Outdoors On Edge
Forget your politics.
Pr e s i d ent James Earl (Jimmy) Carter Jr. died on Dec. 29, 2024, and the outdoor world has lost its best ally. This because, by almost any measurement, Carter did more to promote and preserve the outdoors than any other U.S. President. And, yes, that includes President Theodore Roosevelt.
Born on Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, Carter will most likely be our last rural president. He grew up in a home that for most of his youth had no electricity or indoor plumbing. In his early years, Carter worked the family farm and spent almost all his free time outside either fishing, fly fishing, upland bird hunting, waterfowl hunting, turkey hunting, raccoon hunting (this he did with Black friends who prized young Jimmy for his tree climbing and coon retrieval abilities), eel snagging, whitewater rafting, camping and bird watching.
If it was outdoors, chances are he loved it and participated in it as often as he could. The future Naval Officer, governor and president saw and experienced the outdoor world as a devoted Christian and would later write, “I have never been happier, more exhilarated, at peace, rested, inspired and aware of the grandeur of the universe and the greatness of God than when I find myself in a natural setting not much changed from the way He made it.”
Carter fought to protect this world as a farmer, private citizen and politician. He converted a section of his family farm to better accommodate and encourage quail habitat (he once wrote, “Life is just too short to go quail hunting with the wrong people.”) and another section as butterfly habitat. These conversions are today embraced by hunters and conservationists as the norm, but at the time were seen as wasteful, if not ridiculous.
As the 76th governor of Georgia, he established the Georgia Heritage Land Trust to purchase and preserve unique lands, created and supported wildlife enhancement programs that committed to such projects as the reintroduction of the wild turkey, and ceased the damming on the Flint River, south of Atlanta. As for what he accomplished as the 39th President of the United States, Walter Cronkite put it best when he announced to America, “President Carter today more than doubled the size of the National Park System by invoking his executive authority to protect 56 million acres of Alaskan Wilderness. Environmental groups said Carter has now replaced Teddy Roosevelt as the greatest conservation president of all time.”
President of the National Park Foundation Will Shafroth would later say, “President Carter will go down in history as one of the most effective and greatest champions of national parks of any U.S. President. He created 39 national park units. These are places as diverse as Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, the Martin Luther King National Historic Park in Atlanta, Denali National Park, in a series of National Park units in Alaska.”
Following his political career, Carter would share his love of the outdoors in his 1988 book, “An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflections,” the 2005 book “Sharing Good Times,” and by penning several articles for outdoor magazines. His works in Fly Fisherman magazine were extremely popular and allowed readers to join him as he went after the sea-run brown trout of the Tierra del Fuego region of Argentina and taimen in Mongolia.
In 2016, Carter was inducted into the Georgia Hunting and Fishing Hall of Fame, and in 2019, he successful hunted wild turkey at age 94. This last hunt proved especially rewarding as it showed that the former governor’s reintroduction of the bird was so successful that they could once again be hunted.
Carter truly saw the outdoors as a gift that was to be cherished and protected. As he explained in An Outdoor Journal: “It is good to realize that, if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.”
How very true, President Carter. You and your fondness for the outdoors and all that it entails will be missed.
Young is a Fredericksburg resident and avid outdoorsman whose work appears in the paper, Rock & Vine magazine and other outdoor publications. Contact him at gayne@gaynecyoung. com.
