Stories from the Leopold Shack ─ Sand County Revisited

In 1949, Oxford University Press published ecologist and writer Aldo Leopold's (1887-1948) classic work,A Sand County Almanac. The book, which has sold over two million copies worldwide, develops Leopold's "land ethic," calling for a responsible relationship between people and the land they inhabit. It remains a touchstone text for the American conservation movement, and has been little less than foundational to the fields of environmentalism and ecology.

In this new project, Stories from the Leopold Shack Aldo's daughter Estella B. Leopold offers a window into the development of the land-ethic theory as it unfolded in her father's life and thought. She reveals this organic development through a series of biographical accounts centered on "the Shack," a small barn on 80 acres in south central Wisconsin purchased by Aldo in 1934 and used by the family every weekend. Working the land together, the family built more than a successful farm, habitable family shelter, or pleasant weekend getaway; they established a new way of living and relating to the land. This experiment became one of the earliest efforts in ecological restoration in the United States, and had a profound impact on Aldo Leopold's later work in forest management and conservationism.

This autobiographical collection begins with the shack and how it came to be rebuilt, giving readers a glimpse into the lives of the Leopold children as they grew up in it. It goes on to describe the family's efforts from 1935 until 1948 to begin ecological restoration on the property of the old farm, and concludes with a discussion of more recent and sustained restoration from 1948 until 2012, including the development of the Aldo Leopold Foundation and its work. Readers of this collection will certainly come away with not only a better understanding of the genesis of Leopold's "land ethic," but also an intimate portrait of the family that grew within Aldo's hub of restoration and conservation.

Estella B. Leopold, the daughter of conservationist and writer Aldo Leopold, is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Washington, Seattle.