Get ready for an exciting event! The esteemed nature author and photographer, Tim Palmer, will be holding a book signing of his latest work, Seek Higher Ground: the Urgent Solution To Our Flood Crisis, at Otto Bookstore on Friday, May 17, from 10 a.m. to noon. This is a unique opportunity to meet the author and get your copy signed.
Palmer, a renowned author of over 30 books on nature and environmental issues, has a strong local connection. He served as an Environmental Planner in the Lycoming County Planning Department from 1971 to 1980, leaving a lasting impact on our community. One of our own, retired Chief Lycoming County Planner Jerry Walls, has a personal connection with him.
“When I was Executive Director of the Lycoming County Planning Commission (1970-2008), growing interest in the Pine Creek Valley prompted us to hire Tim Palmer, who was just graduating from Penn State. He had done some fieldwork in the Pine Creek Valley for his environmental studies at Penn State. So, I created the position of Environmental Planner and hired him in 1971,” Walls told Webb Weekly. “He worked for us until 1980. The work expanded, so we hired Bob McCullough as our environmental coordinator. Tim would use his vacation days to travel in the summer to canoe rivers and hike trails across the USA. His writings on environmental issues and his photography got the attention of various media and publishers. In fact, that became his livelihood. So, he came to me in 1980 and told me he had so many commitments to publishers that he needed to resign and devote full-time to those pursuits.”
According to Walls, Palmer now lives in Port Orford, Oregon. He has written 33 books. Of local interest are these books: America’s Great Mountain Trails — which features our Loyalsock Trail and Black Forest Trail. America’s Great Forest Trails — which features eight Pennsylvania Trails and Forests, and America’s Great River Journeys — which features Pine Creek. Seek Higher Ground tells of the Lycoming Planning Department’s response to the devastating Agnes Flood in June 1972.
Walls believes that this county’s proactive planning and community development response was so comprehensive and innovative that it got statewide and even national planning attention. But he said obviously that work takes a long time to undertake.
According to Palmer’s website: “For over 40 years, Tim’s writing and photography work have braided together his love of rivers and nature with his drive for creative expression and his deep commitment to conservation. Throughout his career, Tim has also been involved in river conservation. He is the author of dozens of magazine articles and river studies, display packages, and brochures for conservation campaigns, including publications for the successful effort to designate the Kings River in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System and to protect the South Yuba River in the California State Scenic Rivers System. He also authored the Western Rivers Conservancy’s ‘Great Rivers of the West’ report, a survey of the natural qualities of rivers in eleven Western states.
“Tim is married to Ann Vileisis, author of Abalone: The Remarkable History and Uncertain Future of California’s Iconic Shellfish, Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get it Back and Discovering the Unknown Landscape: A History of America’s Wetlands. They lived for more than 11 years together in their van and now live much of the time in a home on the Pacific coast.”
