a shame that I think I would guess that a lot of people when they hear like a topic like that, they think because it's been politicized, people are like, oh, that's that's left wing stuff or whatever. And I'm not. I feel like I'm right in the middle, and I try not do it. I don't want to associate with too much with any one one group in any part of and uh and and I feel like this is one of those books mean that that was one of the reasons. Like when I started my podcast, I lived in Boulder, Colorado, which is about as far left as you can get, and I would live next door to some of the you know, the most you could even call militant environmentalist. But then in my work, I was out working with ranchers who were on the far other end of the spectrum. Um Yet there was this massive overlap between the far left environmentalist and the far right ranching conservationists, and they had so much more in common than they did different And so I feel like this is one of those books that whether no matter where you are on the political spectrum, I think it's worth reading because at the end of the days, I think we all want to planet we can live on. You know, we won't clean air, we won't animals, and I don't I don't know that there's I think if any any kind of politics has been attached to that is serving somebody else. But I really do think it's it's a it's a topic that I have not read enough about and I need to dig deeper into. So I remember when you you were recommending this book initially and I wrote it down. So this is this is what I need to to push it up top of the top of the list. Yeah, it's it's definitely worth checking out. Um also won the Plitzer Prize, so it's uh it's been well, uh well awarded. Oh sweet, Yeah, yeah, I'll I'll definitely checked that out. Um. All right, my turn, last one. So my last one is called All the While that Remains Um, which is by a guy named David Guessner. All the While that Remains Edward Abbey, Wallace Stector in the American West. And it's by one of my favorite writers, UM, David Guessner, who is actually uh he's a writing professor in North Carolina at University of North Carolina at Wilmington's and he actually has been the professor of some of my good friends who are really talented writers. But it is uh, you know, it's the story of as as the title says, Edward Abbey and wat Stegner, who if you're not from the West, you may not have or deeply involved in the West, and one way or another you may not have heard of them, but they're they're kind of two different figures. Both were writers, and both kind of came up through the you know, the twentieth century and really set the stage for both the modern day environmental movement as well as just similar to have with Leopold in his book. They they they put language in place that we used to talk about wild places and about the West and about conservation. And you know, this is more focused on the West, but I think that it it can it has application across the whole country because these guys were just so so pivotal in their roles. Um on the surface, you know Stegner, Uh he he grew up kind of going through the West. His his father was kind of the stereotypical Western boomer, you know, kind of going down to town, trying to strike it rich, trying to make as much money as he can, booms and bust. And then the guy, I think he eventually just kind of flamed out and uh, like a horrible thing where he had a girlfriend, he killed his girlfriend and then committed suicide. And so just this while the Stigna just had this really tumultuous childhood and young adulthood and said, while Steigners are grown up, was really the opposite. He was a buttoned up college professor. He taught at Stanford, very you know, on the surface conservative um and thought. You know, he was a very talented writer. He wrote you know, Beyond the hundredth Meridian, which is mandatory reading about the West, and then and it's nonfiction, and then he also wrote like Angle Over Pose, which is one of the best novels ever written. And uh, you know, Debt felt a deep connection to this place that is the West and sought to change it kind of from within. And so a lot of his prime time work was during the sixties and seventies when there was also this counterculture movement and you know, hippies and all this kind of stuff, and he really in some ways kind of railed against that type. And so then on the opposite end of the spectrum is Edward Abbey, who was a wild man and he was, you know, advocate. He he wrote a Desert solidaire, The Monkey Rich Gang kind of advocated for this complete other side of things, like even kind of like eco terrorism, like let's let's blow up the hoover damn, that kind of crazy stuff. And and so both of these guys. He was actually a student of Wallace Stegner's for a while in the writing program. Yeah, and so these guys went off um and both made their mark on the West and in very different ways. And so this book it's it's a lot of different things. It's kind of a double biography, but it's not it's not completely And I've always liked books where I like double biographies, like for example, The Bully Pulpit that's Um Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft. And I think when you can play people off of each other, it allows you to to kind of dig into parts of their personality you wouldn't be able to other wise. But um, but Guessner also works in a lot of his own personal story into it, and he works in a big road trip across the West. And it's one of these things like we were talking about with your book and with Steve's book, of of um, an adventure. Adventure story is kind of the backbone of the book, and then you learn stuff along the way and um. And so you know, Guessner is very very very funny, at least I think he is. And you get a lot of his personality, and you get a lot of his ideas about everything from writing to the importance of hard work, to the importance of having adventures and being you know, kind of seeking out wild places and connecting with our innate wildness. And um. You know, Guessner is more on the progressive side of things with his political beliefs. But UM, I know him very well. He's been on my podcast, I think at least three times. And uh, you know, he is a very thoughtful, very smart, very funny guy. And so I think, no matter what your political persuasion or thoughts, if you want to have a good understanding of the modern day West and the modern day conservation movement, whether that means the far left environmentalist type stuff or conservation as in conserving ranches, conserving forms. I think this book really lays a great foundation for that, So, Holly, reg I recommend all of Guesterner's book. He wrote a pretty good one, I mean a really good one recently about Theodore Roosevelt called Leave It as it Is that I thought was great. I mean, he's he is hilarious too. So, UM, have you read all the while it remains? Oh? Yeah, I was actually going to include it on my list until I saw that you included it. So I think you did a big, big fan of this one. Um, and I couldn't agree more. And I would, I would just emphasize something you said. But I want to make a really big point on this is that while these two guys are known as Western writers and primarily discussing some Western related issues, this is not just about Western conservation or anything that it really like these guys, while while the West was their main canvas that they painted their stories and ideas on the concepts, the philosophies, the ideas about protecting places, conserving places, caring about these things. It applies across everything, and and what they wrote in the ideas that they popularized are still pulled upon and inspire people trying to conserve across the entire nation, whether it's in Maine or Florida or Montana. Um. So I think this this book is kind of, um, you know, more than just the things you described that being like the dual biography, it's also this kind of examination of of this history, but then also kind of current um, current environment we're in and trying to make sense of how we can fight this fight while also being real people and the realities of the world and the everything that that involves. Um. Understanding those two people, I think is is pretty important in understanding how we as a as a community think about these things today. And they did such a good job putting words to so many things we think and feel today. UM. And I mean I love both the writing. But ed Abbey. Ed Abbey especially is just like such a firebrand. And even though he have he of course, you know, in my opinion, went too far or at least you know, he he espouses things that would be far too far from me. Right. Some of the stuff you talked about, which is Uh. I think you know, obviously you would not condone any form of violence, right, Um. But outside of some of that stuff he talked about, UM, I do love how he is able to express how piste off he was about things, and how piste off I can be about things, and the pain and the fury that I think we rightfully should feel sometimes about the I don't know who who to blame, because it's just as much me as anyone, right But like the collective ship, we've taken on the natural world in so many instances across our nation's history and continue to do so. That is, you know, it's on each one of us in one way or another. UM. So I'm a part of that unfortunately too. But I think, um he does a great way of putting words and emotions to this, uh collective trauma we can experience in different ways when we look at a place that we love being paved over with a Walmart parking lot, or when we see a river that we loved rafting being damned up and you know, civilized or whatever it might be. Um, he's one of the few people that has been able to just with no filter, express those things in a way they think hits a lot of people. So this is a great introduction to him. And if you enjoy reading about him and the ideas in this book, um, then you gotta read Desert Solitaire, which is at Abbey's book, one of one of his many books. Um. And and I enjoyed that one too well. And I think, you know you, I think guests Are also does a really good job of laying out that, like every human on earth, at Abbey was gonna be a bit of a hypocrite, you know, he was. You know, he's advocating for basically blowing up bulldozers to keep him off of a piece of land. But at the same time he was known for drinking beer while he's driving and throwing the cans out the window and just littering, you know. And so I think some of these guys tr especially, but a lot of these people can be put on this pedestal as if their other worldly or they're not human or there, and but they're all flawed. Every single one of these people is flawed. And I think, um, Guestner does a great job of showing just how complex both Stegner and Abbey are. And if anything, you can take that and be like, all right, well, yeah, I'm like, I sit here saying there's not enough water in the West, yet I moved here from North Carolina, so I'm a hypocrite. That doesn't mean I I can't try to help something or try to do something about it. So I, um, yeah, that's one of my favorite books. I think. Yep, yep, I agree me too. Uh. Great great book, kudos Dave, Yeah, well done, well done. Okay, So that's a really good segue into my last recommendation because a few of the at Abbey type themes pop up in this one. Have you read The Over Story by Richard Powers? No, But like every good writer I know says it's like one of the best books I've ever read their whole life. And so I don't know why I haven't read it. But Guessner actually said, he said he he could not believe how great a book the book. It was like just as if it's from another planet. And so, um, I've heard it from many many people. I need to it's on my shelf. I have not read it. Tell me about it. Yeah, man, that's that's exactly how I feel about it. And I literally, after finishing reading the book, I like dropped it on my lap and then just stood staring blankly at the wall for for ten minutes, just kind of overwhelmed by it. And I have actually thought my wife's reading it right now, but when she gets done, I'm gonna put this. I'm gonna mount it to my wall or put it on my desk someway. I have no other books like right prominently in front of me, but I'm gonna put it there somewhere to showcase the power of a story. It's it's it's really something. UM. I recommended this book to my buddy Doug during anyone listening to this nose Dug during Hunter. He's been featured on Mediator, He's been in the podcast and he's starting to read this book right now. And he just texted me today and I want to read you his endorsement UM. As an intro to this, he says, the overstory is remarkable. I've been too busy to devour, and slow reading has allowed me to marvel at the writing, relate to the characters, and wonder what's next. I've always marveled at trees and felt connected to them, but this book has given words to those feelings. So here's what this book is about. It Well, it's hard to tell you exactly what this books about. But the the overstory is it's a story. It's it's kind of a massive parable. It's it's a fictional book first off, So this is not a nonfiction like history book or anything. This is a fictional book about in general. I don't I don't read a lot of fiction at all. So that's why I've heard the same I heard the same things. You heard that like, you got to read this book, it's incredible. But I kept thinking to myself, Man, I don't know. I don't really like fiction. Um. I do read, you know, the occasional fiction thing. But if I am going to read fiction, it's usually like action or fantasy or sci fi or something like that. I don't read general literary fiction. Um So I just had that um resistance, I guess to it. But finally I picked it up. And at first you might be wondering, like what is this book about? Once you start, because each chapter, the first like eight chapters, are seemingly disconnected. They almost don't have anything to do with each other. You're just learning about like it's a short story. Each chapter is seemingly a short story about some new character, and you get pulled into each one. It's like amazingly interesting and fascinating and absolutely beautifully written. And each one has something to do with trees in the natural world, but in different ways. But each of these different people has some kind of experience or connection with with trees, the forest, plants, um but seemingly none of it's connected. But then as the book progresses, each of these different disparate characters is pulled together in this huge overarching story where in one way or another, each one of these different people has an awakening to the natural world in some kind of way, or some kind of new awareness to our connection with trees and forests and plants in nature in general. And and they kind of have this huge long character arc where eventually these people all kind of come together in this kind of epic story that I don't I'm not going to tell you the specifics of all what happens, but you just have to trust me in this that you learn a tremendous amount about trees and forests, like like forests and trees are the are the central theme, like all the book revolves around trees, and and you end up coming out of this book with this newfound wonder with these organisms and these ecosystems, UM and the power they have in our connection with them and in the connection we've had with them in the history of our country. UM. But but more than just that, it's um it showcases like the power of fiction to convey emotion because it's it's just a story. It's not like, you know, Richard Powers could have beach over the head with a thousand facts and historical tidbits and studies about trees, and instead he poured all of this knowledge and studies and research and interesting science about trees and forests and history, and he poured that into and layer that onto a set of stories with characters and people going through real life stuff, having real life things happen in a way that you care about these people and this stuff so much more than if you're reading a science book. UM. And it ends up being incredibly emotional, incredibly inspiring, incredibly empowering, incredibly sad and uplifting and UM, I mean, I'm kind of at a loss of words how to really describe this. But if you are anyone who cares about this stuff we've been talking about in this podcast, so far this story will connect with you, I think in a really really powerful way. It is a jaw dropper in a lot of ways. Um. You go on these journeys with these people that UM, I don't know. I came out of reading this book just like fired up to do more, to try to you know. Even though the general theme of this book is around trees and the forests, I think it it speaks to everything. It speaks to the general sense of or the general issues we have around everything. We've talked about wildlife, water, um habitat, protection, conservation of natural resources, dear birds, grasslands, forest, deserts, whatever. This book is really about awakening to a a consciousness of some kind of connection with these things, and then trying to do something about it. Realizing these things are out here and they matter and that they matter to us, and then realizing, holy sh it, what are we gonna do to make sure this stuff is still around someday? And you go on this journey with like six or seven different people, and it's just shocking. It's just it's it's I don't know. This book just serves like the shocking power to me that words can have and the stories can have. UM. So I can't recommend it enough. You know, it's it's a book to savor, it's not a book to try to rush through. I don't think. Um, although once you get to the second half of the book, it does really really pull you along. Um. But it's it's something else, man, it really is something else. I have to I will say. Like. The one thing is like, I'm sure there will be some people that will read this and they will see a couple of things that happen, a couple of like the more extreme. Um, Like, there's an act of eco terrorism in the book that some of the characters do. And so I obviously won't I do not condone that, of course. Um. So there'll be some people that will read this. I'm like, oh, Jesus, is some leftist, crazy, wacko radical environmentalist terrorists. Um and And I don't want that to get in the way of the rest of the book. I think the sentiments and the emotions and the cares and the worries expressed in this book and that you follow on this journey with these people about I think it's pretty universal and pretty powerful and um and man, I'll never question fiction again after reading this one, because I think you can teach and inspire just as much with something like this as you can with any of the other nonfiction books we've talked about. So, yeah, the Overstory by Richard Powers, Yeah, I've I've heard such great things about that, but from just in general just the buzz, but then from people that I really really respect, um and so that I just need to make that one happen. And I'm like you, I just I don't read much fiction at all. I mean, and I never have. And I used to kind of tell we're like to take pride, and they're like, I don't. I don't read fiction. But thankfully through my podcast and and then through um just forcing myself outside of my comfort zone, I've I've really have started started reading more fiction. And like, there's an author named Nicholas Butler that I had on my podcast and I was just recently introduced to his work. And when you know, there's a certain type of novelist who can, like you said, communicate these larger truths in a way that you could never get from the facts and figures of nonfiction no matter how much you read. They can just tap into this. I don't know if you call it any emotional side of things or or it's just that they get these big themes that we can all connect with through into our brains, through these fictional stories. And when it's done, when it's done well or done spectacularly, like it sounds like the overstory, there's nothing more powerful. And so, um, I'm glad to hear you say that, because I've I've got it on my shelf. I bought it as soon as I think as soon as Guessner said I was talking about it being like the great American novel or something, and um, but it's just been sitting there, so I will get to work. Yeah, no more letting that sit in the shelf. And this one won the Pulitzer Prize too, so it's uh, you got you got a highbrow tasting books does maybe the only two Pulitzer winners on my bookshelf, but they are good ones. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt won the Pulitzer and that's my favorite books. So there you good with you on Pulitzers, You're there with me? Uh yeah, man, There's there's ten books plus a few I think extra suggestions in there for anyone who wants to really dig into this stuff. I think it's a pretty diverse list. There's a lot of different stuff covered there. Yeah, and there's a lot of different ways you can take it. You know, you read one of those books and then you're gonna have a list of twenty other books you want to read. So, um, there's a there's a lot there. And I can't wait to dig into those two that I had not read from your list. So I appreciate this. Yeah, yeah, me too. I'm gonna pick up down River here right when we get off the phone. UM, I want a real quick throw out a couple other resource suggestions for people, if if there are folks now, I don't think anyone who's listened this far doesn't like to read, because if you've listened to almost two hours I was talking about books, you must like books. But I guess if for some reason you don't like books and you've still listened to all of this, I wanted to give a couple of non book suggestions to people. I should have done this at the beginning, but better late than never. Um, I don't know if you had any ideas like this, but I had a couple of things I was going to throw out there. Um, A favorite documentary of mine related to some of these topics is Public Trust, which is a tremendous documentary about the fight for public lands. Talks about a lot of the same things I talked about my book, but does it in a really powerful way that you know, film can do with our you know, shared friend hall hearing um great. Great. Another thing I would suggest to folks if they want to learn more about conservation, if they want to learn more about what's going on day to day, there are a number of good newsletters out there that come out weekly or even daily, keeping you up to speed on stuff going on. So a few that I subscribed to, I'll just mention the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. It's got a really good weekly newsletter which keeps you have to speed on. You know, these aren't just articles from them. They post articles from all sorts of different people talking about relevant issues in the hunting and fishing and conservation space. The Center for Western Priorities sends out a daily newsletter that's mostly Western conservation issue focused, but touches on a whole lot of different things related to environmental and conservation causes every day, with a big list of links to go check out. That's a good way just to keep your finger on the pulse of different things going on across the country. Um, for the deer hunters out there, the National Deer Association got a newsletter where they're posting a number of different updates. B h A has another one, same thing. Lots of good updates there. And then finally, I will tell you that the Mountain and Prairie Podcast by you, Sir Ed Robertson, is a great, great podcast to listen to if you care about these issues too, because you've had a number of people that either write about these things or engage with these things on a day to day basis, and a number of different careers, um, who care about conservation and live it day to day. And I've been inspired by a lot of those conversations you have, so highly suggest folks if you're listening, tune into Ed's show. Um, if you care about wild places, wild animals, the West, any of that stuff, you're gonna find something there on the Mountain Prairie Podcast. So those are my suggestions that do you have anything else you've did? Um, yeah, I'd say for a documentary, there's a really good one called First of all public trust. I highly recommend that awesome. It's how hearing. He's a he's a hero mine, he's and he's a big fan of you and your book by the way, as you know, UM. But there's a really good one more specific, but it's UM called Into the Canyon by it's a filmmaker named Pete McBride and he Pete and his buddy Kevin Fidarco, who's an author or who wrote UM the Emerald Mile, which is a really awesome book of the Grand Canyon. They hike the length of the canyon inside it, so it's like eight hundred miles no trail. Very few people have done it, and so they hike from one end of the canyon to the other and film it and then along the way UM talk about a lot of different threats that are facing the canyon and the history of the canyon, and so again it's like it's the film version of what we've been talking about these books, this adventure story where they work in a bunch of really interesting things and even about the you know, the Navajo and the tribal lands and some threats to their way of life. UM Pete, and there's a there's a companion coffee table book that goes with it that shows some of them the work, uh, some of the photos from that expedition, but really really awesome. UM. If you're into private lands, particularly ranching, um and ranchings, impact on h on conservation. There's a really good group called the Western Landowners Association and they it out what I think is one of the best emails around. I think once a month they put it out, and it's just filled with resources about everything from conservation to land management, land stewardship. Very very focused on the private land side of things, but it's inspiring to see all the work that's going into things on the private land side. I actually it's embarrassing. I was just late doing it. But I went on my first elk hunt in January and it was a life changing experience. And I am now a member of back Country Hunters and Anglers and will be forever and uh and so I'm just getting really dialed into all the resources they have. But I've got a few of their magazines and I've I've been getting their their emails, and UM, huge fan of everything they're doing and can't wait to immerse myself in that world even more. But those are those are kind of my top ones right now. It's great. Are you gonna go up to the b h A Rendezvous? I would love to. I'm trying to figure out if it works with the schedule. I really really want to, though I've wanted to quite a while. You think about it, I think it'd be I think you would, especially now that you've you've dipped your toes into those waters yourself and and experience that big game hunt. I think you would get a kick gotta getting to engage more of the folks there. That events awesome event full of people fired up about these things we're talking about. And uh, interestingly, I haven't mentioned this on the podcast yet, but I will be one of the featured speakers at the big Storytelling night at the National Convention, so I'll be there too. We're cooking elk upstairs in the croc pot as we record this, so I've been smelling the elk um really man, I mean, obviously I sound like a dumbass on your podcast taught about this, but like life change, I would wouldn't think at age forty four, I would have thought you kind of maxed out a lot of your you know, peak life experiences. But that Elk hunt with Adam Gall of timber to Table Guide service was we could. I'll give you the full download on that sometime. Yeah, I definitely, I definitely want to talk to you more about that. If I, if I didn't have to piece so bad, my eyeballs are about to float out of my head, not just me, I would say we should talk about it now. But but we're both old men now, so we we don't have that long on the phone these days. And this has been a lot of fun. I I really do appreciate your sharing this stuff. You're you're always a great resource when it comes to you know, both talking about these ideas yourself or you know, recommending books and people to dive into further. So I knew this would be fun, and it was. I appreciate it. I appreciate it, man. I appreciate you have me only. I appreciate you writing your book. I appreciate all the hard work you put into everything you put out in the world. It's it's making the world a better place. I really really do appreciate it. I thank you. Thank you for saying that, where where can folks go if they want to hear your podcast or get signed up for your book recommendations or anything else you're doing. Where can they find all that? Yeah, easiest spot Mountain and Pririe dot com. Just go to that you can. I've got a uh every other month, I sending out book recommend Nation, six emails a year, no ads, no spam, nothing, just five or six books I've read and recently read recently and highly recommended. I've got a weekly email called good News from the American West. We're only good news, no negative stuff. And then, uh, you know, I'm on all the social media stuff, so I would love to love to connect with anybody. Awesome, well ed, Let's do it again soon. I really thank you, and that is a rap. Thanks for tuning into this one. I hope you enjoyed it. I appreciate you coming along with this journey over the course of Conservation Month. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling re energized and excited to get out there to get my hands dirty, whether that be planning a tree, or dialing a phone number, or reading a book, whatever it is. Um. You know, I know we've got a lot of work to do to get ready for white tail season coming up. And not that many more months. It's kind of crazy how quickly it's coming up on us. But at the same time, there's a lot of stuff we can do right now to make sure that our future deer hunting seasons are bright as well, so I hope you'll join me in that too, So until next time, my friends, I appreciate you, and stay wired to hunt.

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