Sketches from the Ranch: A Montana Memoir by Dan Aadland (review)

W A L 3 4 ( 2 ) S u m m e r 1 9 9 9 our imaginations when we need to be reminded that the world is, after all, a place of wonder, beauty, terror, and ecstasy drenching our senses. Wherever else we go, and whatever else we do, once we have been there, we carry the canyon with us. Once we have been there, a part of us never leaves. Sketches from the Ranch: A Montana Memoir. By Dan Aadland. Illustrations by Nik Carpenter. New York: Howell Book House, 1998. 259 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Robert C. Steensma University of Utah One of the most fascinating literary aspects of western American liter­ ature is the personal narrative produced by people who made the West what it is, for better or worse. Dan Aadland continues this autobiographical tra­ dition in his fourth book, as he tells of his ranch from the time it was estab­ lished by his wife’s grandfather, Magnus Jensen, a Danish immigrant, down to Aadland’s own tenure as the rancher in the present. Aadland is not only a rancher but also a retired high school teacher with a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Utah. He also served with distinction as a Marine Corps officer in Vietnam. In his note to the reader, Aadland suggests that the book be read as a novel: The thread of the narrative resembles a small stream, trickling its way down the valley, detouring beaver dams, meandering around digressions. But viewed from far above, the stream would be seen to progresss steadfastly down the valley to a resting place, and its jour­ ney is one I would like you to take with me in proper order, (xi) And so in an introductory section called simply “The Ranch,” and twentyone chapters divided into four groupings entitled “Spring,” “Summer,” “Fall,” and “Winter,” followed by an epilogue, Aadland treats the workaday life of a Montana rancher with insight bred of experience and a love of the land. Ranch people don’t often talk in such terms, he admits, but “you do hear these things. You hear talk of getting work done accompanied by the creak of harness leather, the sound of the stream audible over the drag of the harrow. . . . And you hear also of touching the past, of renewing con­ nection with that grandpa or uncle and his stories of working with horses” (93). Running through this engaging book is Aadland’s love of the Montana landscape and its inhabitants, and his implicit destruction of the politically correct myth that ranchers are ruthless exploiters of nature. ...