While John Burroughs may have been one of the most famous nature writers of his time, he was not alone. Writing about nature is a specialty, and one that often results after a person has spent a great deal of time working or traveling the woods, fields, lakes and oceans of this land.

After writing “The Sea Around us,” a book describing the creation of the oceans and the creatures that live there, marine biologist Rachel Carson of Pennsylvania moved to Southport Island, Maine, in 1953 and wrote several more books while here.

A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Chatham University, Carson was one of this country’s most well-known conservationists and nature writers.

After moving to Maryland to help with her family, Carson wrote her most famous book titled, “Silent Spring,” which was published in 1962.

That book was based on years of research on pesticides and revealed the harmful effects pesticides have on the environment. It was, according to a number of sources, widely credited with spurring the environmental movement in the United States by making people aware of chemicals being released into the environment, including the deadly effect of DDT on marine life.

DDT — which can cause cancer and infertility — was banned in the United States in 1972.

In 2012, “Silent Spring” was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society, an award honoring the highest achievements in the history of chemistry.

One of the first women hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Carson is considered one of the country’s most prominent nature writers. “The Sea Around Us,” which won a 1952 National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal, sold more than a million copies since it was published in 1951 and is still being reprinted today.

Carson died in 1964 when she was 57 years old.

Two years later, the state of Maine and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service established the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge along 50 miles of coastline in York and Cumberland counties.

The refuge is designed to protect valuable salt marshes and estuaries for migratory birds, according to the U.S. FWS, and “the proximity of the refuge to the coast and its location between the eastern deciduous forest and the boreal forest creates a composition of plants and animals not found elsewhere in Maine.”

Of her work, Carson wrote: “Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”

Linda Greenlaw is another Maine nature writer whose tales are based on her real-life experience as the country’s only female swordfish captain.

Greenlaw, from the Isle au Haut, has written a number of New York Times bestsellers and is also well known for her depiction in Sebastian Junger’s “The Perfect Storm,” a book-turned-major-motion-picture about a series of three storm fronts that collided in the North Atlantic on Halloween in 1991. At the time it was considered the greatest storm in modern history; Greenlaw made the decision to turn her boat back to the safety of the harbor rather than ride out the storm.

Six fishermen died in that storm, all aboard Greenlaw’s sister ship, the Andrea Gail out of Gloucester, Mass.

In her books — fiction and nonfiction — Greenlaw explores the ferocity of life and commerce at sea; she has been awarded a U.S. Maritime Literature Award and the New England Book Award for her work.

She was also featured on the short-lived Discovery Channel series “Swords: Life on the Line,” and her work has always been about bringing the reality of a commercial fishermen’s life to light.

In her book, “Seaworthy,” after altering course to make a beeline toward the dock to save time, Greenlaw wrote of the experience: “To this day I don’t know how we made it through the dangerous shoals that his new course took us over. When I looked at our track line on the plotter that evening, I knew I’d seen a miracle. With the weather and sea conditions as they were, we should have been dead—all five of us.”

*Sources: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, goodreads.com

Rachel Carson excerpt:

“If you travel much in the wilder sections of our country, sooner or later you are likely to meet the sign of the flying goose — the emblem of the national wildlife refuges.

You may meet it by the side of a road crossing miles of flat prairie in the Middle West, or in the hot deserts of the Southwest. You may meet it by some mountain lake, or as you push your boat through the winding salty creeks of a coastal march. Wherever you meet this sign, respect it.

It means that the land behind the sign has been dedicated by the American people to preserving, for themselves and their children, as much of our native wildlife as can be retained along with our modern civilization. Wild creatures, like men, must have a place to live.

As civilization creates cities, builds highways, and drains marshes, it takes away, little by little, the land that is suitable for wildlife. And as their space for living dwindles, the wildlife populations themselves decline.

Refuges resist this trend by saving some areas from encroachment, and by preserving in them, or restoring where necessary, the conditions that wild things need in order to live.”

— Rachel Carson

*Source: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. This essay introduced the series, “Conservation in Action,” a marvelously written collection of narratives about refuges and the refuge system. When she wrote this, Rachel Carson was a scientist and the chief editor for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Linda Greenlaw excerpt:

“Ripe and one sliver shy of full, the cantaloupe moon shone a flashlight beam along our path as we steamed east through the Gulf of Maine. It was glassy calm, and running lights glowed dimly on the stabilizing birds at the ends of the booms, rounding their edges to appear like jet engines under wings, red on port and green on starboard.

This breathless night allowed us to haul the birds out of the water and gain a full knot in speed, as they normally ride below the surface to retard the roll of the boat and they slow us down in the process. The steady drone of the diesel two decks below added a soothing hum to the slow, gentle rocking of mysterious origin.

The last of the lime green landmass had crept from the edge of the radar screen as the faded umbrella of city lights closed over our wake. At sea—it’s more a feeling than it is a place.” 

*Source: lindagreenlawbooks.com. This excerpt is from “Outward Bound,” chapter 3 of her 2010 book “Seaworthy,” a fast-paced account of Linda Greenlaw’s return to swordfishing and the bestselling author’s sequel to “The Hungry Ocean.”