I have worked in what is called in the trade the “outdoor industry,” specifically in the area described the insider phrase “sports optics” for close to thirty years now. As a career it’s a long way from what I studied to do, and has never been a true love of my life the way natural history, classical Greek and Latin, or English literature are, but it has paid the bills. Yet in truth I can honestly attest that as a result of this unintentional career I’ve been able to witness, and often participate in, a wide swath of outdoor recreational activities spanning from hunting and fishing to birding (note that I didn’t write “birdwatching” – the two are not the same) to kayaking, hiking, and camping. And through the decades, I’ve seen dramatic changes in the equipment used in, people participating in, and the very Zeitgeist of these various activities. Yet up until the publication of Rachel S. Gross’ Shopping All the Way to the Woods; How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America I had not seen anyone take up the industry itself in a focused study that went beyond the mundane bounds of business and delve into how and why it came to be in the first place.
Prof. Gross’ book is most certainly informative as well as eye-opening, even to an old industry hand such as myself. Reaching back into the nineteenth century to find the industry’s beginnings in a handful of small outfitters, she leads her readers on a guided tour of how it developed not only as an industry but as a concept, pointing out all long the way the many contradictions (such as that to experience nature one must first go to a shop, or that to free oneself from the trappings of civilization one must have the right factory-made equipment) that have both been created by and arisen from its growth. Yet do not assume that Prof. Gross is some sort of Luddite seeking to throw spanners into the machines that make the multi-hundred (perhaps by now, thousand) dollar anoraks or ultralight tents. This is a serious presentation of the development of a distinctively American industry and the many, often curious and logically contradictory, social changes brought about by it. It is indeed a work that should be of interest to all who venture out into the fields and forests in search of recreation and enjoyment.
