FINALIST for the 2021 Oregon Book Award. Rooted in the Pacific Northwest, the essays in Ruby McConnell’s Ground Truth: A Geological Survey of a Life cover the vast terrain of this region – from volcanoes to city parks, the eroding shorelines along the Oregon coast, badlands, lush forests, and city parks. Combining her background as a registered geologist, McConnell’s essays also weave in personal landscapes composed of grief, loss, and optimism for the future of our environment. "The Pacific Northwest that you see today is the result of forty years of radical changes in the culture and economics of what was once a resource-extraction and agriculture-driven region. They are changes so fundamental in nature and scope...that, for those of us from this place, will always be marked by the cataclysmic eruptions of Mt. St. Helens on May 18, 1980." --Ruby McConnell In this collection of 17 essays, geologist Ruby McConnell opens her part natural history, part memoir-in-essays about the Pacific Northwest with the cataclysmic eruption of Mt. St. Helens in May of 1980. She was two years old. "Everything that I have stood direct witness to since, everything I know about this place, happened after we watched the mountain crumble... I was born to a region digging out." In poignant and wide-ranging essays that include the wondrous annual return of salmon, "the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest people," to working at an elementary school evaluating soil and wondering how many kids have cancer, Ground Truth is an extended eulogy to a rapidly changing land, population and society awakening to the realities of logging, climate change, land-use and pollution. The book illuminates the central role of landscapes in our ideas of home and self despite the growing disconnect between modern lifestyle and the environment. McConnell's timely and significant work reveals how the landscapes we inhabit can also help us better understand ourselves.

Girls belong outdoors! This handbook covers everything you need to get outside, including ideas for what to do, camping and hiking basics, body stuff in the wilderness, advanced skills like maps, weather, and first aid, as well as recipes, projects, activities, and profiles of inspiring outdoorswomen. Your definitive guide to getting outside--for girls ages 9-12! In addition to basic outdoor skills, this entertaining guidebook includes easy camping recipes, outdoor projects including science experiments and crafts, fun activity suggestions, and inspiring stories of diverse historical and contemporary outdoorswomen (such as Arunima Sinha, the first amputee woman to summit Mount Everest; Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts; and Libby Riddles, first woman to win the Iditarod). The goal is to improve the quality of girls' outdoor time by increasing participation and independence, making them feel comfortable and safe, and giving them essential skills and knowledge. Charming and approachable, this book will encourage both reluctant campers and budding naturalists to go wild and embrace the outdoors.