Jumping between memoir and government history makes Kenyon’s book somewhat sprawling, but it succeeds in making the political simultaneously personal and universal. He also makes a strong argument for why two often politically opposed factions, hunters and environmentalists, should come together under the #KeepItPublic banner. Though the legislative details are rather dry, Kenyon successfully communicates his deep admiration for the visionaries responsible, among them Bob Marshall, John Muir, and Theodore Roosevelt. These vast expanses provide a home to wildlife populations, a vital source of clean air and water.

These more experiential sections alternate with historically centered ones that detail how the American wilderness first came under federal protection. From prominent outdoorsman and nature writer Mark Kenyon comes an engrossing reflection on the past and future battles over our most revered landscapes-America’s public lands.

Every American is a public-land owner, inheritor to the largest public-land trust in the world.

Kenyon’s writing and traveling style are equally companionable accompanied at various points by his wife, father, and friends, he evokes in his prose an appealing sense of shared experience. Reacting against a new conservative movement to transfer federally owned wilderness into private hands, Kenyon decided to “literally ground self in” the U.S.’s public land system, embarking on a grand tour in which he made time for, among other things, backpacking in Yellowstone, antler collecting in Missouri, and fishing in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Wilderness blogger and podcaster Kenyon documents a historically and environmentally aware road trip in his inspiring debut.

That Wild Country by Mark Kenyon