Aldo Leopold celebration on Saturday

Although Aldo Leopold didn’t make it to Valencia County, he still has connections through marriage.

The famous author of “A Sand County Almanac,” married Estelle Bergere in 1912, daughter of Alfred Bergere and niece of Solomon Luna.

To mark the 75th anniversary of the book, an Aldo Leopold celebration will be held 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 26, at the Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area, 2424 N.M. 47. The free, family event will feature a pumpkin painting contest with prizes, a guided nature walk and a silent auction featuring two Aldo Leopold benches, one of which will be “kid sized.”

At 1 p.m., naturalist and educator Steve Morgan, who is also part of the New Mexico Humanities Council’s Speakers Bureau, will give a presentation in the persona of Leopold on the Kandy Cordova Trail.

This year also marks the centennial anniversary of the Gila wilderness in southwest New Mexico, the first wilderness area established in the country, a feat Leopold played an instrumental part in, Morgan said.

“He was very interested in so many different things,” Morgan said. “He was known as the founding father of the wilderness movement. The Gila came into being in 1924. Now, we have 806 wilderness areas in the U.S.”

Even without making it to the county, Leopold’s influence is close at hand in Albuquerque and can be seen throughout the community. He spent about 10 years in Albuquerque, from 1915 to 1924, Morgan said and, in 1918, was hired by the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, an unusual job for a man who made his living as a forester.

In the midst of World War I, almost all of the young foresters had been dispatched to Europe, needed to work timber and build cribbing for the trenches the soldiers fought from.

“There was no one here to do the work in the forests and their budget had been cut to nothing. He had three young kids and needed a job,” he said.

In the year he worked for the chamber, Leopold threw himself into the work, taking his vision and love of the natural world to create attractions such as the Rio Grande Nature Center along the Rio Grande.

“Now, we have the Leopold forest and trail. There all these different things with his name attached all because he promoted keeping the river and land around the river in the city as a resource for recreation,” Morgan said.

The Rio Grande runs through Albuquerque, Los Lunas and Belen, as well as many other urban areas, and people go over it without giving is much attention, he said.

“Whitfield is important because it gives people a chance to be there and see what’s going on at the river’s edge,” Morgan said. “He had a very fond place in his heart for sandhill cranes. His family talked about one morning he was so excited he found a nesting pair on their farm in Wisconsin. There’s a quote from the almanac that is my favorite. ‘Nothing stirs the primitive of my soul as does the raucous call of the sandhill crane. It strikes a very old core in our souls.’”

One part of the almanac that is best known is what Leopold called the land ethic.

“It’s an idea that isn’t original to him but he was one of the first to articulate it,” Morgan said. “What he saw in his lifetime was how rapidly wilderness was disappearing.

“In 1900, there were about 8,000 cars in the U.S. By 1930, there were 23 million cars and that year drivers logged over one billion miles.

“There was a huge influx of people traveling and more and more roads; the land was being cut up. That is what pushed him to work with peers who felt the same way and create the first wilderness.

“There is often the thought of how does this plant or animal benefit me? He thought we needed to get away from that thinking and become a part of the community of the land. No longer conquer but become mere members of a community that lives with the land. It was knocking humans off the throne we’ve erected for ourselves. What he really preached was respect for everything.”