What two things were magical to Barry Lopez when he was a boy?

animals and language

Explanation:

"And I would add to this two things that were profoundly magical to me as a boy: animals and language."

He goes on to explain that this was because animals seem to have magical powers: some have night vision, others can fly, and they often can sense what most humans can't, like how dogs are said to know "pure" people from bad ones.

Language was magical to him because learning how to read was a magical, mysterious, perhaps miraculous experience for him. What he once saw as meaningless scribbles on a page, he began to understand as the words he heard come out of people's mouths, and even more magically, he was learning how to make these mystical marks himself.