summary by Greg Tuttle

Bill Geagan’s “Nature I Loved” is the book that got me interested in reading and collecting Maine hunting and fishing books. I first read it over 30 years ago and have since lost track of how many times I have read it.

The book is an account of about 2 years of Bill Geagan’s life. He was 5 years out of high school and didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He drifted from one job to another but couldn’t find his niche. So he decided to find a place where he could think it over and being a lifelong hunter and fisherman. He thought that there could be no better place to do so than the Maine woods.

Geagan bought a little camp on Hermon Pond and lived in seclusion with his two dogs and tried to sort things out. The book is about his life there and his personal struggle to find his way out of the maze he was in. Geagan wrote a lot about hunting and fishing in this book, and the reader might just learn a thing or two. His description of how he fell through the ice while ice fishing is particularly harrowing.

Geagan ended up becoming a writer, and a good one at that. He wrote columns for Bangor newspapers: The Commercial and the Bangor Daily News, and later on he wrote for the Portland Sunday Telegram, and some of the leading sporting magazines of the day. He had a radio show, and hosted a local television show called “Along the Trail”.

Although “Nature I Loved” was written in 1952, the story is still relevant today. This book is so well written and illustrated by Geagan that it’s a pleasure to read. You will love this book. There were two early printings of this book and another one in 1977 in a paperback version. There was even an audio version of it put out a few years back.

Bill Geagan also wrote two other books, “The Good Trail” and “Seed on the Wind”. He died in 1974. Geagan was a wonderful writer and artist. His books have a place in everyone’s collections.