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Standing Up to the Rock

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This book will be of interest to natives of the Northwest, as an outsider assesses what it is about their culture that is worth embracing. It will be interesting to city folk to watch one of their own forsake the freeways and the smog of California for a green and peaceful place. During her ten-year indoctrination into the ways of the West, Freeman-Toole faces physical and emotional hardships with heroism and common sense. A first book by the author.

Many of the current books written about the West are by natives of the area that have typically lived on a family farm or ranch. They provide intimate details about working the land and lament the daily changes occurring in what many consider the last, best place to live in the United States.
Freemna-Toole is different. She is a sixth-generation Californian and comes to the last free-flowing stretch of the Snake River in Idaho not knowing the impact it would have on her life.
In lyrical, poignant prose she provides an intimate portrait into her search for her own place in the world. It has a profound effect on her life when she finds it in the new, and old, West. Little did she know that her friendship with the owner of the last homestead ranch on the middle Snake River would lead her to encounter the dilemmas facing both natives and newcomers alike in the West.
Her account of having to re-examine her views on environmentalism in light of rural traditions and values is worthy not only for its sensitivity but for its examination of an issue that is at the heart of one of the monunmental changes taking place in the West.
The unavoidable impact of tourism and recreation growth in a pristime and spectacular landscape is noted along with a recognition that is rarely seen in print from a lover of the area, namely that it may be than such tourism will serve to preserve some of the landscape that otherwise might be sacrificed on the altar of economic development.
I heard such an argument made by river guides on a recent trip down the Grand Canyon. They argued that while increased tourism unquestionably places great stresses on the environment, the same tourists, once exposed to such grandeur, are more likely to oppose proposals to develop, dam or clear cut such treasures. Thus, tourists may be the lesser of evils and easier to contain than the alternatives.
There are also chapters on the author's struggle between leaving her family roots in Los Angeles, with all the guilt and uncertainty that predictably creates, and struggling to understand the almost magical pull of the rural West. She writes about her introduction to traditions and a culture that view private property rights, politics, animal treatment, family loyalties and death in a manner that is radically different than the ones with which she is familiar.
Throughout the book are wonderful scenes and descriptions of her young son's introduction to a rural environment and the impact it has on his life.
The book is an excellent memoir about one woman's journey into an enviroment that is harsh, controversial, spectacular and, for an increasing number of people, the end of a long search for a special place that is as much about spirit as geography. A moving, honest, well-written book.