Wallace Stegner: His Writing Helped Keep Wilderness Wild

National Wildlife Magazine, Feb/March 2003

WALLACE STEGNER was never one to curl up on the couch with an old Western movie. He was usually far too busy for that sort of thing. Not to mention the fact that he hated Hollywood's vision of the "wild" West: rugged cowboys riding off into sunsets, Indians toting tomahawks. The silver-haired author was much more likely to be found in his study, peering through black, plastic-rimmed glasses as he tapped away at a novel about the real wild West: "A more fragile environment than any well-watered country," he once said, and when hurt, it "doesn't heal."
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