As we approach the hot part of Mississippi's summer, as if there is another kind, staying inside with a great book about the outside may be in order. June may not be the time, but July and August are just around the corner.

Mississippi Tracks, a new book from Dr. Donald C. Jackson, a professor at Mississippi State University, invites readers to travel with him into the swamps and wetlands, hills and tundra, forests and jungles, and on rivers, ponds, tropical lagoons and the sea. Through Jackson's evocative descriptions readers will be able to listen to "the opening measures of a gobbler at sunrise, the whisper of wind in the pines, the melody of geese overhead, the rush of a summer thunderstorm, the chorus of frogs at dusk and the refrain of playing and splashing in a stream."

Filled with experiences from decades of teaching, conservation activities, hunting and fishing and wilderness adventures, Tracks is a pilgrimage into the wild, majestic and lonely places around us. Jackson shares memories of big game hunts in Alaska that segue perfectly into tales of deer and squirrel hunts along the Mississippi River. Stories of duck hunts at sunrise are blended with descriptions of the science and beauty of life at sea on the Gulf of Mexico.

Having spent a lot of time in my younger years on the Mississippi River and more recently on Kodiak Island in Alaska, I found this to be a great read on some of my favorite place in our country.

This book contains 23 entertaining and beautifully written essays on wildlife and the outdoors. The essays all draw on the unifying theme that attracts so many humans to seek refuge in the wild and I think that Mississippi has a higher percentage of those people than anywhere else in the lower 48 states.

Jackson pinpoints this desire as a "sirens call that makes folks like us restless to be off and gone – living on that bittersweet path of adventure, challenge, freedom, overwhelming beauty and probably self imposed poverty."

Tracks is a must read for hunters, anglers, wildlife viewers and people who can truly appreciate nature simply by actively engaging with it.

Dr. Donald C. Jackson is a professor in the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries at Mississippi State University. He is also the author of Trails: Reflections of a Pilgrimage. He is also a friend.

Tracks (ISBN-1-57806-894-0) is published by the University Press of Mississippi. One may order a copy ($25.00, cloth) by calling (601) 432-6205.