Smoke to See By is a collection of 21 essays and stories, many never before published, written by award-winning essayist and columnist Ben Moyer. The collection tracks the writer's quest for intimate knowledge of, and personal connection to, the natural features of his home region, the foothills and ridges of Northern Appalachia. Readers will follow Moyer along mountain streams and through native woodlands to insightful encounters with rare salamanders, wild trout, rattlesnakes, bears, songbirds, and bobcats, through a hurricane that turned to a blizzard, and working with troubled adolescents in a therapeutic camping program.
Overall, Smoke to See By is a quietly joyous celebration of the ecological resilience and diversity of a region those without Moyer's perception might categorize as “unspectacular,” yet which harbors its own marvelous natural wonders, offered to those who would know them up close.