The actor, author, master carpenter and outdoor addict chats about hikes, history and his passion for Cumbrian drystone walls…
Nick Offerman on the hike through Glacier National Park that forms the first part of his new book.
Photo: George Saunders
It’s apt that an actor most famous for a TV comedy called Parks and Recreation has a lot to say about parks (mainly national ones) and recreation (mainly walking).
As Ron Swanson, reluctant public servant of Pawnee, Indiana, Nick Offerman was gruff, libertarian and convinced that his own department should not even exist. But Swanson had a softer side that is far more in touch with the real Nick Offerman: a love for quality woodcraft (Nick is a professional carpenter with a woodworking shop in Los Angeles) and animals (Ron was particularly fond of a miniature horse called Li’l Sebastian), and a set of rules for life – the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness – which included: ‘Crying: acceptable at funerals and the Grand Canyon.’
That warmer, kinder side of Swanson shines through in Nick’s five acclaimed books, which have tackled everything from American history to hand-crafted canoes; from religion to love. And his latest is right up our street. It’s called Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American who Loves to Walk Outside. Partly it narrates a hiking break in Glacier National Park in Montana; partly it explores his friendship with Cumbrian farmer James Rebanks, which has spawned an intense love of the Lake District. And overall it’s an eloquent, nuanced analysis of how we treat our open spaces, in Britain, America and beyond.
It’s also very funny. Think Robert Macfarlane meets Bill Bryson, with the best parts of Ron Swanson as your narrator. (His description of a mountain stream: The colour of the water was beyond my comprehension, or at least beyond the reach of my paltry arsenal of adjectives. If it were a sample at the paint store, it might be called Elrond’s Mouthwash or Faerie Spunk.)
With that in mind, Country Walking absolutely had to have a transatlantic chat with Nick. And the results were lovely.
You suggest in the book that walking is kind of an act of rebellion from consumerism. That’s a lovely idea. I hope it is. The world wants us to consume stuff, and walking is a great way to disobey. If I’m walking, I’m not buying anything. I’m not destroying anything. I’m just providing myself with an incredibly rich and nourishing pastime, and at no cost to the planet.
You’ve enjoyed a beautiful romance with Britain’s open spaces. How did that start?
My first proper experience was when we came to shoot scenes for Parks and Recreation at the Lagavulin distillery on the Isle of Islay, which Ron fell in love with, and so did I. We had these long-lens shots of Ron walking along these gorgeous cliffs, and I was thankful the camera was far enough away that you couldn’t tell I was openly weeping that I was getting paid to walk on this dream terrain that seemed to have been plucked from a storybook. That’s where it began, and I love it more each time I come back.
What do you love about it?
Everything. My blood thrills to not only the scenery but the climate and humidity. I live in Southern California and I don’t like the weather. People talk about the fact it’s always 70 degrees and sunny, which I can live with for about two weeks tops. To enjoy sunshine you need rain to oppose it. I love to be chilly, and Britain really excels with chilly. So every time I go walking in England, I feel like I’ve won the lottery. Also, your hills are at a very palatable scale. You can be up to the top and down to the pub in a day, which is very handy if you want to go bagging Munros or Wainwrights. See? I know this stuff.
James Rebanks on his sheep farm. “I buy their jumpers because I love them and I want to support the family,” says Nick. “Even though as soon as I get home, I can’t use ’em. That’s why I love England.”
Photo: Tom Bailey
And then through social media you forged a firm friendship with James Rebanks (who farms at Matterdale in the Lakes and found fame as a Tweeter and author). Can you explain the bond you have?
It’s an appreciation for the way that he and his family endeavour to live and work in harmony with their environment. When I first visited James’ farm, straight away he got me rebuilding a drystone wall on the fellside. It was incredibly cold and damp, but I literally could not have been happier or more appreciative of the ancient process of stewardship that was happening. It was and is beautiful.
Stewardship is a huge topic at the heart of the book, isn’t it?
Very much. In America, when we are presented with a wide open space full of natural resources, our tendency is to let the titans of industry say, great, we’ll take all of this, thank you. The almighty dollar still drives most of our land use decisions. The very day after COP26 ended, America announced it was opening millions of acres of Gulf waters for oil drilling. Meanwhile in Britain and other parts of Europe the process has – mostly – been driven by a sense of coexistence and wisdom. That’s what you see when you visit the Rebanks farm or go walking on the fells. I feel like Brits have a better understanding, a more respectful attitude towards nature in general.
We can all be delightfully complicit in consuming: we all love cool new stuff. But I believe we can want to keep all of our beautiful species of nature intact and want to drive a cool pickup truck. We’re just finding out maybe that the truck will have to become electric or solar powered or, I don’t know, a horse-drawn pickup truck. That might be cool.
But you also observe that in Britain we have our own difficulties to deal with: littering, overcrowding, erosion.
Yeah. In a lot of cases it can be just be boiled down to simple manners. Most of us are in this tacit agreement, whether it’s in the Lake District or an American national park: a civility that says, for the common good we’re gonna not leave our rubbish lying around or let our dogs off the lead around sheep, or light fires where we shouldn’t, and we’re gonna close the goddamn gates. But some aren’t. I’ve seen dogs let off the leash on pastures in the Lakes and I’m thinking, I’m a dumb jackass from America and I know not to do that. What rock have you been living under?
So when I write, I’m speaking not just to my reader but to myself – keep minding your manners, buddy. You’re human and you’re gonna stumble sometimes, but if you’re kind and considerate and you think about your footprint, then when you do stumble, somebody might give you a hand up because you were kind to them. And that’s how this is all supposed to work.
“You cannot go wrong with this monster.” Nick as a gear salesman in A Walk in the Woods.
You appeared as a hiking gear store assistant in the film version of A Walk in the Woods, and you share Bill Bryson’s flair for observing Britain’s countryside from an American perspective. Has he been an influence on you?
I really love Bill’s books and it was an absolute dream to do that. I love his sensibility: slightly cantankerous, very funny, and with a great sense of human curiosity which he can bring to just the subject of going for a walk. I see him far ahead of me, way up Book Mountain, and I feast on his crisp crumbs.
The book discusses two eminent American nature and conservation writers – Wendell Berry and Aldo Leopold – whose work may not be so well-known in the UK. What are their messages, and can they ring out just as clearly over here as they do in the States?
I think what they both point out very clearly is that consumerism is not necessarily the best driver of how we treat our wilderness. And those lessons are applicable across the whole of human society. Many civilisations have done a much better job than ours of simply marching in time with Mother Nature. Wendell Berry puts it very eloquently, he says we’ve been sold this bill of goods by the Industrial Revolution, when we realised we can make all this incredible stuff and sell it to ourselves. And if it can keep us distracted for long enough, we’ll forget to ask, ‘Hey where did you get this? How did you make it? I hope you didn’t cut the top off any mountains or destroy any forests to bring me this video game.’
And so in my small way I wanted to say hey you guys, what if we’re not doing so great? And the first thing to look at is where our food comes from and the health of our land and our ecosystems.
They also ask us to notice our surroundings more. We’re so inured to just appreciating a copse of trees or walking alongside running water. As experiences, those moments can be as rich as any novel you can check out from the library, but we’ve kind of forgotten this as a society. And that’s what I want to remind myself and say to my readers – just start walking, turn your phone off and leave it at home.
Favourite local walk?
It’s near my hometown of Minooka, Illinois, along the towpath of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. A pastoral lane through the midwestern forest, initially designed to allow a team of mules to haul barges upstream. It’s idyllic in all seasons, and teeming with wildflowers, birds and small mammals.
Perfect walking companion?
My redoubtable bride Megan Mullally [star of Will & Grace and a co-star of Nick’s in Parks and Recreation] is my ideal companion, if only for the efficiency in witnessing beautiful moments in nature together, simultaneously, and sparing me the labour of subsequently reporting the butterflies and babbling becks that befell me.
And if you could walk with anyone, alive or dead, real or fictional, who would that be?
Tom Bombadil from The Lord of the Rings seems like he’d be a good time, and he would definitely earn his GORP [Good Ol’ Raisins and Peanuts] by pointing out which mushrooms are safe to eat and which ones will cause us to giggle and jape.
Speaking of eating; you and Ron Swanson both share a passion for food so I have to ask: best sandwich filling on a walk?
The short answer is meat. Whether afoot or seated, it’s hard to beat a mound of pulled pork between slices of bread or roll. With mustard and pickle. Don’t @ me.
“Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have.” Nick as the incomparable public servant Ron Swanson in Parks and Recreation.
DISCOVER MORE…
Where the Deer and the Antelope Play is available now, published by Dutton. You can find out more about Nick’s work and previous books on his website here.
Parks and Recreation and Fargo are available on Netflix, while the mindblowing Devs is available on BBC iPlayer.
