From most people’s point of view, a barrier beach is a paradox: appealing to visit but appalling to live on. An enjoyable day’s excursion requires shade, dark glasses, sunblock, drinking water, food, and, of course, a shower afterward. Take all those amenities away and consider existing alone on the island fulltime, even during hurricanes. When Wayne and Martha McAlister moved to Matagorda Island, a wildlife refuge off the central Texas coast, they anticipated staying perhaps five years. But sent to take up duties with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wayne McAlister fell under the island’s spell the moment he stepped out of his aging house trailer and met his first Matagorda rattlesnake. Seven years later, the McAlisters were still observing the flora and fauna of Matagorda. Except for the road and some occasional fence posts, the island appears untouched by humans. In Life on Matagorda Island, Wayne McAlister shows what life was like amid such isolation. McAlister revels in the ghostly twinkles of nights on the beach, as luminescent comb jellies, sea walnuts, and glow worms light up every crest of wave. He watches hungry whooping cranes snatch striped mullet trapped in tidal pools; hunts for Hurter’s spadefoots, reclusive amphibians that surface during warm deluges; and sinks to his knees in the sand, flashlight in hand, to catch a glimpse of a whip eel’s sharp snout. Not all observations are limited to the psammobionts—the creatures of the sand. McAlister recounts petting a fatbellied coyote pup and handing out kitchen scraps to wild turkeys. Badgers make their home on Matagorda Island, as do alligators, raccoons, and hundreds of varieties of insects, including the aggravating salt marsh mosquito. But McAlister doesn’t merely observe: he tells why and how. Why oysters spit, why pistol shrimp snap, or how debris from offshore boats affects the beach environment. He also relates the more sinister aspects of living on a barrier island, such as finding himself ankledeep in quicksand. But it’s all in a day’s work—or play—to the McAlisters, as they balance their lifestyle with the will of the island and its nonhuman inhabitants. “We try to stay in the background, enthralled observers,” McAlister writes. “We do not belong, can never truly belong, but we can coexist and commingle. Close enough.”

From most people’s point of view, a barrier beach is a paradox: appealing to visit but appalling to live on. An enjoyable day’s excursion requires shade, dark glasses, sunblock, drinking water, food, and, of course, a shower afterward. Take all those amenities away and consider existing alone on the island fulltime, even during hurricanes. When Wayne and Martha McAlister moved to Matagorda Island, a wildlife refuge off the central Texas coast, they anticipated staying perhaps five years. But sent to take up duties with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wayne McAlister fell under the island’s spell the moment he stepped out of his aging house trailer and met his first Matagorda rattlesnake. Seven years later, the McAlisters were still observing the flora and fauna of Matagorda. Except for the road and some occasional fence posts, the island appears untouched by humans. In Life on Matagorda Island, Wayne McAlister shows what life was like amid such isolation. McAlister revels in the ghostly twinkles of nights on the beach, as luminescent comb jellies, sea walnuts, and glow worms light up every crest of wave. He watches hungry whooping cranes snatch striped mullet trapped in tidal pools; hunts for Hurter’s spadefoots, reclusive amphibians that surface during warm deluges; and sinks to his knees in the sand, flashlight in hand, to catch a glimpse of a whip eel’s sharp snout. Not all observations are limited to the psammobionts—the creatures of the sand. McAlister recounts petting a fatbellied coyote pup and handing out kitchen scraps to wild turkeys. Badgers make their home on Matagorda Island, as do alligators, raccoons, and hundreds of varieties of insects, including the aggravating salt marsh mosquito. But McAlister doesn’t merely observe: he tells why and how. Why oysters spit, why pistol shrimp snap, or how debris from offshore boats affects the beach environment. He also relates the more sinister aspects of living on a barrier island, such as finding himself ankledeep in quicksand. But it’s all in a day’s work—or play—to the McAlisters, as they balance their lifestyle with the will of the island and its nonhuman inhabitants. “We try to stay in the background, enthralled observers,” McAlister writes. “We do not belong, can never truly belong, but we can coexist and commingle. Close enough.”

Once, all barrier islands were natural places where sand dunes and sea grasses, waterbirds and beach creatures flourished, undisturbed by human development. Matagorda Island still is. Part of a chain of five major barrier islands that shelter the Texas coastline from the Gulf of Mexico, Matagorda Island is the only one completely under public ownership-- the only one with a fate entirely in the hands of the people. This guide to the island seeks to acquaint first-time visitors and seasoned naturalists alike with the natural wealth and ecological fragility of Matagorda. In chapters on geology, history, ecology, vegetation, mammals, birds, herptiles, fish, and invertebrates, the authors show how the island is a living ecosystem, where every plant, animal, and sand dune has a role to play in maintaining the balance of nature. They also discuss the human history of Matagorda--the Karankawa Indians, European explorers, Civil War-era settlers, lighthouse keepers, and the U.S. Air Force, which used Matagorda for a bombing range during the 1940s and 1950s. Useful appendices on plants, wildflowers, and birds; maps; and line drawings amplify the text. This unique combination of human and natural history gives a full sense of what the island's past has been and what its future can be. It offers hope that on this one island, at least, humans can learn to enjoy a natural environment nondestructively, respecting the intricate web of relationships that connects the land and all living creatures.

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to share, print and post images for personal use.

For more than forty years, Wayne H. McAlister has canoed the Guadalupe River, sometimes called the “top recreational river in Texas.” In Paddling the Guadalupe, he guides readers down this 400-mile river whose waters spring from the limestone of the Hill Country in Kerr County, meander across the broad Coastal Plain, and finally empty into the Gulf of Mexico at San Antonio Bay. With the expertise of a life and career immersed in nature, he introduces readers to the places, people, plants, and animals—large and small, aquatic and terrestrial—that depend on the Guadalupe for either their livelihoods or their existence. With affection and humor (and sometimes aggravation), he wryly comments on the development and human activity along the river’s course, from the headwaters west of Kerrville to its mouth near Tivoli, just east of Refugio. For the traveler, either on the river or along its course, McAlister’s knowledge of the grists, sawmills, dams, bridges, swimming holes, and reservoirs bring the history of familiar towns—Comfort, Canyon Lake, New Braunfels, Seguin, Gonzales, Cuero, and Victoria among them—to life. His love of the natural world, which shares the river’s bounty, will inspire and enhance anyone’s experience of the Guadalupe, from the serious canoer to the family vacationer. Photographs taken over many years provide an intimate perspective, and sixteen maps help orient those interested in getting to know the river on a more personal basis. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.

In 1884, when Albert O. Marshall published Army Life, a memoir of his service as a private in the Thirty-Third Illinois Regiment, twenty years had passed since his 1864 discharge. Marshall left the journal untouched at publication, and today it is a journal that is rare in what it is not. This memoir is not a complete story of the Thirty-Third (known as the “Normal Regiment” because many of its soldiers were from Illinois State Normal University), nor is it a complete roster of regiment members, nor a list of killed and wounded. Army Life is not, even, a purely military account written from an officer’s point of view. It is the story of a twenty-year-old private whose engaging writing belies his age but also allows his youth to shine through. Marshall tells of the battles he fought and the games he played, of his friends, fellow soldiers, and officers, and of the regiment’s activities in Missouri and Arkansas, at Vicksburg, and in Louisiana and on the Texas Gulf Coast. Enhanced with careful editing and thorough annotations, this journal Marshall carried faithfully to every mustering out is a rich and important Civil War memoir.

Indianola and Matagorda Island served a major role in the history and development of Texas. Matagorda Island served as a key point of entry for German immigrants as early as 1844.Incorporated in 1853, Indianola is now a ghost town. Once the county seat of Calhoun County, Indianola once had a population of more than 5,000 before a major hurricane destroyed the town in 1875, The town was rebuilt and again destroyed by a second hurricane in 1886. Linda Wolff goes into great detail in bringing the rich history of Indianola and Matagorda Island to life in this book. Designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1963. In addition to the history also provides a guide to the wildflowers, the birds, the wildlife and brings the reader to current time and the Matagorda Island State Park.

Charlie Sweetwater returns to his hometown to visit his brother but arrives to find he is a no-show: The Coast Guard has discovered Johnny’s shrimp boat drifting abandoned in the Gulf. Is it “death by misadventure” as the authorities presume, or something more sinister? Meanwhile, Fulton Harbor, where Charlie’s family have docked their shrimp boats for generations, has changed—and not for the better. Hard-working Vietnamese fishermen are under the thumb of Col. Nguyen Ngoc Bao, a ruthless exiled gangster who aims to recreate his criminal enterprise in a New World setting. Confronting Bao and his thugs are Charlie and a mismatched group of good guys (and gals): a fast-and-loose Cajun hustler, a salty cast of “Third Coast” barroom regulars, a handful of courageous Vietnamese émigrés, a menacing ex-convict, and a misplaced Texas Ranger who discovers a slice of the Lone Star State that the cowboy movies of his boyhood never prepared him for. Along the way Charlie finds himself falling for his brother’s girlfriend, whose zealous desire to see justice served tests his own limits for loyalty and commitment. Unlikely heroes arise from improbable circumstances, and the denizens of the small seaside community find their fortunes and fates ebbing and flowing like the tidal flux of the ocean itself.

The days are gone when seemingly limitless numbers of canvasbacks, mallards, and Canada geese filled the skies above the Texas coast. Gone too are the days when, in a single morning, hunters often harvested ducks, shorebirds, and other waterfowl by the hundreds. The hundred-year period from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century brought momentous changes in attitudes and game laws: changes initially prompted by sportsmen who witnessed the disappearance of both the birds and their spectacular habitat. These changes forever affected the state’s storied hunting culture. Yet, as R. K. Sawyer discovered, the rich lore and reminiscences of the era’s hunters and guides who plied the marshy haunts from Beaumont to Brownsville, though fading, remain a colorful and essential part of the Texas outdoor heritage. Gleaned from interviews with sportsmen and guides of decades past as well as meticulous research in news archives, Sawyer’s vivid documentation of Texas’ deep-rooted waterfowl hunting tradition is accompanied by a superb collection of historical and modern photographs. By preserving this account of a way of life and a coastal environment that have both mostly vanished, A Hundred Years of Texas Waterfowl Hunting also pays tribute to the efforts of all those who fought to ensure that Texas’ waterfowl legacy would endure. This book will aid their efforts in championing the preservation of waterfowl and wetland resources for the benefit of future generations.