An Interview with Jeremy Lloyd about his new book Forest Time: Footnotes to an Outdoor Education

The following is an (*) interview with Tremont naturalist Jeremy Lloyd about his new book Forest Time: Footnotes to an Outdoor Education, available now from the University of Tennessee Press. The interviewer is Will Walker, who lived in the valley named for him from 1838-1919. 

*imagined

Will Walker: So I hear you’ve written a book about the time you spent living in my family’s valley.

Jeremy: When I applied for a job at Tremont, I was down on my luck and working in a factory. I’d just learned there was even a field called “environmental education.” I was totally unqualified and gave a terrible job interview. It’s a miracle I’m here. I spent over eleven years calling this place home, falling in love with these mountains and forests, and learning how to be a citizen of the woods. 

Will Walker: I trust that critters make an appearance in the book. This is the Smokies after all.  

Jeremy: There are close encounters with snakes, otters, deer, trout, a shy wolf, a nosey raccoon, and lots of tourists. Also, black bears, including one that tried to get inside the Oasis, the ranger station where I lived. 

Will Walker: They’ll do that. You have to teach them you mean business. 

Jeremy: Wildflowers, and the joys of learning natural history, also play a prominent role. 

Will Walker: A man who loves wildflowers is a man after my own heart. 

Nancy Caylor Walker (wife of Will Walker; 1840-1922): May I interject here? There are shenanigans in the book, correct? Misbehaving, I mean, but in a good way? 

Jeremy: A game called Primitive Man is described in detail, though I don’t recommend playing it for reasons the book makes clear. Also a game called Camouflage, which remains very popular among students who visit Tremont. And plenty more “shenanigans.”

Nancy: Good! Young people are too well-behaved and cooped up indoors today. They need to get more dirt under their fingernails!

Jeremy: Direct, unmediated, messy, and ultimately uncontrollable encounters with the earth, and the need for them, now more than ever, is a big theme of the book.  

Nancy: And not just menfolk but also women appear in the book? 

Jeremy: Lots of women, and even more children. 

Nancy: Well, that’s right up our alley here in Walker Valley. You know, we had dozens of kids running around here back in our day. Between me and Will’s two other wives, who he had all at the same time—

Will Walker (interrupting): Ahem. Let’s get back to the book.  

Jeremy: People who love Tremont and Walker Valley, along with those who have yet to visit, will get a taste for what life is like here year-round. I’m also trying to tell the story of environmental education centers, or outdoor schools, and the essential way people learn and are taught at such places, which is by living and not just by studying abstract principles. 

Will Walker: A lot has changed in the wider world since the time Nancy and I lived in the Smokies.  

Jeremy: Many people today are pessimistic about the future. We have more material comforts and safety measures and gadgets than people ever did in your time, and yet so often we’re unsatisfied and unhappy. Our trust in traditions and institutions is in sharp decline. Many people think the past is something only to be ashamed of, yet we don’t have a vision for the future. We’ve lost our connection to deeper sources of meaning, to each other, and to the natural world. Birth rates are plummeting, the earth’s climate is changing, and we keep ignoring limits about what it means to be human and a part of Creation, not separate from it. 

Will Walker: I don’t envy you. 

Jeremy: It’s not all bad. There’s still plenty of goodness and beauty in the world. We’re just too distracted much of the time to notice it. Some of my other goals in writing the book was to inspire people to get out on adventures, to spark curiosity and wonder in readers, to help them realize that they are a character in the bigger story of nature wherever they find it, and to offer a glimmer of hope. 

Will Walker: So it’s a positive book about the environment, you might say?

Jeremy: Exactly. 

Will Walker: What else can we expect? What other topics are covered?

Jeremy: Musical adventures. Wilderness revelations. Life lessons learned the hard way. Encounters with death and dying. Becoming a hunter in order to participate more fully in the life of the forest. Making peace with failure—in my case, as a fly-fisher. The benefits of getting lost in the woods. A near-disastrous marriage proposal with a happy ending. How fly-fishing and bushwhacking and nightwalking are spiritual acts. How to feel at peace in the world and one’s own skin despite being too cold, too hot, bug-bitten, sunburnt, or whatever. How connecting with the natural world is crucial to making us human. Those are just ones off the top of my head. There are lots more. 

Will Walker: I’m happy to see that Kelly Lecko, a Tremont naturalist from 2016-2018, created the cover art and interior illustrations. 

Jeremy: She’s the first person I thought of, and she did it on fairly short notice. I thought she did a superb job. 

Will Walker: Any final words?

Jeremy: You know, people are going to wonder how we pulled this off. You speaking to me from the grave.

Will Walker: Let them wonder. 

Forest Time: Footnotes to an Outdoor Education is available for purchase through University of Tennessee Press. Tremont is hosting a book release party in Jeremy’s honor on Tuesday, April 28; please join us for the celebration. Books will be available for purchase at the event.