Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act by Mark Harvey

Abstract

and Clark with Lang,Abbott, Roberta Conner, and Christopher Zinn, executivedirectorof the Oregon Council for theHumanities and for mer professor ofAmerican literature. Conner, who is amember of theConfederated Tribes of theUmatilla Indian Reservation and vice president of theNational Lewis and Clark Bi centennial Council Board ofDirectors, brings to the roundtable discussion a valuable Native American perspective thathelps explain why the Lewis and Clark commemoration (not a "celebration" for Indians, Conner is quick to explain) did not degenerate into the ugly accusations of genocide thatmarred the 1992 Columbian Quincentennial. All conversation alists agree that it isverydifficultto convey to Americans the multifaceted dimensions of the Lewis and Clark storybecause of thepopular and abiding appeal of the triumphalist nar rative. That narrative helped make Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage a best seller. Two Centuries ofLewis and Clark isa valu able book forreaders already familiarwith the dominant narrative of theLewis and Clark Ex pedition. Itsthreeparts offera valuable critique ofthat narrative. Italso offersan examination of thehistorical uses thathave been made of theExpedition. Its livelyconversational chapter will heighten readers' understanding of the significance of thebicentennial commemora tion ? the many successes and an occasional failure.It would be nice tohave a futureissueof the OregonHistorical Quarterly bring thesefour people together again after the formal end of theLewis and Clark Bicentennial inSeptember 2006 for a follow-up conversation that offers their retrospective assessment of all thatwas good, bad, or ugly about themulti-year com memoration. Carlos Schwantes Universityof Missouri-St. Louis WILDERNESS FOREVER: HOWARD ZAHNISER AND THE PATH TO THE WILDERNESSACT by Mark Harvey University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2005. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. 343 pages. $35.00 cloth. Mark Harvey's Wilderness Forever is a superb biography of thenation's preeminent postwar wilderness lobbyist.Harvey has given readers a detailed portrait of an activist who most environmental historians knowwas important but do not know well. Yet,writing thisbiogra This award-winning documentary, now on DVD, reveals thehistoric Indian fishery on the mid-Columbia that was drowned in 1957when theDalles Dam began operation. Through a combination of rarehistoric filmsand photo graphs,CeltioFalls and the Remaking oftheColumbia River provides a glimpse of the lifeatCelilo as itonce was and considers thecultural, social, and political forces thatbrought about its end, signaling a new era in the relationship between people and nature. 29 minutes, color, DVD. ORESU-V-06-002. $19.95 plus S&H, from Oregon Sea Grant Communications 541-737-2716 http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu Seamnt Oregon Reviews 465 phy ofHoward Zahniser was not without its challenges. Unlike otherAmerican wilderness figures such as John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Bob Marshall, David Brower, or Dave Foreman, Zahniser did not have a big personality or leave a towering literary legacy.Although he was no stranger to thewilderness, he never climbed to the top of a tree to better experi ence a fierce storm,hiked seventymiles in a day, advocated ecotage, or saw thefiercegreen fire dying in a wolf's eyes. Zahniser was the wilderness movement's bureaucrat-activist, theman in the legislative trenches doing the dull work of wilderness freedom. However important Zahniser was, and Harvey makes a compelling case thatZahniser stands tall in such distinguished company, his life was ulti mately more mundane. Despite this challenge,Harvey breathes life into "Zahnie," as he was known. Zahniser was born in 1906 innorthwesternPennsylvania, the son of aMethodist minister. His faith,rooted in family,played a powerful role inhis career as awilderness activist. At Greenville College in Illinois, he studied English and joined his pas sion fornaturewith a loveof the writtenword. Upon graduating, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he held a series of editorial jobs in the federalgovernment ? firstin theCom merce Department, thenwith the Biological Survey, and finallywith theU.S. Department ofAgriculture (where he worked on theVic toryGarden campaign duringWord War II). As William Cronon notes in his foreword, Zahniser's early lifeand careerwere remarkably similar to those of Rachel Carson, who also grew up inwestern Pennsylvania, combined a love of nature and literature,and came to environmental consciousness as an editor in the federal bureaucracy. That parallel is fas cinating, and Harvey might have done more to examine the role the federal bureaucracy played in producing postwar environmen tal activists. Nonetheless, one of the signal...