Thure Kumlien was alert to the landscape and the creatures living in nature. The Swedish immigrant who arrived in Wisconsin in the 1840s corresponded with naturalists on the east coast and Europe, documented the new state’s birds and plants and became the Milwaukee Public Museum’s first curator. Milwaukee writer Martha Bergland brings a poet’s touch to her biography of Kumlien, a forerunner to John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Wisconsin’s pantheon of environmentalists. Unlike Muir and Leopold, Kumlien left behind few writings and was “a very private citizen whose work was almost always behind the scenes.” Bergland’s account is a welcome addition to the literature on Wisconsin in the early years of European settlement.
