Walking Home Ground book review
By Robert Root
Hardcover: $22.95
Paperback: $22.95
224 pages
ISBN: 978-0-87020-786-0
E-book: $9.99
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About
the book
A lyrical mix of memoir, travel
writing, and environmental history When longtime author Robert Root moves to a
small town in southeast Wisconsin, he gets to know his new home by walking the
same terrain traveled by three Wisconsin luminaries who were deeply rooted in
place—John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and August Derleth. Root walks with Muir at John
Muir State Natural Area, with Leopold at the Shack, and with Derleth in Sac
Prairie; closer to home, he traverses the Ice Age Trail, often guided by such
figures as pioneering scientist Increase Lapham. Along the way, Root
investigates the changes to the natural landscape over nearly two centuries,
and he chronicles his own transition from someone on unfamiliar terrain to
someone secure on his home ground.
In prose that is at turns
introspective and haunting, Walking Home
Ground inspires us to see history’s echo all around us: the parking lot
that once was forest; the city that once was glacier.” Perhaps this book is an
invitation to walk home ground,” Root tells us. “Perhaps, too, it’s a time
capsule, a message in a bottle from someone given to looking over his shoulder
even as he tries to examine the ground beneath his feet.”
My
review
Root begins his story by admitting
he’s a non-native Wisconsinite, though claims home territory along the Great
Lakes. A naturalist, an observer, teacher, and one endowed with curiosity, Root
endeavored to discover and begin to learn all he could about his final home in
a way few even bother to consider. Having just relocated from one side of the
state to another to settle on a farm we’ve owned for over twenty years, I was
enamored by Root’s introspection and tenacity to uncover secrets of the land,
and perhaps, portend the future. He kept a detailed journal of his hikes,
research, and thoughts for several years.
As mentioned in the blurb, Root
follows three of our more known historical naturalist homeboys on his tour
after becoming familiar with his immediate new neighborhood west of Milwaukee.
He visits John Muir’s boyhood territory in Marquette County, as well as August Derleth’s
Prairie du Sac/Wisconsin River, and Aldo Leopold’s sand country. These three
lived and wrote about south central Wisconsin. Root spent hours with maps and
literature from Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources and the Ice Age
Trail Alliance, as well as dozens of resources about the authors, nature,
topography, geography, history, and so forth about the area. The book is filled
with generous details of the types of land, the differences between fen, bog,
and marsh, the type of flora during the different seasons, underground, soil,
native and invasive species. His knowledge of bird and animal life leaves me
envious.
A somewhat saddened note sounds
toward the end of the book in the section “The Land Itself.” “Settlement
eliminated a great deal of Wisconsin life,” Root writes. Early pioneers
describe a wondrous mix of topography and its supporting flora and fauna. “The
last bison was killed in 1832,” he says, with a litany of now missing creatures.
In his epilogue, Root invites us to “see the land as a community to which” we
belong, and urges us to consider our lifestyle’s impact on the environment. He’s
encouraged me to get to know my little piece of Wisconsin better.
Detailed and thought-provoking, Walking
Home Ground is for those who love Wisconsin and enjoy nature and
environmental reading. It’s a subtle call to action, and a request to remember
where and who we are.
Any quibbles I had are the lack of
maps, though I understand the reader is encouraged to get out his own map, or
better yet, go. The book is detailed as mentioned above; once or twice I almost
expected a test at the end of the segment. Included is an Index and a Resource
list.
About
the author
Bob Root (Robert L. Root Jr.)
believes he has been a writer since he was around eight years old, when he came
home with a friend from a showing of Superman and the Mole Men, pried
open the lock on his mother’s typewriter, and created a series of very short
adventures about Tiger Boy.
A frequent presenter on creative nonfiction and composition at national,
international, and regional conferences, his scholarship and teaching led to
many articles and books.
From 2008 until 2017 Bob was a visiting faculty member in creative nonfiction
in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Ashland University in Ohio. He is
currently a teaching artist at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and a
freelance editor of essays, memoirs, and literary nonfiction. He lives in
Waukesha, Wisconsin.
