In a cutting room floor excerpt from host Lauren Korn’s conversation with packers Arnold “Smoke” Elser and Eva-Maria Maggi, co-authors of Hush of the Land: A Lifetime in the Bob Marshall Wilderness (Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press), Lauren asks the two what they’ve learned from each other.
Hush of the Land is a memoir that chronicles Smoke’s six-decade quest to protect wild lands by bringing thousands of people deep into the mountains of Montana, into the Bob Marshall Wilderness, on horseback. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews, Hush of the Land tells the captivating story of Smoke’s early days as a packer in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and in the Bitterroot Mountains. Readers will share in the joys and thrills of summer rides, harrowing grizzly bear encounters, fishing in clear mountain streams, and many nights around a campfire within some of the West’s last wild lands and with the people who know those lands best. Smoke also recounts how his testimony for the Wilderness Act, and the fight to preserve and expand Montana’s wilderness lands, influenced his career as an outfitter and educator and gave him a voice at the center of Montana’s conservation movement.
Note: The link to the aired conversation can be found below.
About Smoke:
Arnold “Smoke” Elser is a professional animal packer and a semi-retired instructor of wilderness outfitting and packing at the University of Montana, from which he received a 2023 Distinguished Alumni Award. His work as an educator and outfitter has been covered in National Geographic and the PBS documentary Three Miles an Hour. He is also the co-author, with Bill Brown, of Packin’ In on Mules and Horses.
About Eva:
Eva-Maria Maggi, Ph.D., is a writer, social scientist, and packer, and teaches courses on wilderness issues at the University of Montana.
