Journal 3: Aldo Leopold, A The Sand County Almanac

Please read Parts I and IV and "Thinking Like a Mountain." Beyond your answer to one of the following, try to ask one question that lingers in your mind that we can talk more about in class.

1. Why does Leopold call his book an "almanac"? Look up "almanac in Britannica online (access through your library).  Also see "comparison with encyclopaedia" and in "American colonies."

2. Many readers can't fathom how a great ecologist could also have been a wildlife manager and hunter. What do you think? See The Transformation of Aldo Leopold, How Hunting Affected Aldo Leopold's Thinking, Aldo Leopold Father of Wildlife Management.

3. Leopold never describes the exact location of his "shack" in Sand County, a fictitious name for a real part of Wisconsin. Can you figure out where the shack was, and why this region lent itself so well to his ecological theories? See this link (and subsequent other ones) for help:  About Aldo Leopold.

4. Leopold was a founder of The Wilderness Society, and it honors him today with a page on "Perspectives on 'The Land Ethic.'" Read one of the accounts.  How does it account square with your own reading?