00:00 - Announcer (Host)
The following is a production of Wild Idea Media. 

00:05 - Bill (Host)
Welcome to the Wild Idea Podcast, where, together, we are exploring the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. We have a conversation today with the founder of the Forgotten Lands Project and author of the just released book the Enduring Wild. Josh Jackson is gonna be joining us here in just a minute. Anders, good afternoon to you, oh hi, bill, I have a question. 

00:28 - Anders (Host)
I have a house guest right now. They got in over the weekend. It's a friend that's stayed with me before and so I tried to anticipate their needs. You know me, I'm very giving. I try to anticipate their needs by stocking the fridge with the things I remembered they liked. And when they arrived kind of late and caught their breath and got settled and went for that drink, what they found in the fridge was a bounty of LaCroix and kombucha and string cheese, which I knew is what they wanted, and it felt so good to see a big smile and to hear the words I was looking for. Very well done. If you know me, you know how well I respond to positive reinforcement. So anyway, here's what I'm curious about how would you fill your fridge or stock your pantry if you knew I was coming to visit you? 

01:23 - Bill (Host)
Good question. I mean this is going to show either how little I pay attention or how little I value our friendship. I don't know. There's one thing I know for a fact I would have Coke in 12-ounce cans for sure. Beyond that, what I'm trying to think about, I mean a lot of the time that you and I have spent together have actually been sort of out in the wild, yeah, and so that kind of influences what I've seen you consume, and it's generally like a communal thing where somebody is making a meal, man, the consistent thing I can come up with is just that red Coke. Can I know that's? I also recognize it because, like me, you're not a big coffee drinker. Oh yeah, it's your vice, just like Dr Pepper is my vice, right? You're not a big coffee drinker? Oh yeah, it's your vice, just like Dr Pepper is my vice, right, you would know to get. 

02:05 - Anders (Host)
Dr Pepper for me, right? I'm cracking one of those open early in the morning and I'm addicted to Coke. I hope that's not taken out of context. I'm sure it won't be. Bill, I know what I would have for you. Let me see if I'm right. I would have some tequila, some orange juice, rinodine, maybe an orange that's already sliced, or maraschino cherry. Do you know what I'm getting at here? 

02:30 - Bill (Host)
Yeah, You're getting at a tequila sunrise. You'd be right. And for you I would probably at least make sure there was something besides an IPA in the fridge, probably a brown ale specifically. So, yeah, maybe, maybe I know a little bit more than uh than I thought I did. Very well done, yeah. Well, enough about our personal vices and the fact that Anders is addicted to Coke. Heard it here first, folks. We are joined today by Josh Jackson. Josh is a writer, photographer and speaker who's been out sort of capturing the wild beauty of some of our overlooked places. Specifically, Josh, I'll just say, sort of stumbled upon, discovered and opened his eyes to the beautiful world of the Bureau of Land Management and, unlike most people, he decided to kind of dig in a little bit. Founder of the Forgotten Lands Project, and just in the last few weeks Josh has released a fantastic book called the Enduring Wild that I highly recommend you picking up and we'll be talking about quite a bit on this episode of the Wild Idea. So, Josh, welcome to the Wild Idea podcast. 

03:39 - Josh Jackson (Host)
Thank you so much for having me. Big fan of the pod, it's great to be on. 

03:43 - Bill (Host)
I guess I want to start with a thoroughly enjoyed the Enduring Wild. The full title A Journey into California's Public Lands. It is a joyful experience, I guess is how I would put it. It is not a coffee table book, but it's a book full of beautiful photographs. It's not a travel log, but it literally is a collection of journeys across your home state of California, and it's also not some heavy and dense tome on the history of public lands, and yet it is sort of all of those things rolled into one and much more. Frankly, I'm curious how do you describe the work and sort of what led you to create it? 

04:20 - Josh Jackson (Host)
That's a great description. Can we just use that for future stuff with my publisher? They would love that California, these BLM lands. But I also wanted to, kind of almost like a memoir, take people through the journey that I was on, through all these books that I was reading and all this information and research I was taking in the pages kind of trace this wandering of landscapes and ideas. You know I talk about reciprocity. 

04:59
I go into the you know William Cronin's the Trouble with Wilderness essay and wrestle with these sentiments I held about wilderness my whole life as being this Eden and escaping the city, and I also wrestle with this idea of pilgrimage. 

05:16
You know so much of BLM land in California is in the Mojave and Colorado deserts and I never was a desert person and so going to these places really pushed and prodded my preconceived notions about nature. I even talk about this idea of the radical center that was kind of popularized in the 90s and 2000s in a book called the Working Wilderness where they talk about the audaciousness of compromise and how to get things done. And I go back to the 60s and 70s during this environmental movement when so much was happening. I mean Richard Nixon said public lands are the breathing space of the nation like this, such a poetic. I want to name the book Breathing Space because I found it so poetic and true. So yeah, I think it's. It's a book of photographs and it's a book of essays and hopefully, as people kind of journey through it, not only will they want to get out to these places all over the West but also wrestle with maybe some ideas that they either hadn't thought about it or hadn't gone too deeply into. 

06:20 - Anders (Host)
Josh, I want to echo Bill's praise for the book. I really enjoyed reading this and I want listeners to know that I am serious when I say that this is a really great book to pick up and learn more, not just about those ideas that you're talking about, those ideas of pilgrimage and place and what is wild, but also more about the Bureau of Land Management. But before we get into some questions about landscapes, I have a question about writing. One of the writers you reference as being able to articulate very well your mood as you come to terms with your change in perspective about wilderness, and wildness is a personal favorite of mine. Someone who I hope is is listening and we'll, you know, reach out to us tomorrow, and that's Robert McFarland. 

07:04
The quote you attribute to him is the past of these places complicate and darken their present. Wildness. Caution against romanticism and bliveness. To be in such landscapes is to be caught in a double bind. How is it possible to love them in the present but also acknowledge their troubled histories? That's a wonderful quote, and it's just one writer among many that you cite William Cronin, who you've already mentioned, terry Tempest Williams, aldo Leopold. I wonder if you could tell us more about how you knit together all these writers and how their work builds on one another's, as your work builds on theirs. 

07:42 - Josh Jackson (Host)
That's a great question that I haven't been asked before, so thank you for that. You know, so much of my journey was about reading. You know, from 2015 to 2020, I think I went through 100 books, or even during my travels over the last five years, I was still reading and I was just looking for these ways to incorporate everything I was learning into the book. And so I actually I mean to get really nitty gritty here I actually had a Google doc and I took, I went through every single book and every single page I book, I, you know, dog-eared and underlined, I wrote word for word into this Google Doc, which ended up being like 50 or 60 pages long. And then, when I was writing the book, I would just kind of I'd be thinking about these other books that I had read along the way and I was able to sort of pick and pull. So, like the Robert McFarland piece that you just read, it's so, so beautiful. 

08:38
That kind of came into play in the King Range National Conservation Area chapter where I'm wrestling with sort of the genocide of Native Americans from that area, and like how do you look at a place that's so incredibly beautiful and yet, once you know, when I used to go to that place I didn't know about these atrocities that had happened. But then when you come to learn about them, and then used to go to that place, I didn't know about these atrocities that had happened. But then when you come to learn about them, and then you go back to that place and you're looking at this incredible river and these coho salmon, but when you know about the history, how do you? You know it's such a dilemma for the person who's out on these places that loves them and they're beautiful, and yet how do you wrestle with these big ideas? 

09:21
So, yeah, I mean that's sort of the way I did it. I kept a huge log. I couldn't listen to any books because I had to underline and dog ear and go back to them. And when you listen you can't do that. So I mean it's a library now of like 60 books or 60 pages long on a Google Doc and I mean, obviously you want to include a lot more references, but I got in as many as I could. 

09:48 - Bill (Host)
You know in your book and the Enduring Wild. It hits at the outset, as you just mentioned, sort of a pilgrimage, like to explore all these BLM lands in your home state of California, because you yourself had sort of stumbled into BLM lands sort of by accident. And I'm in love with the dissection that you do of walking versus hiking. You know, hiking, sort of by definition, is a sort of set of outcomes right, it's a destination, it's a distance and so on. But walking, or sauntering, as maybe John Muir would call it, would be better defined as embracing the journey. It's about noticing how did you get beyond checking off the destination or the distance, and noticing the subtlety of these places you visited. What's a way you think you could impart to our audience on how to make that sort of that leap from oh I've got a destination to go to and instead, like I've got a journey that I'm going to embrace, Like how did that evolve for you? 

10:49 - Josh Jackson (Host)
Yeah, I grew up in Michigan. I'm originally from Michigan and in a family of public land lovers, you know we spent a lot of time in state parks camping every summer and my grandparents lived in the East Coast, near big forest in Pennsylvania, and BLM was this brand new thing to me in 2015. And then, as I started getting excited about these new landscapes that I'd never experienced before when I moved to California 20 years ago, I realized I got this huge 1989 wall map. That's literally the size of a wall and it sort of depicts all the public lands in California. So the national parks are purple and the wildlife refuges are blue and the forests are green, and then the BLM is yellow. And the longer I stared at this map it's right next to my dining table it's like you can't help but see that most of the BLM land in California is in the desert and I had, like I said earlier, I never really been a desert person. You know I'd experienced Joshua Tree and I experienced Death Valley, but the desert outside of those places I was referred to as the drive-by desert, like the desert you drive by on the way to Phoenix or Vegas or Tucson or out east and you see these dilapidated buildings off the side of the highway and freeway and you think, like what the hell is out there? And on my first trip to BLM and land in the desert, I did approach it like a hiker. I'm used to trying to walk a half marathon a day or longer. You know you're used to going to an Alpine lake or a mountain peak or a rushing whitewater river. And so my first trip to BLM, land in the desert, I was kind of shocked by just the muted colors, the interchangeable mountain ranges. And I, you know, as a hiker, I did do a lot of walking. But I remember at the end feeling like I don't really feel like I got to take in this landscape. In a way that made an impact on me. 

12:49
And I write in the book you know, to quote another author, terry Tempest Williams. She writes if the desert is holy it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps every desert pilgrimage to the desert is holy it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self and man. That line in Refuge, her book Refuge, is so powerful I actually wrote that down on a 3x5 card, I tucked it into my back pocket and I took that with me on every subsequent journey into the BLM lands in the desert, really thinking and wrestling with that idea, like, first of all, is this desert holy? I'd never thought of the desert as a holy place, you know. And second of all, if it's a pilgrimage to the self, what was I going to find out there? What would the pilgrimage to myself be? What was I going to find out there? What would the pilgrimage to myself be? 

13:39
And you kind of alluded to it, but as a hiker you're always it's kind of been the end goal is very apparent and you're getting there as fast as you can. You know, I've hiked hundreds of miles on the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail and you're just trying to knock out miles right. And thinking about Terry Tempest Williams' words about a pilgrimage really slowed me down. I remember on my second trip to the desert I went to this place in Southeastern California called the Armagosa Canyon and I spent like half a day walking and I deliberately kept telling myself slow down. And so I would sit off the trail and then I would sit on the rock a big boulder and I would just write down everything I was seeing. 

14:25
Then I finally made it down to this Armagosa River, one of the BLM wild and scenic rivers in California, and I remember just sitting there and I was thinking about Edward Abbey, because he talks about he has these great lines in Desert, solitary, about just seeing the water in the desert and wanting to jump in and float down its pathway, and so I kind of sat with these ideas and I think I walked like one mile in a whole afternoon and it was the slowest I had ever gone and that sort of doing that over and over, you know, I ended up making almost 20. Now, to this day, I've maybe made 20 different pilgrimages to different BLM lands in the desert and I'm not a botanist but if you can start to think like a botanist when you're out there going so slowly that you you're noticing every species of flora and fauna that you're you're encountering, it completely changed the way I saw the landscape and so for me, the pilgrimage really pushed me to start noticing. 

15:28 - Anders (Host)
I told Bill when we were preparing for this podcast that my only fear was that you were going to be so good at answering questions that you would anticipate our next one. And you just did it, and I'm really happy. I'm going to ask it anyway, because I think it's slightly different, but I wanted to talk to you about the desert. I last year visited Joshua Tree National Park for the first time. I'd been to the high desert many times, but I hadn't been to the desert desert and I I. When I think back to that trip, there are some parallels with what you experienced in the Mojave desert. And you know, like I noted in my notes for you, it was a Terry Tempest Williams quote from Refuge about every pilgrimage to the desert being a pilgrimage to the self For me. 

16:09
I was reading a book when I was in Joshua Tree that had a chapter on St Jerome that introduced me to the Latin phrase Nudos amat eramus. The desert loves those stripped to the bone and I have to say the desert did that. I wanted to be stripped to the bone. I wanted to be diminished somehow. I wanted to walk into the desert as an anchorite and learn how to nod rather than talk. It made me want to squelch my drive to be seen and to conspicuously produce. And it was only later that I learned that one of the words in that phrase, eremus or desert, is also the root of the word hermit, eremus, and the connections are sort of obvious when you hear that. But I guess maybe I just want to ask if you could dig a little deeper into what is it about the desert that brings the solitary self into focus? 

17:05 - Josh Jackson (Host)
desert that brings the solitary self into focus. I think you know, for me, my preconceived notions about what was beautiful were those rushing rivers in mountain peaks of the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, or up in Glacier National Park or in the Olympic National Forest and these raging whitewater rivers. And you know, the desert doesn't really give you that Like everything that I had always loved about, about like the John Muir inspired beauty. It doesn't really. I mean, I've learned to see it differently but it doesn't really capture your attention in the same way. In this, like big bold, you know, you line up a hundred people and all 100 people in the Yosemite Valley are going to look around and say, yes, this is beautiful. The desert, I write in the book, it often sings quietly. If you're going to the desert looking for this show-stopping scenery, the kind of blockbuster scenery that you find in national parks and a lot of national forest wilderness areas, you're not always going to find it and so, like referring to what you said, the desert kind of lays you bare. You're either going to think well, this isn't for me, which is kind of how I treated the desert, and I guess I'll keep going to the Sierra Nevada and I'll keep going to the Sierra Nevada and I'll keep going to the Pacific Ocean and the Olympic Forest and maybe you don't ever return. But if you're willing to slow down and sort of lay yourself bare, I think the desert starts to show itself the mystery of the desert, the way that these plants in the Mojave Desert can survive through a summer of triple-digit temperatures, that kind of run for all day long. It's wild. 

18:47
I'm writing an essay right now about the Chukwala National Monument and I focused my whole area. It's a couple thousand acres. If you drew a circle around it it'd be like five miles around the circle. A circle around it, it'd be like five miles around the circle. And I mean this is one of the hottest places on earth. And just on iNaturalist there's 458 species of flora and fauna recorded. If I walked into this place 10 years ago and drove in and hiked around, I would have told you there was some creosote, some fan palms and perhaps a mesquite tree. There's 458 just in this tiny little spot and the only way to really see it is to slow yourself down enough to really start noticing. And it often happens too with repeated trips which I've made over and over out there now, and so I'm learning to see it better. But yeah, the desert. I wrote that the desert sings quietly, offering sweet melodies for anyone who will listen. 

19:52 - Bill (Host)
Wow, I love that. You know we do often think of BLM as keepers of the desert, right, but that's not fair. I mean it's not complete, Just like the old derogatory term that BLM stood for, the bureau of livestock and mining. Uh, no longer fair, um. But one of the places you dive deep with is is california's lost coast, a place that I will revisit myself again this fall, specifically the king range conservation area. Can you share with our audience the critical role this place played in the establishment of the National Conservation Areas, which are sort of the protected landscapes as part of the BLM? Could you sort of paint that picture of the role that the King Range played in sort of how we ended up with these National Conservation Areas? 

20:40 - Josh Jackson (Host)
It's an incredible story. I first learned that the King Range was the first ever National Conservation Area in California, in the country designated in 1970. But then I started going back into the history of how that designation came to be and that story is absolutely stunning. I mean, it's got ups and downs and you're never sure where it's going to go. But it really starts with this guy, this congressman named Clement Miller, and I'll try to tell this story quickly because it's just so incredible. We could talk, there could be a whole episode on this, but Clement Miller was kind of behind the Point Reyes National Seashore. 

21:19
When Kennedy's signing that into law, clement Miller's actually standing right behind him and his, you know, under his jurisdiction was that that Lost Coast area. And you know the BLM was formed in 1946 and in 1960, clement Miller and, like you said, it was kind of the Bureau of Livestock and Mining. You know it was a merging of the grazing service and the uh, the land office, the general land office and, like you said, it was kind of the Bureau of Livestock and Mining. It was a merging of the grazing service and the general land office and so it was mostly grazing and extraction and Clement Miller, 14 years after the inception, was really the first congressional person that said wait a second, why aren't some of these BLM lands managed for conservation? Why aren't they managed for recreation? 

22:03
And he gives this hour-long speech on the floor in 1960, and he lays this out for the King Range National Conservation Area and he says I'm hoping for a Cinderella transformation at the BLM. I mean this is crazy, because this is 16 years before FLIPMA passed, I mean before the multiple use mandate during FLIPMA was even a thing. This is so far before that. And he gives this amazing speech on the floor in 1960, pushes for it, and then he's denied, doesn't even make it through the, through the hearings, and then in 1961, maybe I shouldn't, you know. 

22:47
Let's just save this story, maybe for the, for people that want to read the book, but or we can go to it. I'm just fast forward. It took 11 attempts for the King Range National Conservation Area to get through. I mean from Democrats, republicans, all across the board and finally, at the 11th attempt, it was passed into law and became the nation's first ever national conservation area in 1970, really setting the stage for 1976 when FLTMA happened. I mean this was the very first BLM land that was managed for conservation and recreation. And then, of course, when FLIPMA passed six years later, it was mandated that they sort of balanced extraction and grazing with conservation and recreation. But the beauty of the King Range is that it really set the precedent for what was to come. 

23:39 - Bill (Host)
Yeah, thanks for sharing that and the whole story, the complete story. People need to pick up the book and go read it. It's fascinating. But also what's fascinating is you just do a beautiful job of describing what it's like to even get to the King range. I'm excited to go again. I was before the book. I'm even more so now. I'm also back to being oh yeah, that's what the roads are like. I forgot just how bad they are. So thanks for sharing that. But people definitely pick up the book and dig into that whole story and also learn a little bit more about a place that a lot of people don't know about. That is just amazing. 

24:13 - Josh Jackson (Host)
Yeah, and talk about places that do have some of that sublime beauty that we're used to in the national parks beauty that we're used to in the national parks the King range if you can suffer through the road conditions and the you know the stomach sickness that you're going to get as you get there that that does have some of that sublime beauty old growth Douglas firs and old growth Redwoods, and it's you know, it's the longest, um, undeveloped coastline in California and one of the longest in the contingency of the United States. So it's, yeah, it's a really special place and, uh, it's kind of a second home for my family and I. We've been making our own pilgrimages up there every year, sometimes twice a year, for the last 10 years and, uh, it's where my kids have learned to jump off rocks into the Mattole river and, uh, not go into water that is, with strong undertoes and, yeah, they've really grown up there. 

25:08 - Anders (Host)
It's pretty special, Josh in the fall of 2022,. You visited the Carrizo Plain National Monument, and that section of your book focuses on the super bloom that you were lucky enough to see while you were there, and the language you use is so evocative of that landscape. A previous super bloom had taken place in 2017, around the same time that President Trump announced an unprecedented review of 27 existing monuments, including Carrizo Plain. You write about how that disaster was averted In that case, mostly thanks to folks who'd experienced those monuments firsthand, and you offer that lesson as the counterpoint to the desire by some of us in the outdoor community to keep our isolated places isolated and our special hidden places hidden. I wonder if you could talk about that, about the other ways you grapple with solitude and interconnectedness in this book, and maybe how they track closely with the change in perspective you felt about wilderness and wildness as you completed the book. 

26:17 - Josh Jackson (Host)
It's a really interesting question and one I've had to wrestle with for the last five years as I've been working on this book, this idea of gatekeeping. You know there's certain places that a lot of people have a real passion for and they don't want anyone else to know about it. You know I've definitely gotten comments over the years like hey, shh, be quiet, don't talk about these places. And you know, obviously you've read the book. I don't really talk about specific GPS coordinates. There's no GPS coordinates. I'm trying to give a view from 5,000 feet, so to speak, because I think one of the magical things about BLM land is there's not a lot of information out there. There's not like 10 bullet points of how to get to this trail and what you're going to encounter. Some of the magic is in the exploration, before you even go to a place, because you have to learn about it. You have to figure out what trails exist or what campgrounds exist or what the roads are like, and I don't want to take away that magic for people, certainly in the Carrizo. I think I was really wrestling with this idea of place, attachment, the human bond that are formed with nature, and why those bonds are so important, and it really comes to light in the Carrizo, because this is a place before the super bloom kind of social media era was kind of a forgotten place. It was designated in 2000 by President Clinton. Sort of it's the last remnant of native grassland we have in California. Everything else has been converted to agriculture and industry and it was this place that was saved, but kind of off the beaten path. It's only three hours from Los Angeles and still was kind of empty and forgotten about. And then the 2017 super boom happened and you know, through social media pictures and everything, I mean, it got put on the map and so you had all these people going to this landscape in the spring, falling in love with these wildflowers Cause if you're, if you know, you'll see in the book that it's kind of remarkable. There's satellite pictures from space. Pick up on the colors that are coming through here. So you have all these people that have gone out there for the first time. They probably don't even know it's BLM. They're just thinking it's the Carrizo Plain, it's the wildflower super bloom, they had this really spectacular time and then, just months later, there's almost at the same exact time, yeah, president Trump orders this unprecedented review of national monuments, which, and then they open the comment period. And so you have. 

28:52
I talked to all these people who were like, oh, I guess I should leave comment. I just was at one of the monuments that is under review, and so they were part of this big coalition. I think 99.2% of these comments were in favor of not rescinding or shrinking the monuments. But it really comes down to our, the connection that we build with nature and the way in which that connection shapes us, and then the realization that some of these places, when they're under threat, we. That connection needs to be formed in order to send the comments to the blm. Call your congressional leaders when they're under threat, send letters. 

29:35
Uh, you know, that's how we get things done. This is what the democracy of america is the plate, the chance for us to talk and have an opinion on these places. Yeah, for me it all comes down to this Baba Diom idea, senegalese forester, in 1968, he had that famous line in the end, we will conserve only what we love, and that sentiment has really driven this whole book project and everything else I've been working on. I want more people to fall in love with these places so that when the threats come, they're more likely to stand up against them. You know BLM lands exist in this kind of anonymity right. They're overlooked, misunderstood, kind of treated as expendable, and part of that reason is because we have so few people who have developed that place attachment with these landscapes. 

30:27 - Bill (Host)
Yeah, I love that. The one thought that stood out to me reading the book is I wish more of our public took the time to understand the places that they go to recreate, to disconnect, to exercise, whatever they go there for I'm not saying that everyone needs to write their own book or start something as meaningful as the Forgotten Lands Project, but you know what's the one thing like if somebody's listening to this, I'm like, yeah, you know, I should understand the place more. Like what's that one piece of advice you would give to a fellow, let's say even public land user, maybe somebody who's very familiar with their national parks, for example, but doesn't realize to get to most of those national parks they've maybe driven through some stunning BLM land or national forest land? I mean, what's that one piece of advice you would maybe give that public land user to become a little better equated with what they're actually enjoying? 

31:18 - Josh Jackson (Host)
I think for me I would. You know cause. I started out on those first couple of trips looking at that map, writing down names and then just kind of getting in my car, I'd be like, oh, there's a campground. I'd put the campground in Google and I would just drive to the campground and that's about all I knew about a place before I'd get there. And those early trips to the desert and treating it as a pilgrimage not only changed my experience on the landscape, but boy did I research and learn as much about the landscape as I could before I actually went there. 

31:49
And if I had one piece of advice for people who are going out to BLM lands or national parks or forest or wilderness areas immerse yourself in where you're about to go and it will not only provide a much better experience but it might help you understand the history of it and how this wilderness area or BLM land came into our came into existence. You know the indigenous populations that once were there and you know still exist in a lot of places. That kind of changes the way your relationship is to these landscapes and you know learning about the flora and fauna. You know I always say like the more knowledge, knowledge changes our relationship to something. 

32:32
If I'm walking through a forest and I see a pine tree and a deciduous tree, it's great. Or a woodpecker that I don't know the name of, it's great to walk through that and notice those things. But if you can walk through and you think, oh, that's a Tawani pine, oh, that's a blue oak, that's an acorn woodpecker, I mean it really changes your relationship to the landscape and colors your experience in such a beautiful way. So if I had one piece of advice I would say if you know where you're going, even if it's just a name, research as much as you can about that place before you go. It will make a big impact on the way it shapes you while you're there before you go. 

33:13 - Anders (Host)
It will make a big impact on the way it shapes you while you're there. Josh, this has been great. You're so thoughtful. It was apparent in the book. It's even more apparent now after spending a little time talking to you this evening. By the time your voice is in our listeners' ears, I would bet the Roadless Rule Defense campaign is going to be in full force, and my wish is that its leaders have maybe listened to what you had to say about place attachment, because I think it's a really solid organizing tool, and so if you're out there listening place attachment, read the book. 

33:46 - Bill (Host)
Yeah for sure, read the book and, honestly, they're also going to probably come after. You know the public land rule, which is a BLM specific rule. So we've got, you know, we've got the roadless rule on national forest lands and the public lands rule that are going to be under attack. And if you know these places, josh, I really want to say thanks for taking that approach and taking that approach to the level you have with, you know, the Forgotten Lands Project and with the book itself, which I really encourage our folks to listen to. Building on what Joshie recommended. Also, think about becoming a steward of some of your favorite places. This is something near and dear to Anders and I's heart is like don't just visit it, get to know it. If you get to know it, you may even want to give back in some way and get involved, whether it's as an advocate or as a steward, somebody keeping a trail open or being an interpreter for somebody. So I hope folks will take advantage of that. 

34:39 - Anders (Host)
And again, josh, just thanks for joining us today, josh two quick questions One, if someone wants to buy your book, where should they go? And two, if they want to learn more about Forgotten Lands Project, where should they check it? 

34:50 - Josh Jackson (Host)
out. You can buy the book wherever books are sold. If you want to support the author, you can go to forgottenlandsprojectcom and buy it straight from me, where I make a little bit more than I do if you buy it on the big A, but it's available everywhere local bookstores and libraries. And then if you want to learn more about the Forgottenlandsproject, that's just forgottenlandsprojectcom. I have a weekly newsletter that I write on Substack. That's gaining momentum and steam and it's a great place to learn more about all these special lands and I'm actually hiring writers from across the West so it'll go from California and get beyond into all the BLM lands across the West so that people can learn about these places and hopefully want to protect them. Like you were saying, Bill, so much about that relationship is learning how to engage and so much of engagement is learning how to give back and I hope people take that away from the book that they want to deepen that relationship that they probably already have with public lands. 

35:57 - Anders (Host)
And Nevada is in your sights next. Is that correct? 

36:00 - Josh Jackson (Host)
Yeah, thanks to some friends, you know Neil Kornzy is really pushing for Nevada. 

36:04 - Anders (Host)
but yeah, nevada will be the next Shout out, Neil. 

36:06 - Josh Jackson (Host)
Kornzy Shout out. He's been awesome in this journey. But, yeah, I think the next book I've already started it's going to be the similar focus in terms of photography and essays, but it'll be focused on Nevada. Talk about what people think of as a drive-by state or a forgotten state. But if you were to parachute into the state of Nevada, you have a 67% chance of landing on BLM land. 

36:33 - Anders (Host)
No thanks. 

36:35 - Josh Jackson (Host)
I don't want to do it either, but it's full of BLM land. It feels uh, it feels like the inevitable next book. 

36:42 - Bill (Host)
I, uh, I love it and that'll give us all something to look forward to. So so, folks, definitely, you know, visit the website, the forgotten lands projectcom. Um, keep up with Josh, We'll look forward to having you back when that book is out and just love having you on here so much that you shared One of the I mean, oddly enough, one of the big takeaways is, as I heard from Andrews is that if I want to squelch his drive to be seen, I just have to take him to the desert. So I'll be planning future trips to do that. 

37:10 - Anders (Host)
You and me and a big cooler of Coke. 

37:14 - Bill (Host)
And Dr Pepper Josh. Again thanks for joining us and we'll see everybody on down the trail. 

37:20 - Josh Jackson (Host)
Thanks so much for having me. Guys, I appreciate what you're doing on this pod. 

37:25 - Announcer (Host)
The Wild Idea is a production of Wild Idea Media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds. Production and editing by Bren Russell at Podlad Digital. Support by Holly Wilkoszewski at Daypack Digital. Our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from Railroad Earth and was composed by John Skihan. Our executive producer and ringleader is Laura Hodge. You can find the Wild Idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating and if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at thewildideacom.