"Femme d'Adventure" is a sublime collection of ecotourism and travel essays tied together by a few simple themes -- that Nature is unbelievable but seeing is believing, that water is the stuff of Nature that bonds all species together, that a shared meal is the stuff of humanity that bonds people together, that humanity is just one species in the interrelated world of Nature, and that we may experience Nature in the American backyards that essayist Jessica Maxwell visits as well in the exotic locales -- Mongolia, Ireland, the Rockies, Alaska -- that she visits, too.
Maxwell takes us climbing in the mountains and on the hillsides, diving in the oceans, rafting and fishing in the rivers. Frequently she grounds her observations in a shared meal among those sharing her travels. Her vivid metaphors from couture or cosmetics -- e.g., Compared to river dories, "Rafts are a lot like shampoo -- they give your ride more body and bounce, and make it more manageable" -- ring with the eureka! truth that comes of Maxwell's relating apparently unrelated concepts from Natural Science and the powder room. In the process, she reminds us that travel and adventure aren't matters of gender, even if the sexism of the traditional outdoorsman is: "The world in all its natural and cultured glory is out there waiting for each of us, if e're we dare to grab our fly rod, pack out waterproof mascara, and go."
My favorite essay is "Day of the Stiff Dogs," in which we come to know California's monarch butterfly, Utah's brine shrimp, Alaska's ice worm, Texas's tadpole shrimp and leaf-cutter ant, Washington's gold beetle and giant Pacific octopus, and Florida's gentle, vanishing manatee and 5-pound Alpo-eating Bufo toad, whose venom temporarily paralyzes the pooches that bite this noxious amphibian to protect their dog food.
Whether describing her own anxiety in a new and trying situation or else decrying our collective shame for the condition of the environment, this book is always buoyed with a dry, punning wit that engages our best selves. Between the covers of Jessica Maxwell's "Femme d'Adventure: Travel Tales from Inner Montana to Outer Mongolia," there are enough sunbeams and moonbeams to light our way to save Nature from humanity.
