Charlie Horwood’s NL nature book
$10.00
Don’t judge a book by its cover!
While the real name of this book is “Getting to know the weeds”, it is a truly wonderful book of short stories about nature and hiking that covers all the seasons.
Featuring spring (nightshades…snipes….songbirds…migration….warblers….gannets…and more), summer (spiders….Manuels River fossils….Mistaken Point….Long Pond), fall (berries….small owls…..lichens….bogs….bears), and winter (hidden insects….snow…bird counts…..trees…..astronomy…and more).
Charlie (Charles Edward Horwood) was a writer, a union activist, a founder of a literary journal, a naturalist, husband, and home builder, and a founder of Nature Newfoundland and Labrador (or the Natural History Society, as it was then known). Every spring, Nature NL hosts the Charlie Horwood Memorial Orchid Walk to honour his memory. Getting to Know the Weeds (Harry Cuff Publications Limited, St. John’s 1996) preserves many of his knowledge and columns.
“Natural history people are dabblers. You may be a specialist in one of the many branches of knowledge into which natural history intrudes, but if you are a true naturalist you are interested in everything from rocks to viruses to galaxies. Today it may be mushrooms, tomorrow whales or pulsars, but the thread that runs through it all must be found in the wonder of unlimited diversity, and the complexities of truths that are stranger than fiction”
– from A Walk Backward Through Time, in the Summer section