Review: Bowen Blair’s “A Force for Nature”

“Nancy Russell was one of those great heroines whose quest to save the Columbia Gorge in Oregon serves as an inspirational tale that embodies the best of American grit and determination.”

Hikers are among the greatest recipients of the gift of conservation. Those who engaged in the long and arduous struggle, an intense journey in and of itself, to conserve our nation’s most pristine and beautiful nature preserves have given to posterity countless joys and memories. The struggle and journey of hiking are, as someone who is an avid hiker, just as important and fulfilling as the destination.

Everyone is familiar with America’s premier national parks. Yet there are many smaller national treasures that exist in their preserved state thanks to the steadfast efforts of previous generations of conservationists. Nancy Russell was one of those great heroines whose quest to save the Columbia Gorge in Oregon serves as an inspirational tale that embodies the best of American grit and determination.

Russell was one of many who fell in love with the “botanical laboratory” of the Columbia Gorge and its “thousand wildflower species.” Bowen Blair, the author who tells Russell’s story, aptly reminds us of the mountainous river valley that caught Russell’s eye: “The Columbia Gorge is a place of complexity and unreconciled conflict—conceived by fire and flood, alluring in beauty and profit, cherished and exploited.” Perhaps it is fitting that so many of America’s great naturalistic preserves, from the Appalachian Trail in the east to Yellowstone and Yosemite in the west, to the Columbia Gorge in Oregon, are instantiations of America’s own history which is complex and born of conflict, “conceived by fire and flood, alluring in beauty and profit, cherished and exploited.” It is an American tale. It is America’s tale.