In this debut book, Jackson explores California’s public lands—not the national parks and forests, but the 15 million acres that fall under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management. The quest began when a beleaguered Jackson couldn’t book a campsite in Southern California. A friend recommended the BLM lands, which require no reservations. Energized by a trip to the desert with his children, he eventually visited all the BLM lands in California, including the Lost Coast in Northern California, Berryessa, the Carrizo Plain, the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, almost a dozen wild rivers, and the Mojave and Colorado deserts. Once considered “leftover lands,” those parcels were considered “too unattractive for the National Park Service, too bare for the Forest Service, and too lifeless for the Fish and Wildlife Service.” Yet as Jackson’s photographs make clear, these places possess an undeniable if often desolate beauty. His project was a literary one as well. At various points, he cites Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, and environmental historian William Cronon. Although Jackson affirms Terry Tempest Williams’ claim that every pilgrimage to the desert is also a pilgrimage to the self, his sense of nature’s sacredness is less ecstatic than Muir’s: “Holiness here is a not a rapture; it is a whisper, reminding you that everything you need to see is around you at every moment.” Jackson is also a reliable guide to the earthly realities of managing these vast holdings. With its many photographs, maps, illustrations, and practical tips for exploring BLM lands, the book invites readers to move beyond what Leopold called American conservation’s concern with show pieces.
