Recommended Reading

In between seasonal work (trail building, conservation, a stint in Antarctica), John Messick spent a great deal of time roaming about the world by canoe, bike, and foot. Originally from the Midwest, for him the pursuit of an “ordered lifestyle,” including a steady career or a house, felt not just unappealing, but impossible. Instead, Messick heeded the call of “nomadic living as a moral imperative,” often with little more than an old backpack, a book of poetry, and a journal, ranging from Florida’s mangrove swamps to the Mongolian steppe to Alaska’s sublime, ragged wild spaces, where he eventually put down roots and became a father. In this essay collection of memoir-soaked travel writing, he explores the tenuous boundaries between stillness and movement, home and away, belonging and