Soldiers Delight Journal Exploring a Globally Rare Ecosystem

By Jack Wennerstrom

In this journal, the author describes his year-long walking adventures at the Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, a rare prairie remnant just seven miles northwest of Baltimore, Maryland. In his quest to make this wild place his \u201cnatural home\u201d throughout the course of four distinct seasons, Wennerstrom examines and contemplates rocks and minerals, plants, animals, prairies, floodplains, woodlands, lakes, ponds, pastures, mines and mills, Indian artifacts, as well as local legends and folklore.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822955504
• ISBN13: 9780822955504
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

You read it...you live it

A very detailed look at a beautiful area of the world. The writing makes you feel like you have been there. Lots of research in this one. Relax and enjoy the get-away.

A wonderful portrait of a small ecological niche.

Discount this review as you will; I must confess that I've known Jack for a number of years... Nonetheless, it's a beatutiful work. While some reviewers have compared him to Thoreau, I wouldn't go that far. But his love for the small deails of an eccosystm comes through exquisitly. As the title implies, Jack cronicles his frequent trips to Soldiers's Delight, a sort-of protected park near his home. It includes the geologic history of the area, as well as the history of human impact. And does a good job of riding the line between science and simple love for a place on the planet. It's clear to the reader that Jack loves the place, and his detailed, but not judgemental, descriptions of everything from the beauty of salamanders to piles of junk put you there. Maybe Jack isn't the next Thoreau. This book makes me think more of Hemmingway. A sort of restrained exuberance, and an economy of language that takes the reader into a place worth seeing. --del