Little Things in a Big Country

Book excerpt: Whether chasing gophers (Sisu) or flirting with cowboys at the Buckhorn Bar (Hannah), artist Hannah Hinchman and her dog Sisu are excellent guides to some of the wildest country left in America. Treading carefully near a sandhill crane's nest, testing the ice on the river, and marveling at the seasonal influx of ducks, this pair of curious naturalists takes us into the intimate corners of western Montana, inquiring into all natural phenomena—which Hannah then captures on the page in detailed sketches, notes, and watercolors. If Annie Dillard were an artist, she might have composed a book like this. But few writers, or artists, can bring words and images together like Hannah Hinchman. Insightful, funny, and personal, she not only enables us to enter her own particular patch of the natural world, she also teaches us to see our own, bringing to her work an exceptional unity of hand, eye, and heart.