Nature Noir

Park ranger Jordan Fisher Smith spent 14 years patrolling California's American River canyon, an area slated to be flooded by a dam project. But with dam construction delayed by decades, the once-pocked canyon began regenerating and attracting wildlife like mountain lions and black bears. And the "condemned landscape" drew wild people too -- squatters, fugitives from the law, even murderers. In an interview with Aaron Dalton, Smith explains how he came to love this land and why he chose to chronicle that love in his new book "Nature Noir" -- today on the Grist Magazine website.