Digital Reviews

Patrick Kelly, Media And Book Review Editor

Wilderness Digest

October 2024 | Volume 30, Number 2

Hush of the Land: A Lifetime in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, by Arnold “Smoke” Elser and Eva-Maria Maggi. 2024. University of Nebraska Press.

These stories celebrate a land, the Bob Marshall Wilderness and the Bitterroot Mountains. These stories also celebrate a life, the career of a man who guided more than half a century of visitors to these remarkable places. More than history and more than biography, however, these stories are an invitation to join the celebration, to experience the place, to become a reflective and appreciative part of the story of these lands and the life they afford.

Hush of the Land records the stories of Arnold “Smoke” Elser. Working as outfitter to the Bob Marshall Wilderness for 57 years, Smoke made a career of sharing the experience and stories of the land. He served as a guide to thousands – hardy scout troops, big game hunters, and families from New York City who had never seen a sky full of stars. He led trips for a generation of business leaders and politicians, each leaving determined to protect and expand wilderness. He aided Indigenous tribal elders during a decade of trips to document and preserve their history on the land. And he shared the stories of the land, and his increasingly storied career on it, with each of them.

A reader with no knowledge of designated wilderness will gain an eyewitness account of what it is and what it took to preserve it. A reader with no knowledge of horses, mules, or pack trains, will gain a longing for the saddle. But even scholars and explorers of the Bob will learn something new and find it all charming.

The book is a result of a chance meeting. Scholar and equestrian Eva-Maria Maggi took one of Smoke’s packing classes at the University of Montana. Like all his other students, she recognized the treasure of Smoke’s stories. With no larger project in mind, she asked to meet regularly to record any story Smoke felt like telling. Eva-Maria collected hundreds of hours of trail and campfire stories. While the recordings can be safe in an archive, the present book collects the best in a package designed to take on the trail.

The stories are simple, but always worthwhile. Some readers might wish for either more advocacy or more poetry, more fire or more flowers. But Smoke’s stories are steady, just like the pack trains he led for so many years. They don’t push. They don’t preach. Instead, they point steadily away from themselves, back to the land. They invite you to look over the landscape and simply enjoy the view. This invitation is the value. As Smoke puts it: “At night after dinner around the campfire I’d tell them the stories of the land that I had heard and some that happened to me. Stories bring us closer, connect us deeper to the world around us. My stories travel home with them, and my love for the Bob Marshall Wilderness becomes their love for the land” (p. 3)

REVIEWED BY Charles Hayes, visiting professor of philosophy, University of Montana; email: charles.hayes@mso.umt.edu.

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