branches and islands and mainland hideaways.... I resolved to make my living as an explorer and said so in school when we were all asked what we planned to do upon our growing up. John Leland lived a Huckleberry Finn sort of boyhood that most children would envy. A fifth-generation lowcountry native, he grew up fishing, swimming, and hunting arrowheads on a tidal creek just north of Charleston, South Carolina. With admirable freedom, he poled his bateau through the maze of oyster banks and the tangle of salt waterways known as Porcher's Creek. He spent years learning where the conchs congregated, where the clams kept secret rendezvous, and which hole hid the sweetest crabs. He became a naturalist by studying heron, frogs, and porpoises. Leland's existence was so interwined with Porcher's Creek that he lived, slept, and ate by its tides and seasons - until exiled by family misfortune and suburban encroachment. Leland combines nature writing and reminiscence with a heartfelt examination of change along the South Carolina coast. He celebra

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