Wilderness Incorporated -- the American view of wilderness

The November 2008 Arizona Highways ran an article about the environmentalist, Martin Linton. One of the quotes from the story caught my attention. Linton said, "Nature, where man has not interfered, is always sublime; mankind's interference is always crass and ugly." He also said, "We're the aberration on Earth--humans are what's wrong with the world." Not just anti-development, not just pro-wilderness, but anti-human altogether. Ironically, Linton spent the latter part of his long life, ferrying people down the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. His company, Grand Canyon Dories, advertises: "10,000 Trips, 3,000 Destinations, 126 Countries." The Grand Canyon Trip is from 4 to 19 days and costs from $1,735 to $5,267 per person. See http://whitewater-rafting.gordonsguide.com/grandcanyondories/trips.cfm

So apparently as long as the aberration is willing to pay big bucks, they are welcome in his wilderness. If you don't want to pay that high price for a trip down the river, the current waiting list for private trips has over 8,000 names on it, and the projected wait period is about 15 years. See http://southwestpaddler.com/docs/coloradoaz2.html

The Grand Canyon National Park has about five million visitors each year according to the National Park Service. See http://www.grand.canyon.national-park.com/info.htm The description of the regulations about river trips is pages long and as detailed as a legal contract. See http://www.grand.canyon.national-park.com/river.htm Even though you might hate humans, wilderness is a big business in the United States.

More to come.

Ah wilderness

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) one of the major political philosophers of the Enlightenment is often cited as the creator of the noble savage myth. However, the actual phrase came from John Dryden's The Conquest of Granada, a play first performed in 1670. Briefly, the idea of the noble savage is that man, in his natural state, is good and noble and that he has been corrupted by "civilization." The idea of the noble savage is so pervasive in literature that it has become a significant theme. Just as Rousseau saw civilization as corrupt, this same viewpoint has become a dominant theme among those who would preserve the wilderness.

The title of this post, "Ah, Wilderness" comes from Quatrain XI of Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. There was also a Broadway Show of the same name by Eugene O'Neill. Neither of which have anything to do with wilderness. Actually, the translation of the Rubaiyat says "Oh, Wilderness."

It turns out that there are 704 Wilderness Areas in the United States with over 100 million acres of designated land. According to Wilderness.net, over 12 million people visit wilderness each year. In this context, only Federally designated land that is part of the Wilderness Preservation System under the Wilderness Act of 1964 is considered Wilderness (with a capital W). 4.57% of the United States, an area slightly larger than California, is designated as Wilderness. Assuming the government or any one else can actually count the number of people that visit a Wilderness (how do they know how many times I visited the Superstition Wilderness last year, for example) you can compare that to the attendance at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, 17.1 million visitors in 2007. See http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/socal-amusement-park-1492/

See also http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm Wilderness.net Just as a note, I searched this site for a photo of "Arizona" and got a picture of the Superstition Mountain from the west. It must be a really old picture because where the photographer is standing is now all subdivisions.

Now, back to the noble savage and his connection to the wilderness (with a small w). It reminds me of the time we were sitting around Thunder Falls, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It was well over 100 degrees in the shade and we were waiting until evening to hike out of the canyon. We had a number of young people with us, including one of my sons, who was under 12. Suddenly, we saw this man run up to the waterfall and start frantically pumping water through a water purifier into a canteen. He was dressed in the best REI attire imaginable down to the expensive hiking shoes. I wandered over to ask him what was going on and he told me that there were a group of people up in the canyon and they had run out of water and he was carrying all the canteens and was going hike back up and rescue them. I pointed out that Thunder River came out of the cliff side about 200 feet away and there was likely no reason to filter the water. He filled the canteens and ran off up the trail. A couple of hours later, the group came stumbling down the trail and literally fell into the creek. They were in terrible shape. Later, when it was cooling off, we left them and began our hike out of the canyon. We had stashed water along the trail on the way in, so we would have enough to make the hike out. On the way out, we reported the unfortunate hikers to the National Park Ranger we met on the trail and he headed their direction.

What is the attraction of the wilderness that will put a group of totally unprepared hikers at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the middle of the summer without adequate water? Why do 12 million people a year think it necessary to hike, camp, ski, and climb in the wilderness every year? Why do I see hikers in flip-flops or with shoes taped with duct tape hiking out of the Grand Canyon?

Just as Rousseau, who had probably never talked to a native aboriginal person in his life, romanticized the native existence, so too today in a society that has lost contact with nature and either believes that it should be transformed into a more manageable commodity or preserved out of a nostalgic desire to return to a simpler and less commercialized society. In both cases humankind is viewed as something apart from nature, either separated by our responsibility as custodians or our need to preserve "wild places" from the evils of society as a whole. Often, the native indigenous population is seen as an integral part of nature, not exactly human, and therefore also to be preserved in their primeval pristine state.

There is an insightful essay on the issue of wilderness sponsored by the Faculty Resource Laboratory at the University of Connecticut. You can read the article by David R. Klein at:
http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/HistoryCulture/wilderness.html

Although I do not agree with most of the article's historic analysis, I do agree that only a small minority of the American population ever visits a wilderness or a Wilderness. Klein's statement that "[t]he act of offering legal protection for wilderness that is far removed from our everyday lives provides salve for our conscience, perhaps in recognition that we have lacked the will to initiate the major governmental and economic restructuring necessary if we are to move toward sustainability of Western society" is a capsule summary of the entire wilderness issue.

More later

Thoughts on the illusion of wilderness

The theme of wilderness permeates western civilization and its literature. But the concept of a place devoid of human habitation and untouched by human intervention is a highly charged cultural concept that has little relation to the actual existence of such a place in the real world. Many of the early pioneers from the earliest European settlers along the eastern seaboard and westward across the continent had the concept that the area they were entering was a "wilderness" even though it appeared to be inhabited, sometimes heavily, with native American people. Today, it would be difficult, if not impossible to point to an area of the world, other than the continent of Antarctica, that could fall into the classic cultural notion of a wilderness. I have found petroglyphs and other evidence of human habitation in some of the most remote areas in North America, evidence that people have lived in the area for thousands of years.

In the United States we have codified our wildernesses into Federally owned enclaves, designated by law. Some of these areas are as heavily visited as an urban mall, but are still "wilderness" under the law. One night, I was laying awake in the bottom of Pariah Canyon, a norther Arizona slot canyon and an officially designated "wilderness area." I looked into the dark midnight sky and realized that I was watching a series of airplanes fly over. With a little thought I remembered that the main north/south airline routes between Phoenix and Salt Lake City, led right over the canyon. I thought of my wilderness experience, being days on foot from the nearest commercial outpost, but in reality, only a few thousand feet from people sitting in comfort reading or sleeping or talking on a cross country flight. The experience shattered the illusion of wilderness, that I could somehow separate myself from the rest of humanity by merely walking into the desert or mountains.

In the eastern part of the Mesa/Phoenix Metroplex there is a famous range of mountains which are included in the Superstition Wilderness area. Driving along U.S. 60 going east from Mesa, you can look towards the mountains and see them outlined with a line demarking the edge of the "wilderness" next to suburban subdivisions.

I frequently read about someone who moves out into the countryside, to experience the solitude and like a recent article in Arizona Highways magazine, living "off the grid... where the world is more primal and elemental." Arizona Highways, November 2008, page 21. But the fact that we are reading about this person in a major magazine, a person who is usually a contributor, indicates that living in the "wilderness" is simply part of their job, if you will. They define themselves by living at some distance from commercial services to make a point.

Talking about a businessman that just purchased 2.5 million square acres of wilderness in Chile, the news report states: "Doug is intense, driven, obsessive and self-deprecating. He is a curious fusion of Henry David Thoreau and Charles Lindberg with Martha Stewart's eye for detail. But at his core, he is a deeply committed environmentalist." Describing his land the article explains, "In this isolated region with chronic poverty, Doug is creating his own Utopian world -- a South American Walden Pond where natural splendor is complimented by handcrafted beauty. No detail too small: paths made of stone, fences of twigs, signs hand-carved, public campgrounds immaculate. And nine Hobbit-like cabins for visitors. Pumalin isn't just about preserving wilderness, it is about living in harmony with nature."

Wilderness including all the modern conveniences. As the article states: "Suddenly, in this remote mountain valley near the bottom of the earth, we enter a manicured lane way, passing immaculate gardens, glass greenhouses and then, far from everyone and everywhere, a graceful home. This is where Doug Tompkins and his wife, Kristine, live."

See http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/GlobalWarming/story?id=2931202

More about wilderness later.

The rare annual saguaro migration unveiled

During a recent trip to Payson, up the Beeline Highway, I was privileged to see the annual Saguaro Migration in full swing. This annual event has been totally ignored by everyone from National Geographic to Arizona Highways. It has also yet to be featured on Blue Planet. You will have to excuse the pictures because they were taken at 65 mph on the highway. It is not recommended that you exit your vehicle while the Saguaros are migrating.

You can just see the herd in the distance, coming over the hill. It is unusual to see them during daylight hours, but the weather has been very warm into the later part of the year and saguaros take advantage of the warm weather, even during daylight hours.

An old male saguaro is running from a pack of carnivorous cholla. The cholla prey on the weaker, smaller saguaros or those who stray from the herd.

You can just catch the lead bull saguaro leading the march across the desert.



A few juvenile Saguaros approach the highway. Unfortunately, many are killed trying to cross four lanes of traffic. You often see their squished bodies laying on the side of the road with their little roots sticking into the air. You who live in the South can relate by thinking of armadillos only longer and green.

Another shot showing a mixed group gathering for a quick dash across the highway.

He who hesitates is lost. Some of these fellows appear a little undecided.

This is a Saguaro barrier, a futile attempt to protect the migrating herd. You may think it is a crash barrier but that is what they want you to think.

Arizona is a land of extremes. But it is very disappointing that the conservationists have been so effective in protecting this species that their annual migration has almost gone unnoticed.

Arizona has flowers besides cactus

Some thoughts on poetry

Writing poetry is hard work. Contrary to popular belief, poetry is not simply short lines of prose arranged to look like a "poem." Here is an apparently simple poem by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Rain

The rain is falling all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

[this poem came from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, as available on Gutenberg.org]

I say apparently simple, because no poetry is simple. Let's look at this poem.

Stevenson makes a comment that is universal. But he makes his comment in a formal way, using certain conventions that make the thought unique and memorable. It is not the line length or the appearance that makes this into a poem. It is the combination of rhyme, meter, and content. So much of what I see today tries to be poetry by talking about "poetical" things. The whole world may be full of poetry, but it must be put into some form of rhyme, meter or content to actually become a poem.

Considering Stevenson's poem only from the standpoint of syllabic meter, it is in the form 8 syllables/6 syllables/8 syllables/6 syllables with rhyme on the last syllable of each of the two 6 syllable lines. The first and third lines have 4 iambic feet (tetrameter), that is accent on the second syllable such as -/. The second and fourth lines each have three iambic feet (trimeter). The word "umbrellas" is slightly problematical because the preceding stressed syllable falls on the word "the." The poem is constructed with enjambed or run-on lines in which the sense of the poem continues on to the next line without a natural syntactical pause, establishing a strong grammatical pull between the lines known as enjambment. See

http://english3.fsu.edu/~mkennedy/poeticform.htm Meegan Kennedy, Department of English, Florida State University.

Although the content of the poem appears simple, the thought shows substantial reflection on the universality of human experience and the egalitarian nature of natural phenomenon.

The next time you see a "poem" in print, think about both the form and content. You may find that much of what is being passed off as poetry isn't poetry at all. From time to time I will continue to comment on poetry. I believe that if poetry fails so fails the world. Not that I believe that poetry has any saving grace, but that true poetry embodies all that is good and beautiful in the world. An evil world cannot produce true poetry. However, just as pictures can uplift and edify as well as degrade and destroy, so words can be used for evil purposes. True poetry comes from the fullness of the heart and if used for evil, to that extent is no longer poetry.

Back to signs

I know this one is pretty silly. But how many of you worry about those labels that say do not remove under penalty of law?