Smith writes about his years as a California State Parks ranger. The curious bit is, the park where he worked is constantly on borrowed time, because it's supposed to be inundated when the construction of a massive dam is completed. Of course, the dam was originally approved over 20 years before he started working there, but everyone just sort of assumes it's going to happen.
Smith centers each chapter around a particular incident, or type of incident, he dealt with on the job. From there, he'll weave in aspects of the history of the dam or changes in the area. In one chapter, a jogger goes missing. Smith discusses how, because everyone assumes there's going to be a lake there, most major maps don't bother to show roads, and nobody sees the point in comprehensively maintaining or mapping trails. So horse-riding groups just make their own wherever they like, and it's easy to get lost.
When the jogger's body is found, apparently the victim of a mountain lion attack, Smith discusses the history of predator eradication efforts in the 19th and 20th century, as well as the eventual pushback by environmental groups starting in the 1960s. Likewise how, with the park largely being left alone (since it's expected to cease to exist in the near future) wild species are slowly re-establishing themselves after decades of human impact through mining, channelization, and the like. This means things like certain predators that might eat humans recovering their numbers and starting to clash with humans again.
(Smith doesn't advocate for resuming predator eradication. As he points out, humans are a hell of a lot more effective at killing each other, or even themselves, than pumas are.)
Smith also discusses the psychology of the people who would work at a park like this, through himself and his coworkers. That being assigned to park assumed to be on borrowed time could be seen as a career dead end, and so each person has to find things to help themselves get up and go to work. One guy organized a union for the rangers to get better pay and medical benefits. When their union was absorbed into a larger state employee union, he turned to compiling information on the history of park rangers in the state.
Smith himself, arriving early in his career and full of zest to prove himself and make a difference, took a more hardline approach to enforcing regulations about visitors carrying firearms or mining illegally than his senior co-workers. He pushed more training for the rangers on self-defense. That was how he made himself feel like his work had value.
The book is alternately informative, reflective, and literary. Smith doesn't shy away from florid imagery to describe the water rushing through a narrow canyon, but it not only gives a sense of the park as a place, it offers a glimpse into how he saw it, and his time there. Even if it was supposed to be a temporary place, he found meaning in the years he spent there and the work he did.
'When I came to the American River, I thought a ranger's job was to save something, or someone. Sometimes it is, when you hear about a bad situation early enough to stop it before it happens. But so often - as in the case of Ricky Marks and Mary Murphy - the whole story unfolds one step ahead of you. Or it's all over and done with before you even hear about it, as it was in the matter of Barbara Schoener. Then all you can do is try to memorize the details and give a good account of them in your report.'
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