Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is full of small facts and anecdotes that Dillard encountered in her extensive reading. Here is one that I enjoyed:
This routine always calls to mind the Angiers‘ story about the trappers in the far north. They approached an Indian whose ancestors had dwelled from time immemorial in those fir forests, and asked him about the severity of the coming winter. The Indian cast a canny eye over the landscape and pronounced, “Bad winter.” The others asked him how he knew. The Indian replied unhesitatingly, “The white man makes a big wood pile.”
Nehaveigur 