What is Solitude, Really?
An introvert’s “Meh” about the book Lookout: Love, Solitude and Searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest by Trina Moyles.
I can’t help getting interested in books featuring solitude, whether being alone is chosen or imposed. And since introverts have a greater yearning for and tolerance for aloneness, I’ve discussed quite a few novels and memoirs on the topic for Introvert UpThink paid subscribers, including Daniel Defoe’s classic Robinson Crusoe; Admiral Richard Byrd’s dramatic tale of isolation in Antarctica; Peter Matthiessen’s memoir of trekking in the Himalayas; Henry David Thoreau’s two-year removal to Walden Pond; and the recent based-on-reality novel about a castaway woman, Isola.
A memoir about watching alone for wildfires in a remote tower has an even more specific, hallowed heritage. On the Road author Jack Kerouac, poet Gary Snyder and environmental pioneer Edward Abbey all were strongly influenced by summers they spent as fire lookouts in the 1950s or 1960s. Because mere miles from my home in Goshen, Massachusetts stands a fire tower whose 65-feet-high iron steps I’ve climbed for a view of five states, I’ve had a vivid mental picture of what manning such a structure amidst forest, forest and more forest would entail. Days and nights alone scanning the horizon for smoke. Unrelieved immersion in wilderness. No one to talk to for the whole season except when calling in a fire on one’s battery-powered two-way radio.
Trina Moyles’ 2021 memoir about being a fire lookout for a couple of summers in northern Alberta, Canada, didn’t match my envisioning of the isolation of this job.
First, Moyles’ setup included a multitude of creature comforts, such as a solar fridge, solar oven and propane heater. For communication from her tower, she had an Internet connection, cellphone and radio. Indeed, she had a radio check-in call with headquarters every night at 7 pm. An affectionate dog provided daily companionship. A helicopter replenished her food supplies once a month. She became friends with other lookouts (all introverts, of course), occasionally had fire crews bivouacking with her for weeks, and even had her parents, niece and nephew come visit with her the second summer. Although most days she fulfilled her fire watching duties alone, her situation wasn’t the extreme solitude conjured up for me in the subtitle of her book, Lookout: Love, Solitude, and Searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest.
The book has many vivid moments, describing both the lookout routine and dramatic events like watching lightning strikes and encountering a grizzly sow and her cubs. I turned down close to a dozen page corners for passages I wanted to reread, like this one, providing journalistic perspective:
“Every wildfire has a story.
Hunters, or day hikers, carelessly leave a campfire to smolder out, but the wind picks up and sends sparks flying into the bush. A brush pile, left unattended, smolders in a farmer’s field and spreads into nearby grass. A woman tosses a still-lit cigarette out of the window of her car into the ditch. A father and son enjoy an afternoon of driving their ATV in a wildland recreational park then decide to go off-roading, and the extreme heat from the engine catalyzes a flame in the tall, dry grass.”
There’s vivid description of nature in the book, as well, such as:
“The smoke column braided itself into a horse’s tail. The fire wanted to run, but she probably wouldn’t go far. Although the fire hazard was creeping up again, the earth was sopping wet, a far cry from the May conditions when the forest was a matchbox waiting to be struck. I imagined all the tiny fire-loving creatures, including the fire beetle, scuttling towards the wildfire, eager to lay their eggs in the charred bark of the burnt trees. In a matter of only weeks, fireweed and other pioneer species would germinate in the ashes of the burn. Deer, moose, elk and bears would come to forage on the new green growth. And somewhere deep in the charred floor, the nitrogen-rich ash would fertilize the opened coniferous seeds waiting to grow again.”
You may also appreciate some of her personal reflections:
“What was it about being the first to observe nature in action? Witnessing what the forest had done for millennia? It made me feel small and insignificant, and yet also like a quiet hero. I was proud to be a small part of the collective effort to spot the beginnings of wildfire, joining the legacy of the women and men who watched before. It was lonely and thankless work, and in the moment of reporting a smoke there was no one with whom I could share the glory – no one but myself. But it didn’t make me sad; instead, I felt powerful and connected and deeply useful.”
In short, Lookout is in some ways a wonderful read. Just don’t expect it to illuminate much about the mysteries, pleasures and perils of solitude. I came away realizing what I should have understood before I read: What you count as solitude depends on your experience, expectations and points of comparison.