An Amargosa Appearance: On Josh Jackson’s The Enduring Wild

by Mason Voehl

A first encounter with a new landscape is always special. That initial raw contact with the unknown, untraversed, and unfamiliar makes a formative first impression.

Desert landscapes, in particular, with their vastness and variety, never fail to greet newcomers with gusto. They give a big “howdy-do” to outsiders wandering into their midst. When highways, telephone lines, and any semblance of civilization give way to scalpel-sharp mountains and basins that yawn into eternity, one starts to feel acutely like a stranger in a strange land. Like an astronaut drifting beyond Earth’s gravity or a diver descending 10,000 leagues under the sea, venturing into the heart of the Mojave Desert feels like an expedition into a beautiful, precarious realm.

This sense of adventure into the unknown is part of the allure of author Josh Jackson’s new book, The Enduring Wild: A Journey into California’s Public Lands. The book explores a substantial yet little-known corner of America’s federal public lands: those managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It is Jackson’s personal journey through these diverse, beautiful, and fragile “forgotten lands” in his home state of California. The result is a visually stunning and contemplative work that asks timely questions about the origin, purpose, and enduring value of BLM lands in the context of American life and the more-than-human world.

photo by Josh Jackson

I was delighted when Josh reached out in 2022, early in his Forgotten Lands Project, and invited me to join him for his first walk along the Amargosa River. I remember that day vividly: Josh and I winding our way into Amargosa Canyon under a sky heavy with winter clouds, weaving through thickets of gnarled black mesquites, crouching beside cool cobalt pools of fossil water. I can still picture Josh’s face lighting up at the river’s improbability, and its ancient, otherworldly presence in such a stark desert. We spent hours walking, talking, sitting, staring, snapping photos, and listening for anything the river was willing to share.

Witnessing a newcomer’s first impressions of the Amargosa River watershed is one of the purest joys of working for the Amargosa Conservancy. These moments remind me why our work to protect this one-of-a-kind desert river matters so deeply—a river flowing through lands unknown or forgotten by most citizens, yet entrusted to their care whether they realize it or not. This is the very challenge Jackson seeks to address: how can we care for that which we do not yet know?

Read “A Slow Walk on a Long River” by Josh Jackson on the AC Blog

By venturing beyond America’s best-known public lands—its national parks, state parks, forests, and refuges—Jackson invites readers to open their eyes to what may be our greatest opportunity for conservation in the years ahead. His encounters with landscapes like the Amargosa River, Carrizo Plain, Alabama Hills, and dozens of other hidden California gems reveal the beauty, vitality, and above all, the precarity of these places. BLM lands, as Jackson shows, exist in duality: long overlooked and vulnerable to extractive industries, yet full of wildness still worth saving.

Jackson writes with sincerity, his reflections hard-earned through countless hours wandering some of California’s most remote reaches. The land and its local protectors are his teachers, and he is an attentive student. The Enduring Wild makes readers want to get up, head out, and encounter these places for themselves. Yet Jackson reminds us that the encounter is only the beginning, the starting point for an ethic of care that demands action.

It is an honor to see the Amargosa River watershed—a threatened, often-forgotten landscape with so much at stake—play a role in Jackson’s story. Our organization, and many like it, hopes that his invitation to rediscover and revalue America’s public lands sparks a new era of conservation for BLM lands nationwide.

The future of the wild may well depend on it.

Take Action for the Forgotten Lands

The future of places like the Amargosa River depends on all of us.

photo by Josh Jackson