Nature Noir : A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra

by Smith, Jordan Fisher

• ISBN13: 9780618711956
• ISBN10: 0618711953
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-03
• Publisher: Lightning Source Inc

Summary

A nature book unlike any other, Jordan Fisher Smith's startling account of fourteen years as a park ranger thoroughly dispels our idealized visions of life in the great outdoors. Instead of scout troops and placid birdwatchers, Smith's beat -- a stretch of land that has been officially condemned to be flooded -- brings him into contact with drug users tweaked out to the point of violence, obsessed miners, and other dangerous creatures. In unflinchingly honest prose, he reveals the unexpectedly dark underbelly of patrolling and protecting public lands.

Author Biography

Jordan Fisher Smith has been a park ranger for more than twenty years in Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, and California. Nature Noir is his first book. He lives with his wife and two young children in the northern Sierra Nevada.

Table of Contents

Prologue	1	(6)
A Day in the Park	7	(14)
It Never Rains in California	21	(22)
Career Development	43	(19)
Occurrence at Yankee Jims Bridge	62	(20)
Rocks and Bones	82	(22)
The Bridge over Purgatory	104	(16)
A Natural Death	120	(16)
Finch Finds His Roots	136	(20)
Crossing the Mekong	156	(12)
As Weak as Water	168	(22)
Eight Mile Curve	190	(12)
Epilogue	202	(12)
Acknowledgments	214