I POUR OVER CONTOUR MAPS WITH DEVOTION, POKE A CAMPFIRE, SLEEP ON THE GROUND, SWAT MOSQUITOS, MINISTER TO BLISTERS, AND TALK TO RAVENS.

THESE ARE MY SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS AND THE STORIES I TELL THE EXPRESSIONS OF MY FAITH.

I POUR OVER CONTOUR MAPS WITH DEVOTION, POKE A CAMPFIRE, SLEEP ON THE GROUND, SWAT MOSQUITOS, MINISTER TO BLISTERS, AND TALK TO RAVENS.

THESE ARE MY SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS AND THE STORIES I TELL THE EXPRESSIONS OF MY FAITH.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Deb Liggett

Deb Liggett parlayed a twenty-five year career with the National Park Service into a grand adventure. Her assignments spanned the nation from the Dry Tortugas off the coast of Florida to the wilds of Alaska. Her essays and poems have previously appeared in Alaska Magazine, Deep Wild: Writing from the Backcountry, Pilgrimage, Cirque, Windfall: A Journal of Poetry and Place, and elsewhere. Her work has been anthologized in The Wonder of It All: 100 Stories from the National Park Service, and in Being Home. Her essay “The Middle of Everywhere” won the Toyon Literary Magazine’s Environmental Justice Award in 2019. Deb and her husband, Jay, now make their home in Tucson, Arizona.

“I’m migratory. I’ve always been migratory. Only I always seem to have it backwards—moving to Alaska in the winter and moving to the desert in the summer. Jay and I once moved during a blizzard and we once moved off an island in the middle of a tropical storm. “One’s destination is never a place,” Henry Miller wrote, “but rather a new way of looking at things.”

ground squirrel FINAL October

Reviews

FROM THE ARIZONA STAR

“With this marvelous volume of essays, Liggett recounts memorable events in an adventurous career most readers can only dream about. She effortlessly mixes her reverence for the natural world with the day-to-day realities of ushering visitors through the National Parks, living fearlessly and never failing to count the stars; it has the freshness of a mountain breeze.”
5/5

ARIZONA STAR, MAY 1, 2022

A BEAUTIFUL READ

“The first time I crossed paths with Deb was in the early ’90s when she was giving a talk about her’s and Jay’s and the National Park Service’s response to Hurricane Andrew. I knew right then that she was an amazing speaker. Now, all these years later, I know that she is an amazing writer. More accurately, she is an amazing storyteller, but not everyone can do it so eloquently both in writing and spoken. Deb can. This is an excellent memoir of a life lived well. The subtitle “Tales From a Life in the National Park Service” says it all. It may not tell you everything to know if you want to work for the National Park Service, and it is not a definitive guidebook to the various parks that she worked in. But it is a beautiful, lyric telling of stories that will lead the reader to sense and to feel how the parks impacted her, and vice versa, how she impacted the parks. This book is an appeal to the senses.”
5/5

Bob G.

THE BEST NPS CAREER MEMOIR I'VE READ!

What a wonderful, insightful, lyrical journey through an NPS career. Deb is a superb writer, just like she was an exceptional ranger! I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the national parks or in ranger careers.

5/5

Retired ranger

A QUICK, CHARMING AND INSIGHTFUL READ. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

As a former Park Ranger who worked with the author many years ago in Big Bend National Park, I found this book fascinating, beautiful, funny, charming, insightful, heartbreaking —by turns and all at once. I hope and believe this book will also appeal to a broad audience of folks whose experiences differ from mine and from hers. Highly recommended!
5/5

AMAZON CUSTOMER

FROM A TRUE PARK RANGER'S PERSPECTIVE

People become park rangers for many reasons – excitement, escape, or just on a whim. The noblest motivation is when you have an almost religious calling to protect, and feel the need to compel others to appreciate and preserve these special places as well. Deb Liggett , the author of Ranger Chronicles, falls into this category. I’m a retired park ranger myself and have worked in some of the same places as Deb and her husband Jay, and this book truly captures the sense of adventure and reverance one experiences during a career in our nations parks.
5/5

DAVID & LAURIE PARKER

LIFE SPENT AND SHARED IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS

The author was always a natural story teller and strong leader in the National Park Service. Here she shares a bird’s eye view, as well as inside look, of a life spent dedicated to the protection of our public lands. To bring it all to life, she shares some of her epic adventures, infamous battles and smaller personal vignettes about her life lived in the “Great Outdoors.” It’s an interesting read about the challenges and triumphs found working for the National Park Service. Get a comfy chair, your mug of hot chocolate and put your feet up for a trip across the United States and into your public lands.
5/5

JEA

FEEL THE WILDERNESS AND THE RESPONSIBILITY

First, the book is beautiful, cover and watercolors inside. Second, it is the answer to every question we have always asked our park rangers, sometimes looking for a joke, sometimes a crazy rescue, sometimes just weird people they have met. We never asked about the natural beauty because we were visiting for the same reason. But this author brings you back, or to places you wish you could see. Great writing.
5/5

TXNC

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