Review by Larry S. Sterett | Contributing Editor
IN TRACE OF TR—A Montana Hunter’s Journey, by Dan Aadland. ©2010. Published by the University of Nebraska Press, Dept. TGM, 1111 Lincoln Mall, Lincoln, NE 68588. Price: Hard cover $29.95, soft cover $16.95, plus shipping. Available at most bookstores.
Few, if any, US presidents have had or led as vigorous an outdoor life, either before they became president, or afterwards, as the one known as TR. (Theodore Roosevelt was also a voracious reader, seldom, if ever, going anywhere without a book to read, often digesting a book a day, even while in the White House.) He was a hunter, a writer, a conservationist, a politician, and more. He was, as author Aadland proposes, a Renaissance man.
This 232-page hardbound volume does not deal with the bulk of TR’s attributes, but that of his time spent in the West as a rancher and hunter, with emphasis on the hunter. Following the usual Table of Contents, Acknowledgments, etc., is a list of the more than two dozen black and white illustrations, and one of the best introductions this reviewer has read in some time. (Maybe you have to have been at Mt. Rushmore to appreciate it, but it is worth re-reading.)
The book is divided into three parts—The Big Open, The Mountains and The Home Range. Each part is sub-divided into from two to four chapters devoted to the area or region TR hunted or traveled.
This is a volume which every hunter can enjoy reading, and if you’re an admirer of TR, so much the better. (It is not a book so much about TR, but a book on the where and possible why of TR’s time in the West.) The author makes the statement, “They say that in hunting the reward is the journey not the destination.”
