Our readers' hands-on spirit is reflected in the magazine's comprehensive gear tests and personal adventure stories. Whether shopping for a new rifle or thirsting for exciting adventure tales, Outdoor Life is the ultimate resource.
OUTDOOR LIFE turns 125 this year. To celebrate, we’ve put together this ambitious digital edition that combines some of the most iconic stories and images from our archive with modern in-depth reporting and feature stories that look to the future of outdoor sports and conservation in America. But on any notable birthday, it’s worth reflecting before looking forward. When J.A. McGuire founded this magazine, in 1898, Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were fighting the Spanish in Cuba. Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii were all still territories. Bicycling was the hot new outdoor trend (as you can see on our original cover). The .30/06 Springfield was yet to be developed, and magazines printed in color wouldn’t become mainstream for a few more decades. In other words, times were…
OUTDOOR LIFE created its own legends. As contributors like former shooting editor Jack O’Connor and humor columnist Pat McManus grew into fixtures of the title, they earned our readers’ loyalty. More than a decade before he published A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold wrote conservation columns for OL. We also printed stories by outdoor greats including Nash Buckingham, Zane Grey, Fred Bear, Arthur Young, and Lefty Kreh. But for this selection of stories, we looked beyond the usual suspects and dusted off stories about (and in some cases by) American icons: Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill Cody, Amelia Earhart, Ernest Hemingway, and Babe Ruth. Their popularity transcended our world of hunting and fishing, inviting a wider audience to understand what OL is all about. And yeah, OK—we threw in a Jack…
WHILE OUTDOOR LIFE COVERS can stand alone as works of art (and make great wall decor), it’s more interesting to compare them. From one month to the next, copies of OL looked similar. The subject on the cover might change—a whitetail fawn, a jumping trout—but the aesthetic was the same. But flip through the decades and you’ll begin to see how they evolved along with hunting and fishing, and our national attitude toward them. Once the editors figured out that OL’s cover should help sell the magazine, they started commissioning unique illustrations for each cover. The last of the Wild West and its mountain men appear on our earliest covers, while midcentury issues were cheerful and relatable to most readers. In the 1960s and ’70s, the illustrations began to depict…
By the time this story ran in the March 1901 issue of Outdoor Life, Theodore Roosevelt had been sworn in as the Vice President of the United States under President William McKinley. In this story, he’s still referred to as Governor Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s tenure as the governor of New York State concluded Dec. 31, 1900. THEODORE ROOSEVELT is not only a natural man of the people, and an unassuming, honest, fearless and intrepid fighter for what he considers just, but he is as deep a lover of the hills and streams, and the free and unconventional life of the frontier as Nimrod, Izaak Walton or “Nessmuk.” To meet Roosevelt as a sportsman is to meet him upon the foothold of man to man. There certainly never lived a more rigid…
This story, Buffalo Bill’s Last Interview, ran in the May 1917 issue of Outdoor Life. The author reportedly saw William Frederick Cody a few days after they spoke, by which time the 70-year-old had entered a coma. Buffalo Bill Cody died of kidney failure in Denver on January 10, 1917. He was regarded as a hero in his own time by many; a century later, his legacy is more complicated. TO WRITE ANYTHING NEW of Buffalo Bill is almost impossible. The world has known him for sixty years, three generations have admired him, three-generations of children have loved and imitated him the world around, and there is probably not a civilized language in the world that does not contain his name. He was the most famous American. Not only the…
FOR ME, flying and fly-fishing both began in California. The first flight was as a passenger with Frank Hawks, the first fishing as a novice in the Sierras. Then—also on the West Coast, and also in the dark ages of longer ago than I like to remember—a pilot named John Montijo taught me to fly. My husband, not so long ago, undertook some post-graduate instruction in fishing. Whether or not I’m a good flyer is debatable. Whether or not I’m a finished fisherman, isn’t. I’m not. It’s unwise, I suppose, to be married to one’s instructor. The relationship is apt to cramp one’s style—both ways. The “severest critic” serves a purpose, but sometimes the S. C. isn’t wanted at the elbow when the student is trying to master the intricacies…
