A Sportsman's Ethos: Jim Harrison's Environmental Ideals (Essay‪)‬

Contemporary poet, novelist, and essayist Jim Harrison is a prodigious author whose literature has been translated into twenty-two different languages. He is also an avid sportsman and his art relies heavily on place and humanity's relationship to the land that it inhabits. Critics and reviewers of Jim Harrison's canon have long observed his affinity with the outdoors and his sensitive portrayals of sylvan and rural life. In a typical review, Daniel G. Marowski observes in 1985 that "central to most of his work is a strong sense of the outdoors. It frequently combines nature imagery, ecological awareness, a keen attention to sensory details, and an outdoorsman's toughness." Fifteen years later, the Salon.com Readers Guide to Contemporary Authors asserts that Harrison's "descriptions of the natural world are some of the most lyrical in contemporary literature, but they are also tinged with fear and anger at the frailty of it. In recent years, his work has become increasingly concerned with wildlife and wildness." However, with the exceptions of Patrick Smith's 'The True Bones of My Life' (2002), which makes several nods towards Harrison's environmental credo, William Barillas's new release, The Midwestern Pastoral (2006), which devotes a chapter to Harrison's contributions to the genre, and David R. Pichaske's 2006 book, Rooted: Seven Midwestern Writers of Place, most reviews and discussions rarely meditate on Harrison's actual environmental ethos for more than a couple of paragraphs. A more developed definition of Harrison's ecological consciousness is needed. Likewise, the fields of American and Sport Literature will benefit from an extended study of Harrison's thoughts on the sporting life and land stewardship. Jim Harrison's sporting essays (often published in popular press magazines like Field and Stream and Esquire Sportsman) and his hunting and fishing memoirs are important texts in which he describes, to both a critical and general audience, what Aldo Leopold would call his "land ethic," a vision of the land that in Leopold's words, "simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively, the land ... In short, the land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such" (204). His ties to Leopold--a fellow hunter--are made clear at the onset of "Pie in the Sky." In this essay, Harrison says that Leopold's masterpiece, A Sand County Almanac (1949), is one of four books in American literature that would create great democratic and ecological progress in our nation if read, comprehended, and acted upon by Congress. Harrison's canon of hunting and fishing texts both entertain and educate; they are not merely Hemingwayesque "big fish" stories that celebrate masculine endeavors and feats of accomplishment in the great out-of-doors. The aim of these essays is to embrace the beauty of Nature--Nature is a guide and mentor; in order for a hunter/fisherman to be truly successful, s/he must feel an interconnection to it and understand it in ways that others do not. He emphasizes tradition and a concept of "fair sport." He presents to his readership an ecologically and morally responsible vision of the flora and fauna and the sportsman's relationship to them. He sets this vision in opposition to the "game hogging," poaching, and macho posturing that he derides as a gluttonous waste of resources throughout his canon.