Forestry Stories: As Lived and Told by a Northern Indiana Forester

In Forestry Stories, longtime Indiana forester Bruce Wakeland shares a campfire-worthy collection of tales from a life in the woods.

Growing up in northern Indiana, Bruce Wakeland struggled in school, worked in the summer heat laying asphalt to pay for college, and finally entered Purdue University as a freshman already on academic probation. 

“Well, there’s only one major that looks good for me,” he told a friend. “Forestry.” 

That decision would shape Wakeland’s next four decades as he served woodland owners through a consulting forestry business rooted in natural curiosity, pay-it-forward mentorship, and a profound respect for the forests he tended. 

His stories take readers for a ride with his tree-planting crew, into kitchen-table timber sales and courtroom testimonies, across frozen swamps, and through woodlands filled with wild creatures from killdeer and pileated woodpeckers to spiders and yellowjackets—and even to the site of a mysterious “spaceship landing.” He recounts the embarrassing mistakes, oddball clients, difficult weather, and moments of pure awe that come with a lifetime of working in the northern Indiana woods. 

Like Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, Wakeland’s collection is imbued with the Land Ethic philosophy­: the belief that people must care for the land and for the interdependent community made of humans, plants, water, soil, and animals. Aspiring forestry professionals, conservationists, readers of Indiana history, and lovers of America’s forests will find Wakeland’s contribution to the environmental literature filled with warmth, humor, and wisdom.

Part memoir, part regional conservation history, Forestry Stories is a literary walk in the woods with one of Indiana’s most passionate environmental professionals—and best storytellers. Straight from the heart, Wakeland offers an inspiring look at a career grown tree by tree, mile by mile, in harmony with the natural world.