SSoP Podcast Episode 70 — National Parks: Go Outside and Touch Grass

This is a transcription of National Parks: Go Outside and Touch Grass

David: Hello. Welcome to Strong Sense of Place.

Melissa: In each episode, we focus on one destination and discuss what makes it different than any other place on Earth.

David: Then we recommend five books we love that took us there on the page.

Melissa: I’m Melissa Joulwan.

David: I’m David Humphreys.

David: We’re going around the world one great read at a time. Thanks for joining us.

[cheerful music]

David: Welcome to Strong Sense of Place. Today we get curious about U.S National Parks. Today in Two Truths and a Lie, I’m going to talk about the unexpected creatures that came this close to changing our parks forever. Then we’ll talk about five books we love.

Melissa: I’m recommending two diametrically opposed books to cover all our bases: a moving historical novel and rip-roaring party of a horror novel starring a family of Big Foots. Big Feet?

David: I read two books about people who thought, ‘You know what’ll fix my life? A really long walk through a really hostile environment.’ Should they have prepared? Absolutely. Did they? Only kind of. We’ll talk about those choices. But first, Mel’s going to bring us up to speed with the National Parks 101.

Melissa: Working on this show gave me the same feeling I had when we were putting together our episode about outer space: It’s amazing and overwhelming and beautiful and fun and made me emotional over and over again. Apologies in advance for the way I’m about to spit facts like a 12-year-old with a new copy of the Guinness Book of World Records.

Melissa: The largest living things in the world are in US national parks: namely, sequoia trees in California and Alaskan brown bears, which are the world’s largest living carnivores. The deepest lake in the world is Oregon’s Crater Lake — in the park that bears its name — and the highest peak in North American is Alaska’s Denali in its namesake park. Want to go the other way? Death Valley National Park in California has two superlatives. It’s home to the lowest point in North America — almost 300 feet/91m below sea level. For context, that’s the height of Big Ben or the Statue of Liberty. And Death Valley is the hottest spot in the world. The highest temp recorded there was 134F/57C, and it regularly tops out at 120F/49C.

Melissa: US national parks also represent every type of geographical feature and wildlife you can imagine. Try to get a mental picture of each of these things as I say them. It will be like your own personal slideshow. Ready?

Melissa: Mountains, mesas, and arches — lakes, rivers, and streams — waterfalls, forests, volcanoes, deserts, canyons, caves, glaciers, sand dunes, beaches, geysers, hot springs, fjords, rocks that are 270 million years old, petrified wood, shipwrecks, coral reefs, wildflowers and cactus, sea turtles, wolves, foxes, and bears, pine martens, mountain goats, panthers, dolphins and manatees and sea lions and whales, otters, iguanas, beavers, feral horses, condors, bald eagles, snowy egrets, blue herons, puffins, and dozens of other bird. And, big finish: the nearly-extinct but back from the brink black-footed ferret, the rarest animal in North America — and perhaps, one of the cutest. They’re mostly sand-colored but have a black eye mask that makes them look like tiny burglars – like they might be planning a heist with their neighborhood trash pandas.

Melissa: The National Park System — the NPS — includes 433 national park sites across the United States, Puerto Rico, and US island territories. If you’re talking about National Parks proper — that is, places with National Park in the name, there are 63. But the NPS covers 20 different park types like monuments, memorials, recreation areas, scenic trails, battlefields — that kind of thing. There is a massive directory online; I’ll put a link in the show notes.

Melissa: So, how did we end up with this natural bounty?

Melissa: 19th-century lawyer, painter, and adventurer. He specialized in portrais of Native Americans in the frontier. During his travels all over the burgeoning United States, he visited fifty native tribes. And he worried about the impact of westward expansion on wildlife, wilderness, and indigenous people. In 1832, he wrote that maybe, wilderness could be preserved ‘by some great protecting policy of government… in a nation’s park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature’s beauty!’

Melissa: The first National Park was Yellowstone in Wyoming, established by Congress in 1872. During the next two decades, some of the greatest hits of National Parks came to be: Sequoia and Yosemite, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, Mesa Verde, Denali. And on and on. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service, and for the past 109 years, its rangers have been the caretakers of our natural playgrounds, to preserve them for future generations.

Melissa: If you’ve ever had a daydream about being a park ranger, it might not be too late! The NPS has volunteer opportunities, internships, full-time, and seasonal jobs — and they have a special program for people 55 and over. I’ll put a link in the show notes to that, along with a video that explains every type of park ranger job.

Melissa: The NPS also has a robust artist-in-residence program for visual arts, dance, photography, textiles, sculpture, pottery, video, and writing. On the NPS website, you can find info to apply — and you can learn about more than 50 artists creating art in national parks across the United States. At Acadia in Maine, a writer made a cookbook of local recipes, a musician is writing a symphony inspired by California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park, a textile artist made quilts that capture the scenery of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

Melissa: I should also mention that the NPS has an on-staff historian. They’re the keeper of the history, but they also get out into the parks where history took place, document current events, and interact with park visitors. Our current Chief Historian is Turkiya (tur-KEYE-ah) Lowe, the first woman and African-American person to hold the post. I put a video interview with her in the show notes. Watching her talk about her work made me feel better about the world.

Melissa: Now is when I usually get excited about the fun things you can do in a particular destination. I thought about doing a quick run-down of all 433 national parks sites, but even at one minute each, that would take, like 7 and a half hours. Instead, I’ve chosen five specific things you can enjoy around the country. Most of the parks offer ample opportunities for exploring nature and learning history while feeding your soul with breathtaking scenery and wildlife. I urge you to dig into the links in the show notes, because there are so many extraordinary things to see and experience.

Melissa: Here are my top five:

Melissa: One: Riding a sled down a dune in New Mexico’s White Sands National Park.

Imagine every swashbuckling movie you’ve ever seen with sand dunes stretching to the horizon in all directions — then imagine that sand is pure, sparkling white under a hard blue sky. That’s White Sands National Park. The sand on a beach or in the Sahara is made of quartz — but White Sands is almost pure gypsum. It’s smooth and silky, and even on the hottest day, it stays cool to the touch. Although it’s not slippery like snow, it can be sledded! According to the NPS, waxed plastic snow saucers work the best and, conveniently, you can rent or buy one in the park’s gift shop. After your glide down the dunes, you might also take a 5-mile hike along the Alkali Flat Trail or enjoy a red-and-orange sunset stroll or a moonlight hike led by a ranger who will helpfully point out native plants and animals. If sandscapes are your thing, there are six other national parks with dunes, some in surprising states like Indiana and Colorado.

Melissa: Two: Biking along carriage roads in Maine’s Acadia National Park.

This park is famous for its rugged ocean cliffs, majestic fir trees, autumn foliage, and freshwater ponds. There are 150 miles/240km of hiking trails for all levels through the woods, along the coastline, and up to the top of mountains. But! I got pretty excited about the idea of biking on the carriage roads. There are miles and miles of roads covered in crushed stone that weave around the mountains and through the valleys of the park. The roads were a gift from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He was a skilled horseman and wanted to be able to ride his horses or carriage deep into the island. Today, you can ride a bike or take a horse and carriage tour that follows the route he took in the early 20th century. The scuttlebutt on the best bike ride is to go in the fall to enjoy the colored leaves. Start near Jordan Pond — a big lake carved by glaciers — loop around, and then eat the famous popovers at the Jordan Pond House restaurant at the end.

Melissa: Three: Visiting the tallest trees on the planet at California’s Redwood National Park.

Redwood National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an International Biosphere Reserve that protects nearly half of the world’s old-growth redwood trees. Every photo of this place looks like an enchanted forest. There are trees that dwarf humans — surrounded by prehistoric-looking greenery with rust-colored walking trails winding through it all. There are 200 miles/300km of paths for walking, biking, and horseback riding. And all manner of programs led by rangers: forest strolls, campfire stories, kayak tours, tidepool walks. But I want to go into a special area: The Tall Trees Grove. It was featured in a famous 1963 National Geographic article that was a catalyst for the creation of Redwood National Park. You have to reserve a free pass in advance, and there are only 50 passes per day. There’s a pretty steep uphill climb, but according to Outside magazine, it’s worth it to see a dense forest full of mushrooms and colorful lichen before dropping into the middle of a grove they describe as ‘spellbinding.’

Melissa: Four: Exploring Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave by lantern light. Mammoth Cave is the world’s longest known cave system. To date, explorers have mapped more than 426 miles/685km — including passages, rooms, large chambers, and crawl spaces. Guided tours include walks of various lengths and, for the very adventurous, an all-day crawling tour. Its description says, ‘Lengthy amounts of time will be spent crawling through extremely tight crawl spaces and climbing through difficult areas.’ That’s a hard pass for me. The most in-depth option is the Grand Historic Tour. It’s a 4-hour trek that includes a bottomless pit and an abandoned tuberculosis ward.

Melissa: When I read about that in Outside Magazine, I joked, ‘Wow! I did not expect a National Park to go Gothic.’ Then I learned that Mammoth Cave offers a tour called The Gothic Avenue Tour. It got its name from the rock formations that resemble Gothic architecture. It’s one of the oldest parts of the cave open to tourism and includes signatures and other keepsakes left behind by 19th-century visitors.

Melissa: You can also explore Cleveland Avenue with tube-shaped passages and sparkly gypsum walls — or the Domes & Dripstones Tour that starts in a sinkhole, passes through underground domes, and ascends and descends hundreds of stairs. And here’s the best part: Some of the tours are offered in the evening and lit only by lantern light. The tours that are offered changes throughout the year; I’ll put a link in show notes to the current schedule.

Melissa: Something to note: H.P. Lovecraft wrote a short horror story called ‘The Beast in the Cave’ about a man who has an unsettling experience when he’s separated from his tour guide in Mammoth Cave. Maybe a little light reading before your visit? Look for that in show notes.

Melissa: Five: Watching fireflies light up the night at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Found on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited national park in the US. It’s mountainous and leafy, lush with forests, streams, and waterfalls, and wildflowers that bloom most of the year. There are special wildflower hikes! And part of the Appalachian Trail passes through the park.

Melissa: But I’m interested in the fireflies. The park is home to 19 varieties of the little bugs, including the synchronous firefly. During their mating season in late May, the fireflies glow in a pattern of synchronized bursts as they search for their mates. The spectacle lasts for hours, alternately lighting up the woods with twinkling light, then plunging it into darkness. People who’ve seen it say the cool white lights are like magic — like shooting stars on the ground. This all-natural light show has become so popular, there’s a lottery to get tickets. The application fee is a whopping $1 and generally opens at the beginning of May — put it on your calendar for next spring!

Melissa: A quick note: Our National Park System is currently under fire from the Trump administration — even though national parks are beloved and supported in equal measure by Democrats and Republicans. The National Parks Conservation Association is a nonpartisan nonprofit whose mission is to ‘protect and enhance America’s National Park System for present and future generations.’ It’s an excellent resource for the lastest news and info on the simple, fast actions you can take to let Congress know our national parks are important to you. I’ll put a link in show notes.

Melissa: That’s the National Parks 101.

David: I’m about to say three statements. Two of them are true. Mel doesn’t know which one is the lie. One: Congress once proposed stocking a national park with hippos. Two: There are many dangerous animals in the Grand Canyon. They’ve got mountain lions, tarantulas, scorpions, and coyotes, to name a few. But! The most dangerous animals in the Grand Canyon are bison. And three: Florida’s fiercest eco-warrior didn’t own hiking boots and once described the Everglades as ‘too buggy.’

David: Do, one at a time. Congress once proposed stocking a national park with hippos.

David: That’s true. But to really appreciate why, we have to rewind to 1884. That was when New Orleans hosted one of the most over-the-top, ambitious events in American history—the World Cotton Centennial Exposition. This was no local fair.

David: It sprawled over 249 acres over what’s now Audubon Park, just a stone’s throw from downtown New Orleans. It featured the largest roofed structure in the world, lit with 5,000 electric lights—a jaw-dropping novelty at the time. People arrived by train, steamboat, and ocean liner to gawk at futuristic wonders like electric streetcars and elevators, and to wander through lush gardens and global exhibits. You could stand there in 1884 and see just a little bit of the 20th century coming around the bend. One of those exhibits introduced Americans to a plant so pretty it practically begged to be taken home. – The water hyacinth.

David: At first glance, the water hyacinth is a lovely aquatic plant. It floats on the surface of freshwater lakes, ponds, and slow-moving rivers. Its bright green, rounded leaves. They look like lily pads with bonus flair. The real showstopper, though, is its lavender-to-violet flowers—delicate blooms that rise above the foliage like a little crown. Of course people wanted one. And the organizers made it easy—they gave out free hyacinths to anyone who asked.

David: What could possibly go wrong? Lots, it turns out.

David: The water hyacinth is basically the Viking raider of aquatic plants. It’s one of the most invasive species we know. It spread like wildfire through Louisiana’s waterways, choking rivers, killing fish, blocking trade routes, and turning entire ecosystems into floating green traffic jams.

David: People tried weeding them. They tried dousing them in gasoline and setting them on fire. Nothing worked. Now, if you remembered the original statement, you can probably tell where this is going. In March of 1910, Louisiana Representative Robert F. Broussard met with the House Committee on Agriculture to lay out the details for the American Hippo Bill. His plan? – Three easy steps.

David: One: Import hippopotamuses from Africa. Two: Let them loose in Louisiana’s swamps, where they’d feast on the water hyacinths. Three: Once they’d cleaned things up, we’d eat the hippos—which would solve the hyacinth crisis and a meat shortage problem the US was having at the same time. Two birds, one stone!

David: This idea got surprisingly far. Former President Teddy Roosevelt — never one to shy away from a wild adventure — was in. The New York Times ran an editorial supporting it, praising the delicious potential of quote ‘lake cow bacon.’ One expert testified before Congress that hippo meat tasted like a cross between beef and pork. And for a while, it actually looked like it might happen. Thankfully, it did not.

David: Because as anyone who’s seen a wildlife documentary knows, hippos are not friendly little lake cows. They’re massive, aggressive, territorial, and kill more people in Africa than lions and crocodiles combined. And honestly, the last thing America needs is Florida Man vs. Hippo. And just to really seal the deal—turns out they don’t even like to eat water hyacinths. So, that would have gone great. Today, more than 140 years later, Louisiana still spends millions of dollars every year trying to manage the purple-flowered invaders that started as party favors at a world’s fair.

David: Second statement: The most dangerous animals in the Grand Canyon are bison.

David: Let’s talk about danger. If you’ve ever stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon — or even looked at a photo — you’ve probably felt it. That dizzying drop. The sheer scale. The realization that there’s nothing between you and the void except a whisper of wind and your own two feet. The Grand Canyon is breathtaking, but it’s also one of the deadliest national parks in America.

David: There are rattlesnakes. Scorpions. Mountain lions. There are sheer cliffs, dizzying heat, and the Colorado River down below that looks like a tiny ribbon from the rim but will toss you like a rag doll if it can get its hands on you. People fall off cliffs. People dehydrate on the trails. There’s a surprising number of air-related deaths.

David: There’s an entire book about mortality at the park. It’s called Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon, written by Thomas M. Myers and Michael P. Ghiglieri. It’s a little dark but if you’re the kind of person who’s morbidly curious about just how many ways you could meet your end in the Canyon, it’s worth a look. It’s got 4.6 stars on Amazon, after nearly a thousand reviews — so clearly I’m not the only one who couldn’t look away.

David: But here’s the thing that gets me. The creature that sends more people to the hospital at the Grand Canyon than any other animal? Not the snakes. Not the mountain lions. Not the bison — the largest land mammal in the North America. One ton, six feet of fuzzy furry. It’s not them. It’s the rock squirrel. The rock squirrel! That twitchy-tailed little punk is coming after our people. And you know, it’s kind of the perfect crime. Because rock squirrels look adorable. They’re everywhere along the canyon rim—sitting up on their haunches like they’re posing for a Disney movie. Little twitching noses. Fluffy tails. Big, round eyes that seem to say, ‘Hey friend, how about a snack?’ They work it.

David: Tourists see them. Tourists melt. Tourists pull out a granola bar, or maybe a peanut, or even just lean in for a closer look. That’s when the rock squirrel makes its move. According to the National Park Service, the rock squirrel sends more people to the first aid station than any other animal in the park. Why? Because people try to feed them. Or pet them. Or get just a little too close with their phone for the perfect Instagram shot. And these squirrels, despite their fluffy outsides, inside are little teeth gremlins when they want to be. They’ll bite. They’ll scratch. There are some reports that they’ll work together to get your food and leave you with an open wound. And the bites can get nasty enough to send you to the hospital.

David: The rock squirrel is known to carry bubonic plague (yes, THE plague), hantavirus, rabies. Which means that one little ‘aww, how cute’ moment can turn into a trip to urgent care for antibiotics, vaccines, or worse. And yet — There’s just something so perfectly human about the fact that, of all the dangers in the Grand Canyon, the one we fall for again and again is the one with the big cute eyes.

David: So, public service announcement: If you’re headed to the Grand Canyon, resist the urge to make friends with the wildlife—especially the rock squirrels. Admire them from a safe distance. Snap a photo if you must. But please, for your sake and theirs, don’t feed them. Don’t touch them. Don’t lean in. Because in a place filled with cliffs and cougars and rushing rivers, it’s the adorable little squirrel that’ll send you to the ER.

David: Last statement: Florida’s fiercest eco-warrior didn’t own hiking boots and once described the Everglades as ‘too buggy.’

David: We need to talk about Marjory Stoneman Douglas. She was an author, an introvert, and the fiercest defender the Everglades has ever seen. In her 90s, she was still showing up to public meetings in Florida—a small woman in a big floppy hat and dark sunglasses—absolutely eviscerating developers and bureaucrats and corporations who wanted to drain the wetlands.

David: The life she took to get there was wild, strange, and unforgettable. She grew up in Minneapolis in the late 1800s. From the beginning, her life was … chaotic. Her parents separated when she was six. That sent her to live with her mother in a situation that sounds like something out of a Southern gothic novel: a house filled with tension, mental illness, and emotional landmines.

David: Her mother, a concert violinist, struggled with severe anxiety and depression. The two moved into Marjory’s grandparents’ home in Massachusetts, where no one got along. The emotional strain was so bad, it gave young Marjory night terrors. So she did what a lot of bright, sensitive kids do—she escaped into books. And then, eventually, into writing.

David: She went to college, she started publishing, and then she married a man after a whirlwind romance. There were only three problems with that relationship. One, he was 30 years older. Which I feel like they could have weathered had it not been for two problems. Two, he was a con man. And three, he was already married to someone else. Marjory left him, moved to Florida, and never looked back.

David: She moved to Miami in 1915. At the time, there were about 5,000 people living there. She described Miami as ‘no more than a glorified railroad terminal.’ Her estranged father—whom she hadn’t seen since she was six—was the publisher of the paper that would become the Miami Herald. She joined his staff as a society columnist. She covered tea parties and luncheons. When there wasn’t enough to report on, she made stuff up.

David: For the next seven years, she wrote for the paper. But eventually, she left to focus on fiction. As she put it: ‘I wasn’t a good employee. I didn’t like being told what to do. I didn’t like regular hours. Writing fiction seemed like the perfect job.’ She sold stories to pulp magazines, including Black Mask and forty stories to The Saturday Evening Post. Her characters were often spunky, independent women. Girls with moxie. She wrote books, she wrote plays, she made her career work.

David: So, flash forward twenty years. She’s in her fifties when an editor approaches her to write a book about Florida for a series on American rivers. They suggest she write about the Miami River. She replies, ‘The Miami River? It’s about an inch long.’ But the research leads her somewhere else: to the Everglades. And what she finds there — scientifically, ecologically, politically — lights a fire in her.

David: And here’s the duality that I just love: Marjory Stoneman Douglas was not an outdoorswoman. She didn’t like camping. She didn’t like hiking. She described the Everglades as ‘too buggy, too wet, too inhospitable.’ She once wrote, ‘To be a friend of the Everglades is not necessarily to spend time wandering around out there.’ But she was furious about what people were doing to it. Developers wanted to drain the wetlands, pave them over, and turn them into farmland, golf courses, and suburbs. To most people, the Everglades was just a big, useless swamp.

David: But Marjory knew better. She saw it as a complex, interconnected ecosystem—fragile, essential, and irreplaceable. So when she was nearly 60, she published a book that changed everything. It’s called ‘The Everglades: River of Grass.’ It was sweeping. It was lyrical. It was packed with science and fury and love. It opened with a line that still echoes today: ‘There are no other Everglades in the world.’

David: The book came out in 1947 — the same year Everglades National Park was established — and it fundamentally changed the way Americans thought about the wetlands. And she wasn’t close to done. For the next 29 years, she was a relentless force. She gave speeches. Wrote articles. Lobbied politicians. Battled sugar corporations. Showed up to meetings and shamed bureaucrats. She kept her phone number listed in the Miami phone book so people could call her with tips.

David: One journalist called her ‘a tiny, fearless woman who confronted bulldozers with a typewriter.’ In 1993, at the age of 103, she was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her efforts. She died in 1998. She was 108. Her ashes were scattered in the Everglades. Two years later, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, recognized as one of the most influential environmentalists in American history. And not bad, really, for a woman who mostly preferred to stay in and read.

David: So the next time someone calls the Everglades ‘just a swamp,’ or you feel the wind stir the reeds in a Florida wetland, think of Marjory. Think of what it means to love something fiercely, to protect it with words, and to fight—for decades—for a place most people never thought to value. That is the legacy of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and we are lucky to live in its shadow.

David: That’s Two Truths and a Lie.

Melissa: My first recommendation is ‘Shelterwood’ by Lisa Wingate. This is a mashup of historical fiction, adventure tale, and crime story set in the Winding Stair Mountains in eastern Oklahoma. That’s where you’ll now find the Ouachita National Forest and Horsethief Springs Trail.

Melissa: The forest is the largest virgin forest in the US — dense with multiple varieties of oaks, Eastern Redcedar, Winged Elm, and other old-growth trees. Horsethief Springs Trail is an 11-mile loop hiking trail that winds through the trees and crosses streams along the face of Winding Stair Mountain. Parts of the trail follow logging roads from the 1920s and, going back to the 1800s, it was used by horse thieves to escape with their booty.

Melissa: All of that wilderness is a character in this page-turning story.

Melissa: There are two timelines — 1990 and 1909. The story unfolds in alternating chapters narrated by two female characters with distinctive voices. And every chapter ends on a big ol’ cliffhanger. This is a very page-turny historical novel.

Melissa: In the modern timeline, our heroine is Valerie. She’s a Law Enforcement Ranger, and she’s just arrived for duty at the Horsethief Trail National Park. Our girl is in a rough patch. Her husband has recently died, and she and her young son are eager for a fresh start. But she’s been dropped into the deep end of the pool at her new job: A local teenager has gone missing from one of the hiking trails. There’s tension in the community between the local Choctaw tribe and the newly-designated national park. AND the remains of three young girls have been found in a cave deep in the forest.

Melissa: Valerie’s boss is more concerned with politics than the truth and refuses to investigate the girls’ case. But Valerie can’t stop thinking about the tragedy that likely befell the children, so she decides to embark on her own secret, unofficial investigation. And she forms an unlikely alliance with a Choctaw tribal police officer along the way.

Melissa: This part of the story is a brisk police procedural with interesting red herrings, good character development, and Valerie’s fish-out-of-water perspective. We get to experience the park as Valerie does. The bits about local history and the landscape are vividly drawn. I want to read you a snippet:

I am in the backwoods of southeastern Oklahoma, where after a rain, the morning shadows linger long and deep, and the mountains exhale mist so thick it seems to have weight. The countryside exudes the eerie, forgotten feel of a place where a woman and a seven-year-old boy could simply vanish and no one would ever know.

Melissa: So, that’s 1990.

Melissa: In the 1909 thread, 11-year-old Olive tells her story. It’s a combination of big adventure and heart-breaking adversity. Her dad has died, and she adored her dad. Now, her mom is an alcoholic and opium addict — and Olive lives in fear of her new, abusive stepfather. When she realizes that she and her foster sister will never be safe, the girls pack a bag with supplies and go on the run. Now they’re two little girls all alone in the wilderness, their evil stepfather is after them, and he’s got the law on his side.

Melissa: As you probably expect, the two timelines eventually intersect with each other. Dark secrets are revealed, and, as much as they can be old ghosts are laid to rest. I found it all very satisfying.

Melissa: I also learned a lot. The historical timeline is woven with real people and events. Oklahoma had only been a state since 1907, and children were treated much differently than they are now. Kids worked 10- and 12-hour shifts in coal mines, putting in 60-70 hours per week. Former Native American lands were suddenly… not.

Melissa: In her adventures as the defacto leader of a band of orphans called the ‘elf children,’ she meets a woman named Kate Barnard. I’d never heard of her, but she was a rabble-rouser of the highest order. She was the first woman in America elected to state public office — and she won by the widest majority of any candidate on the ballot — at a time when women couldn’t vote. Kate became a champion of the elf children and advocated for child labor laws.

Melissa: Although this novel is grounded in a story from more than 100 years ago, it has striking parallels to what we’re experiencing today. I’m keeping my eyes open for our modern Kate Barnards.

Melissa: In our Appalachia episode, I recommended a novel called ‘The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek’ about the librarians who delivered books on horseback to isolated neighbors in the Kentucky mountains. If you read and enjoyed that book, I think you’ll like this one, too. It’s Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate.

David: For this episode, I read two books with the same basic plot. That plot is: people who are completely unprepared decide to go for a very long walk in potentially dangerous places. The books have a lot of similarities – there’s a lot of talk about shoes, for instance — but they’ve very different stories, and they’re told very differently. In each case, they walk away better people — but not before almost losing everything.

David: My first book is ‘Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail’ by Cheryl Strayed. Let me set the stage: You’re standing in a sun-blasted clearing on the side of a mountain in northern California. You’re dirty. You’re exhausted. You’ve been hiking through blistering heat, over sharp rocks, through snow and dust, for weeks. You’re in your mid-20s. You’ve been dragging yourself — both physically and emotionally — through miles of wilderness because you’ve convinced yourself it’s the only way to make sense of your very messy life. Then, just as you stop for a breath, one of your heavy leather hiking boots – your lifeline – goes tumbling over the edge of a cliff. You watch it go. Then you get so mad, you take the other one and throw that one down after the first. You’re miles from nowhere. That’s how Wild starts.

David: This book feels like sitting down with a friend who’s ready to tell you a rough, true story—one with all the feels. It’s an adventure story. I picked it up because I was curious about the Pacific Crest Trail, but it’s also, maybe even mostly, a story about loss, forgiveness, and the messy business of being hurt. And trying to walk home from that.

David: Cheryl Strayed was 26 when she made what she calls a snap decision to hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail—known by hikers simply as the PCT. It’s one of the great long-distance hiking trails in the world — it runs more than 2,600 miles from Mexico to Canada, winding its way through California, Oregon, and Washington. It goes through 25 national forests, 7 national parks, and some of the most rugged wilderness in the United States.

David: There are seemingly all of the landscapes: arid deserts, snow-capped mountains, alpine forests, meadows, and volcanic fields. It’s not an easy trail. The terrain is rough. The weather is unpredictable. It takes most hikers four to six months to walk the whole thing—and fewer than half of those who start finish.

David: Strayed was wildly unprepared for any of that. No wilderness experience to speak of. No training. No compass skills. She overpacked her backpack so much she couldn’t stand up with it. Experts say your pack should weigh 25 to 35 pounds. She was carrying near her body weight. She had almost 25 lbs of water alone.

David: And why? Why would she do that? Because her life had fallen apart. Her mother had died suddenly of cancer—and her mother was her core. She unraveled. She was married, but started sleeping with anyone she could find. She experimented with heroin. She was drowning in grief and guilt. She hit bottom—and somehow convinced herself that the way back was to walk. Literally. Just walk it off.

David: So, she walks. She walks over scorched desert. Up snowy mountain passes. Through swarms of mosquitoes and across miles of blistering heat. She loses toenails. She runs into rattlesnakes, bears, a menacing Texas longhorn bull, and—late in the trip—a llama. She meets other hikers who, for the most part, are lovely, generous people. And she has one terrifying moment that feels like a sexual assault about to happen.

David: But the real magic in this book isn’t just in the scenery or the peril or the moments where everything feels right. It’s in the way she writes about the details of hiking alone. The failures. The fear. And her stubbornness. She unwraps her grief, but it never feels overwritten. It feels honest.

David: If Cheryl Strayed’s name sounds familiar, it might be because this book was everywhere when it came out in 2012. It was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Reese Witherspoon bought the movie rights before the book even hit shelves—then starred in the adaptation and earned an Oscar nomination. I watched the movie. The book is a good book; the movie is a good movie. Casting Laura Dern as her mother was brilliant. … When she dies, uh. ‘You leave Laura Dern alone!’ And, at least from my perspective, the hype was justified.

David: Wild makes you want to lace up your boots and go outside. To walk it off. To let some things go. Before we leave the PCT behind, I want to mention that there’s a lot more information available now than when Cheryl Strayed set out on her hike. One of the most interesting resources I found is a site called Halfway Anywhere. Every year, they survey people who’ve completed the trail—asking everything from ‘What gear did you use?’ to ‘What gear do you wish you’d used?’ to ‘What was your lowest moment?’ and ‘Do you have any advice for future hikers?’ It’s honest, detailed, and sometimes scary and sometimes funny. I loved reading about people’s advice for walking the trail and their gear! Turns out I can covet gear for something I am not involved with at all.

David: And all of that information completely confirmed my decision to not hike the PCT. Your results may vary. But it’s a great read. The book is ‘Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail’ by Cheryl Strayed.

Melissa: My second recommendation is ‘A Superior Death’ by Nevada Barr. This book is part of a mystery series starring an intrepid park ranger and investigator named Anna Pigeon. She’s an excellent character — very firmly in the tradition of detectives who have a solid ethical core and are driven by the broken parts inside them. In her case, she left New York City after her husband was killed, and she’s wrestled with alcoholism. She also has a complex, but loving, relationship with her sister, an accomplished psychiatrist.

Melissa: Anna is simultaneously courageous, vulnerable, and physically resilient. One of the things I love about her is that she’s hyper-capable on the job. She can hike for hours, drive a boat, dive deep into lake, fire a gun, full-on action her stuff. But she’s not invincible; she gets into plenty of life-and-death scrapes that feel like they could go either way. Anna is loosely based on the author who was a park ranger before she became a best-selling author. In my imagination, Anna is played by Sandra Bullock.

Melissa: The first book in the series was published in 1993. It won the Agatha Award AND the Anthony for best first mystery. That success lead to 18 more titles. Each one takes Anna to a different US National Park: Carlsbad Caverns, Ellis Island, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Maine’s Acadia, Glacier in Montana. The mysteries she solves rise out of the history and landscape of each location.

Melissa: For this episode, I chose the second book in the series — A Superior Death — for two reasons:

Melissa: One: It’s set in Isle Royale National Park. The author’s first Ranger job was boat patrol there, and I thought it would be fun to go back to her start.

Melissa: Two: I’d never heard of Isle Royale National Park. Do you know it? [DAVE] It’s a collection of 400 islands in Lake Superior. It’s home to all manner of animals — moose, timber wolves, loons, beavers, and red foxes — plus historic lighthouses and a famous shipwreck.

Melissa: One of the benefits of having Anna move from park to park is that she experiences the park as a newbie, so we do, too. There are really evocative descriptions of nature that revel in the beauty and acknowledge that it could kill you. Here’s an example that gives you a sense of the landscape and Anna’s character all at once:

Hoping to combat fear with knowledge, she’d spent her first two weeks as North Shore Ranger creeping about, chart in one hand, wheel in the other, her head hanging out of the window like a dog’s from a pickup truck. She had memorized the shape of every bluff, every bay, the location of every shoal and underwater hazard… Like most landlubbers, she was less afraid of shallow waters than she was of deep. Though the brutal cold of Superior would drown her a quarter of a mile from shore just as mercilessly as it would ten miles out. Anna seldom came in from open water without a sense of returning to safety. ‘Safe harbor’ — a phrase she’d heard bandied about since childhood — had been given a depth of meaning with Lake Superior’s first angry glance.

Melissa: In real life, deep in Lake Superior, is the wreck of the SS Kamloops, a freighter that sank with all hands in 1927. It was lost to time, then 50 years later, it was discovered lying on its starboard side at the bottom of an underwater cliff. It’s now a dangerous and technical dive site in the lake that’s compelling to hardcore divers. Just to make it extra creepy, there are still remains of FIVE sailors aboard the ship, preserved by the cold water. In the book, they’re described as ‘translucent as wraiths.’

Melissa: So… back to the novel. After a recreational dive to the wreck, two vacationers return topside and tell the tale of seeing SIX bodies down there. Soon Anna and her team realize they’ve got a murder on their hands, and there are plenty of suspects. They’ve also got a missing person, a super aggro Park Ranger, a troubled teenager, raucous families on holiday, and rumors about the mythological wendigo prowling the woods.

Melissa: This books cooks along at a pretty good pace, and there’s plenty of action and danger. The big showdown is SUPER tense and also believable.

Melissa: I read my first Anna Pigeon book way back in 2000, and I was a little trepidatious to see how the books would hold up. I loved this! It’s a cracking good mystery, and Anna is a very human badass that’s excellent company. I recommend the whole series in general and this one in particular.

Melissa: Just this month, it was announced that Anna Pigeon is coming to the screen. USA Network is developing a series. I wonder if they’ll cast Sandra Bullock!

Melissa: Until that airs, you can read all the books. This one is A Superior Death by Nevada Barr.

David: My second book is ‘A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon’ by Kevin Fedarko. The Grand Canyon is one of the most visited national parks in the United States. Every year, millions of people snap their selfies on the rim, marvel at the view, maybe hike a little into the trail. If you’re big into it, you might ride a mule for a while, or take a raft trip down the Colorado.

David: But fewer than two dozen people have ever walked the trail end to end. There’s no marked path. There are no reliable water sources. No trail angels offering granola bars or words of encouragement or first aid kits. It’s just miles and miles – hundreds of miles – of unmarked, brutal, jagged rock, sheer cliffs, flash flood zones, and desert wilderness.

David: The few people who have done it are a special breed. They’re extreme athletes or hardcore desert rats. Early in the book, Fadarko quotes a ranger, who says, ‘Off-trail hiking is unique to the Grand Canyon, and it requires a honed set of skills.’ … So the ranger is saying, “Not only do you have to have skills, you have to have skills that are specific to the Grand Canyon.” And then she says a thing that reverberates throughout the book. She says, quote, ‘It is not possible to hike the length of the canyon ‘off the couch.’’ She didn’t say, ‘Only an idiot would try this,’ but… you know. It’s right there.

David: And that’s hanging in the air, and then the door swings open, and in walks the author, Kevin Fedarko, and his buddy, photographer Pete McBride. “Hello!” – It’s not that they don’t have any skills. Fedarko was a river guide for a while. McBride specializes in outdoor journalism. But – long-distance desert hiking? … Not so much.

David: Still, they manage to convince National Geographic to let them take this on. They pitch it as a story about conservation—about the threats facing the Grand Canyon from tourism, mining, and development. And it is that. But the heart of the story is a lot more personal.

David: It’s a story about friendship, and finding humility, and failing spectacularly and getting back up. And it’s about falling in love with a place so hard that you’re willing to sacrifice over and over and over again.

David: I walked into this book with that setup, thinking, “dumbasses.” Why? Why would you do that? – And I got over it – mostly because Fedarko is thinking the same thing. There are footnotes in this book. They tend to be funny. At one point, Fedarko quotes McBride as saying, “Dude—we can do this thing off the couch.” And then he follows it up with this fantastic footnote:

In the interest of accuracy, balance, and maintaining my friendship with Pete, I’m compelled to disclose that he takes exception to the manner in which we have been depicted up to now.

He points out that during the months and weeks prior to the start of our hike, we went to great lengths to plan for this project, efforts that included researching our route, courting sponsors, purchasing gear, planning menus, packing food caches, and arranging for our permits with the National Park Service, pouring in so much energy and care that it is unfair to suggest, as I do in these pages, that we were behaving frivolously and irresponsibly, because it will invite readers to mistakenly conclude that we were a pair of incompetent ding-dongs who deserved to be treated like piñatas.

Some of this may be true.

My own view, however, is that despite these measures, he and I were unforgivably derelict in the area that mattered most, which was our duty to cultivate the experience and judgment that are prerequisites for responsibly traversing the length of the canyon.

Those fundamentals can only be acquired slowly and patiently over a period not of weeks or months, but years—and by investing the resource we were least willing to expend, which was our time.

Because of that, we were guilty of both hubris and negligence, and thus deserve—at least at this stage of our journey—a certain amount of mockery and disdain. Especially me.

David: Fedarko writes about the Grand Canyon not just as a landscape, but as almost a mythic supernatural titan—huge, living, breathing, so indifferent to your suffering, capricious – and also gorgeous and spiritual and transcendent and sublime.

David: The book also touches on the complicated history of the canyon. It plays a sacred role for Indigenous communities like the Havasupai, the Hopi, and the Navajo. There are environmental threats from uranium mining and massive tourist developments. The Colorado River — once wild and free — has been dammed and tamed almost out of existence. Fedarko and McBride’s journey becomes a kind of protest and a testimony.

David: And somehow in the middle of all that weight… the book is funny. These two guys bicker. They make terrible decisions. They pack way too much gear. They forget the sunscreen. They crawl through bushes and fall down cliffs and get chased by wild cattle. And through it all, you’re right there with them.

David: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Outside magazine have all praised Fedarko’s storytelling. This book is already being called one of the great adventure memoirs of our time.

David: If you’re curious about it, I absolutely recommend it. It’s ‘A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon’ by Kevin Fedarko.

Melissa: My final recommendation is ‘Devolution’ by Max Brooks. This book is completely different than everything else we’ve talked about today. The full title is ‘Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre.’ As you might guess, it’s a horror novel.

Melissa: I say horror novel. And it is! But this book is also about environmental issues. And capitalism. And our reliance on technology. And how social order is established and breaks down. And then there are spectacular, deadly Bigfoot raids, and a hero who rises up to try to save the day.

Melissa: Also: it’s epistolary! The core of the story is a diary.

Melissa: So, let me give you the outline of the plot so we can get into the meaty stuff.

Melissa: A group of people move into a smart-home community called Greenloop. It’s built in the shadow of Mount Rainier, which BTW is a volcano. In fact, Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. Put a pin in that.

Melissa: The Greenloop settlement is the brainchild of character who is like a more benevolent Elon Musk or a more nature-oriented Steve Jobs. He sees the community as one that lives in harmony with nature while taking advantage of high tech privilege. A group of 11 strangers — all with their own secret reasons to be there — are living in this would-be paradise.

Melissa: Then Mount Rainier erupts! And their man-made Shangri-la is cut off from the rest of the world. Then the Bigfoots show up. That’s about all I can say or it will spoil the fun.

Melissa: The author of this book is Max Brooks. You might recognize his name if you like zombie stories. He wrote the best selling ‘Zombie Survival Guide’ and the novel ‘World War Z’ — and a bunch of other stuff. He’s really good at using horror tropes to comment on serious topics. So even though it’s 100% accurate to describe ‘Devolution’ as a Sasquatch slasher story, it’s more literary than that — without sacrificing any fun.

Melissa: Here are three reasons I enjoyed this book: One: The characters. It’s a classic setup: a gathering of mismatched strangers all stuck with each other. There’s a couple in their 60s who are vegan and really want everyone to know it. And a lesbian couple — both psychologists — with a weird power dynamic and an adopted daughter caught in the middle. A pretentious male author, an older glass artist with a witchy vibe and mysterious past, and the founders: the tech guru I already mentioned and his wife, a model-turned-yoga teacher who’s very much in the mold of Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP. Our narrator is Kate. Her therapist has advised her to keep a diary to manage anxiety, so Kate dutifully chronicles her nature walks, observations about the other Greenloop residents, and later, details of Bigfoot encounters.

Melissa: Her diary is raw and vulnerable — she’s fragile when we meet her, and when everything goes wrong, she reveals a tough inner core. Mostar, the artist, is enigmatic and endearing. If you’re a reader of the Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny, Mostar reminded me of Ruth, the poet of Three Pines.

Melissa: The second thing I love: The epistolary format. Kate’s journal entries put you right inside the unfolding mystery. In addition to her diary, we get interviews with her brother and a National Park Service ranger. There are news reports and actual research on Bigfoot sprinkled throughout. It also includes excerpts from Teddy Roosevelt’s 1893 memoir, ‘The Wilderness Hunter.’ It all has a veracity that sent me to google what’s real and what’s fantasy. In an interview, the author said he’s been a life-long Bigfoot fan and knows all the lore. He worked from the premise that Bigfoot is real, and made himself an expert on primate behavior so he could apply that to the cryptids in his novel.

Melissa: The third awesome thing about this book is the setting — or, the two settings. First, Mount Rainier. We see it through Kate’s eyes, and her descriptions are vivid and vibrant. Here’s a bit:

Mount Rainier is out of a storybook. The white peak rising in the distance. The morning light turning its snow an orange pink. You’d expect a princess to live in a castle on the summit, or an angry dragon to sleep under its base. Sounds crazy, but I feel strangely safe every morning when I see Rainier, like it’s watching over us. I know the tremors we’ve been feeling… are coming from the mountain, but I can’t reconcile them with this protective giant ruling all he surveys.

Melissa: And the there’s Greenloop, the too-good-to-be-true community. It’s powered by solar panels and biofuel generators. They have awesome wi-fi connectivity via a single fiber-optic cable. Groceries are delivered via Amazon drone. As the sales pitch said, they have the best parts of both an urban and rural lifestyle. Until they don’t.

Melissa: If you like slasher movies, or enjoy Michael Crichton’s mashup of technology and gore — like Jurassic Park — or you enjoyed Fantasticland from our episode about Amusement Parks — I think you’ll get a kick out of this one. It’s ‘Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre’ by Max Brooks.

Melissa: I should also mention that the audiobook is performed by a full cast that includes the author as a researcher, the brilliant character actress Judy Greer as Kate, Nathan Fillion from Firefly as her brother, Terry Gross as herself, plus Kate Mulgrew, Steven Weber, and Jeff Daniels.

David: Those are five books we love, set in the National Parks. We know we couldn’t cover everything—and we’d really like to hear what you think we missed. If you’ve got a favorite book or a story of your own about a National Park, come join us on Patreon. After every episode, we host a little after-show chat—kind of like a book club, but cozier. It’s a lovely group of readers who gather to swap stories, share ideas, and keep the conversation going. You can join us for just $3 a month, and your support helps us keep making the show.

Melissa: And right now, we have a special offer for an annual membership.

David: If you’ve been thinking about joining our Patreon, now is an excellent time to do that!

Melissa: We just started an annual membership. We’re offering it for the next month. It’s 20% off our standard monthly membership of $6 a month, so you get the whole year for 57 dollars and 60 cents.

David: Let’s just call it a little less than $58. The advantage is that you get charged just once, and you become part of the really lovely community we have on Patreon for the whole year.

Melissa: Plus! We have a new perk for all Patreon members: an epic spreadsheet with every book we’ve talked about on the show, along with its genre, a brief description, the destinations it covers, a link to our full review. If you’re currently a member, you can download that now. And if you’re new, as soon as you join, you’ll get access to that and all of our previous posts.

David: So… you get the spreadsheet, you get a bunch of new bookish friends, you’ll be first to hear when we announce live events like our upcoming Manor House weekend in Wales, and you become a Patron of the Arts. You support our show, which we literally cannot make without the financial support of Patreon.

Melissa: Learn more at strongsenseofplace.com/support. If you’re not able to join Patreon right now, you can help us by telling a friend to listen to the show.

David: While you’re on our site, be sure to visit the show notes for this episode. It is PACKED with helpful links and videos about National Parks, whether you’re planning a trip or just want to explore from your couch.

Melissa: As always, thank you for listening to our show and for all your support.

David: Mel, next episode?

Melissa: By popular request from our Patrons, we’re getting curious about Hong Kong.

David: Thanks for listening, and we’ll talk to you soon.

[cheerful music]

Top image courtesy of Getty Images/Unsplash+.