 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
View the study guide below, or download the .pdf version.
Overview
A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There is not a novel, but it certainly does qualify as a piece of creative writing. The book has three distinct parts. The "Sand County Almanac" goes month by month, relating Leopold's experiences with nature at and around his family's shack in central Wisconsin. In the second section, "Sketches Here and There", Leopold uses anecdotes from other places and times to share some of the lessons he has learned. Finally, "The Upshot" contains a few more discursive essays and lays out Leopold's critique of American culture. The book is worth reading because Leopold is a complex and curious figure: he's a hunter and woodcutter yet a conservationist too. At the time of the book's initial publication in the 1940s, his ideas were revolutionary, and in many ways they remain so today.
Author
Aldo Leopold (1886-1948). Conservationist, forester, professor who pushed for setting aside wilderness with neither roads nor man-made structures. Leopold was born to Carl Leopold and Clara Starker Leopold in Burlington, Iowa, where he was raised with a love of nature and hunting. After graduating from Yale in 1908, he earned a master's degree at Yale's Forest School. He entered the U.S. Forest Service and worked in various positions in the Arizona-New Mexico district. In 1924, he succeeded in getting the government to create the Gila Wilderness Area in New Mexico; it is the first reserved wilderness and contains very few roads and no buildings. He went on to teach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where a new professorship in game management was created especially for him. Leopold died in 1948 after suffering a heart attack while fighting a grass fire on a neighbor's farm not far from his shack. A Sand County was published in 1949 and has been taught in Freshman Studies many times.
Discussion questions
- How do the three parts of this book fit together? They were written at different times, so it's possible they don't really fit together at all? Would the work be more effective if the parts were rearranged?
- What is Leopold's view of American culture and the American economy? What does Leopold want to have done with wilderness? How does he want Americans to see and use nature?
- What would Leopold think about today's society? Are we making progress? How many people would now be ready to agree with - and live by - Leopold's "land ethic"?
- What is Leopold's view of education? Are his views consistent with his position or vocation as a professor? Is his love of hunting consistent with his position as a conservationist? (Students are often interested in these tensions and contradictions.)
- What was most surprising about this work? Would you ever recommend it to a friend? Do you think you'd be more likely to recommend it to a person who already considers herself an environmentalist or a person who doesn't much care for the "great outdoors"?
Podcast and lecture
If you're interested in learning more about Leopold, you might enjoy this discussion (which we're calling a "podcast") with Professor Marcia Bjornerud. It was recorded in the summer of 2007, and it may help you to imagine how current students respond to this work.
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/freshman_studies/media/mp3/interviews/20070830-bjornerud-spurgin.mp3
You may also enjoy this lecture, delivered by Professor Peter Fritzell in the fall of 2002. In the lecture, Professor Fritzell explains how Leopold should be read. Multiple word meanings, contradictions paired together, and textual slippages are the basis for his lecture. He points out examples and tackles the different ways in which to reckon with them. This lecture could be the starting point for a very interesting discussion of Leopold's language and style. The focus is on the forward and the almanac but towards the end Leopold's famous "land ethic" also receives close attention.
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/freshman_studies/lectures/0203/leopold.shtml
Visit the link below for all Freshman Studies lectures for the past ten years, including several on Leopold.
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/freshman_studies/lectures/
Links
There are several interesting websites for readers and admirers of Leopold.
- The Aldo Leopold Foundation, headquartered in Baraboo, WI, has a great site.
http://www.aldoleopold.org - The foundation also organizes tours of Leopold's shack.
http://www.aldoleopold.org/visit/shack.htm - The Aldo Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture is another interesting place.
http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/