Author’s Landscape, Nature Writing Uncluttered By Politics

For a grassland range ecologist, Don Gayton is an unusual blend of opinions and attitudes.

He has, for example, spent the last 15 years doing range management work for various Canadian agencies. Even now, he lives in Nelson, British Columbia, where he works for the British Columbia Forest Service.

At the same time, he has a semi-mystical side. And it is as author of the book “Landscapes of the Interior: Re-Explorations of Nature and the Human Spirit” (New Society Publishers, 176 pages, $14.95) that the two halves of his character come together.

“I guess my basic motivation is to try to blend the scientific-technical information with the more introspective and, dare I use the term, mystical and spiritual aspects of landscape,” he said recently during a phone interview. “I guess landscape is the integrator of everything I’m interested in.”

Gayton’s belief is that we are all prone to connection with landscape, even driven to it. He calls this connection a “primal bond.”

“It’s like the little chick that is born and gets attached to the first thing it sees and thinks it’s his mother,” he said.

His own connection was attenuated, he says, because of his father’s spirit of wanderlust. They moved from Los Angeles when Gayton was 12 and spent the next years moving all over the Northwest. Gayton earned his bachelor’s degree at Washington State University, and his master’s in plant ecology at the University of Saskatchewan.

“I think I missed that primal bond, and now I’m going around and saying, ‘Is this it?’ or ‘Is that it?’ I tend to get attached to nearly every landscape that I see.”

In his book, which he will read from at various Spokane-area locations this week (see below), Gayton deals with his love of landscape by tackling issues such as the overlogging of the Olympic Peninsula and the historical causes of the great Spokane flood of 10,000 years ago.

But he does so in a way that, he says, is determinedly apolitical.

“It’s a bit of a copout, but my contribution to the environment is to try to be a damned good writer,” he said. “I don’t like polemics, I don’t like political rhetoric. I’m interested in creative writing. That’s a bit of a jiujitsu transaction, to try to write about nature and landscapes, acknowledge the environmental threats that are out there but not let your writing be dragged down by the environmental message.

“That is a very important and worthy message,” Gayton said, “but messages can be quite toxic to good writing.”

A literary reader

Fans of the “Radio Reader,” Dick Estell’s nightly rendering of literary efforts for National Public Radio, might be interested in listening in for the next few weeks. Estell is reading “Return With Honor,” Scott O’Grady’s account of being shot down over Bosnia and surviving for six days before being rescued.

“Radio Reader” is carried in the Spokane area by Spokane Public Radio KPBX from 6:30 to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

The reader board

Jack Olsen, author of “Salt of the Earth” (St. Martin’s Press, 376 pages, $24.95), will read from his book at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Auntie’s Bookstore. Olsen is the author of “Son: A Psychopath and His Victims,” “Give a Boy a Gun” and “The Bridge at Chappaquiddick.”

Don Gayton, author of “Landscapes of the Interior: Re-Explorations of Nature and the Human Spirit,” will read from his book at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at BookPeople in Moscow and at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington, Spokane. Gayton also is scheduled to sign copies of his book at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Washington State University student bookstore in Pullman and at noon Thursday at the Eastern Washington University student bookstore in Cheney.

Jess Walter, author of “Every Knee Shall Bow” and “In Contempt,” will sign copies of his books from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at the Coeur d’Alene Hastings Books Music & Video outlet, 101 Best Ave., and from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday at the Spokane Hastings outlet at 1704 W. Wellesley.

Warren Yahr, author of “Smokechaser,” will sign copies of his book on Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at the University of Idaho Bookstore in Moscow and from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Book and Game Co. in Lewiston.

William Kittredge, author of “Who Owns the West,” will read from his book at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Auntie’s Bookstore.

, DataTimes