McPhee blends traditional journalism – the reporting of facts and accounting of events – with thematic elements more common to fiction.

[4] The second section introduces Charles Fraser, a real estate developer in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

[6][7] Brower would eventually win this battle, with a groundswell of opposition forcing Fraser to sell his development on Cumberland Island to the National Park Foundation.

[10] Wendy Nelson Espeland, in The Struggle for Water, argues that the Bureau carries much of the blame (or credit) for "radicalizing" Brower.

[11] McPhee's catalog of these conflicts between the growing needs of society and the shrinking wilderness presaged what would become known as "wise use", or prescriptions for use that balance the existential value of the environment against societal needs.