A look inside the book:

From the Preface:

My friend Mark and I paddled down the Clarion River in

Pennsylvania. We were dressed in full buckskin. Our clothes

were made from hides we had brain-tanned ourselves. We

carried longbows of hickory and ash that we had made. Flint-tipped

arrows of viburnum wood filled our quivers. Our minds were filled with

vision. To gather all of our food, live in a shelter we made without tools,

sit by a fire lit by no match, and become one with the wilderness. We de-

spised civilization and revered nature. Every morning and evening was

a fully attuned meditation to the forest around us. We had trained for

this trip for years, learning ancient primitive skills, spending thousands

of hours in the woods.

Our camp was far from where any hiker would discover us, tucked

back on the mountain under a canopy of rhododendron and red maple.

It was the month of May. I had just left Rochester, New York. Living

in the suburbs, I was craving the wilderness, desperate for her truths.

The town was dirtied everywhere by the hands of people. Houses, wires,

fences, garbage, streets, electric lights, cars: It was all in the way of what

I thought was real.

As the days went by on our camping trip, I slowly began to realize

how quiet it was there. It was too quiet. When I left Rochester, it had

been bursting with the life of spring. The dawn chorus of birds had

been overwhelming during my morning sits. But here in the wilderness,

under an endless canopy of red maple, it was silent. Maybe I would see

a robin or two at dawn, maybe a chipmunk. In Rochester, in the heart

of the suburbs, I had been encountering thousands of birds, foxes, rac-

coons, deer, mink, opossums, skunks, squirrels, coyotes, and many other

creatures on a daily basis. Here in the “wilderness,” it was silent.

This was the beginning of my realization that people are not bad.

We can be helpful or destructive to wildlife populations. It all depends

on how we focus our energy, on what we do to the soils and how we

influence plant communities.

The hills along the Clarion River where we camped were covered in

close to 100 percent red maple. Those red maples had seeded in at just

the right time following a heavy logging operation 50 to 80 years ago. If

someone had taken the time to plant just a few specific trees at the time

of disturbance, then I would have been in a very different forest. Leav-

ing that land alone following disturbance had its own dramatic effect.

Choosing to do nothing with a piece of land is a big choice that carries

significant consequences.

We live at a time where there is widespread disturbance all around us.

The ground is open and waiting for seeds. We can bemoan the tragedies

that nature has endured or we can cast seeds and plant a future. We can

and do influence the ecosystems around us more than any other species.

That influence can come through reckless destruction, blind abandon-

ment, or conscious intent. This book is about making the choice to

participate in nature through conscious intent by working with trees.