A New Lease on Life from an Old Love of Nature

A New Windows to the Wild Episode Airs 1/15 at 7:30pm on NHPBS

“My recovery started because I missed this. I just missed being out here,” New Hampshire author Tom Ryan tells his friend, WINDOWS TO THE WILD host Willem Lange.  As he speaks, he marvels at the spectacular fall foliage of the Sawyer Pond Trail, near Lincoln, NH. After a series of health problems that included a stroke, a heart attack, kidney failure and lung disease, Ryan – long an avid hiker known for taking to the trails with his beloved dogs ­– worried that his best days in the outdoors were behind him. Instead, his struggles have given him a new appreciation for the richness of the wild and the healing power of nature.

Ryan didn’t begin hiking regularly until he was in his forties, but after a trip to the White Mountains with three of his brothers he says he found the quiet of nature addicting.  He tells Lange, “I never feel lonely in nature, just like I’m never lonely in a book.”

For Lange, the outdoors has also provided a salve to loneliness since losing his wife Ida in 2018. He …