Swans Commentary » swans.com October 9, 2006  

 


 

State Of Nature, II
 

 

by Martin Murie

 

 

 

 

(Swans - October 9, 2006) 
A few years ago Bruce Anderson printed a piece of mine, "State Of Nature," in his fine paper, the Anderson Valley Advertiser. Well, the situation has gotten worse, much worse. The state of nature is that it is being very rapidly disappeared. Alienation mounts, full bore, as we speak. And so, here is "State Of Nature, II."

There was a time when I could visit a patch of public lands, Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, for example, and be surprised to see people clustered in a little space in the Visitor's Center watching a video of spiders and lizards, their tracks and haunts, and other sights that could be experienced just outside on the dunes. I discovered similar strange scenes in other places in the west where public lands make up a large and precious part of our domain. My mild surmises of Visitor Centers and people management changed, became notched up to where I am now, in a State Of Anger.

One summer I hired on as a "ninety-day wonder" ranger-naturalist in Teton National Park. My duties were threefold: campfire talks, museum attendant, nature walks. I never really enjoyed the campfire part, a slide show where animals and plants and scenery were cast on a screen while the campfire spread a romantic glow over the folks from the adjacent camping sites who sat on logs in a neat little amphitheatre and listened to the three of us rangers take turns, droning on and on, using a pointer. I felt that we were skating dangerously close to robbing the people from going out to the forests, mountains, lake shores, and sage plains to practice their skills at animal finding and flower stalking. The nature walks were better because, even though the group was burdened with a guide who talked too much we were all out there where the breezes blow and the flowers might be attended by real insects and rotten logs might show signs of being clawed by a bear. Sometimes there were surprises without labels: a summer iceberg afloat on Lake Solitude, a cony up close, a woodchuck lolling on a huge hunk of granite taking the sun, a real bull moose at close quarters in actual willows, requiring a bit of maneuvering on our part.

Time passed and high tech arrived on a fast track, along with drastic trimming of staff and more grandiose visitor centers where people could buy books and gather around a diorama to listen to a ranger spill words or watch a video or buy CDs to take home.

I like self-guided trails with little signs that tell you names of plants, outline some geological feature or point to physical reminders of history. Oregon Trail wagon wheel marks, for instance. Advantages of these modest trails, to name a few: you set your own pace; there is no ordering over-voice; you find, you discover, you smell and hear; you feel wind or rain, sun, heat or snow.

I thought I'd seen the ultimate stretch of this relentless robbing people of their own unique and personal adventures. I was wrong. Now comes Digital Wand. (Scott Silver -- ssilver@wildwilderness.org -- September 23, 2006: Destroying Cultural and Heritage Interpretation.)

MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MEMORIAL. For $5, visitors can rent an audio wand and take a 29-station walk in English, Spanish, German or Lakota.

Ca wokisuya ki le justice na democracy ki Americans Indians ki wicakco na wiyuskinyan He Sapa el unpi kta.

That's the Lakota version. Translation: "This memorial to justice and democracy now invites American Indians to celebrate and teach their culture here in the heart of the He Sapa, place of the black cedar."

"Justice and democracy?"

Gerard Baker, a member of Hidatsa and Mandan tribes is superintendent at Rushmore:

America is full of all kinds of stories, both extremely good and extremely bad. And I think it's one of our responsibilities to give as much of that as we possibly can -- not to make people feel guilty or angry or anything else, but to understand the history of this place.

I wish Baker hadn't added that last clause, "not to make people feel guilty or angry or anything else." He must have been groping for the correct words to keep himself well within the bounds that cling closely around a superintendent in the National Park Service. I think I can understand that, but the notion that guilt or anger has no place in our lives, especially in relation to the Black Hills, is a dismissal of the trail of broken treaties stretching from here on back to 'seventy-six. And, for many whites as well as many American Indians, the imposition of those four presidents looming over all of us in hard stone is a monument to foolish pride and a signifier of raw power, a power that rearranges history.

But to get back to the tourist, that beleaguered wanderer on the steppes of auto frenzy, that nature-deprived man or woman or child. Is that voice from the five-dollar wand an invitation to the actual on a particular day? Particular days are the only days for states of nature. Particular days are different from every other day. It's yours, that day. You listen to wind howl or whisper or give you a sort of spooky presence; you notice and you feel. You can take that day home with you.

 

· · · · · ·

 

For over a decade we've brought you uninterrupted ad-free advocacy work free
of charge. But while our publication is free to you, we are long on friends
and short on cash. We need you, our readers, to help us financially. 
Please consider sending a donation now. Thank you.

· · · · · ·

 


Internal Resources

Patterns which Connect

Activism under the Radar Screen

 

About the Author

Martin Murie on Swans (with bio).

 

Legalese

Please, feel free to insert a link to this work on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting the first paragraph or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge, or repost this work on the Web or any electronic media. Inlining, mirroring, and framing are expressly prohibited. Pulp re-publishing is welcome -- please contact the publisher. This material is copyrighted, © Martin Murie 2006. All rights reserved.

 

Have your say

Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number (the city, state/country where you reside is paramount information). When/if we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country.

 

· · · · · ·

 

This Edition's Internal Links

Latest Banana Republic - Gilles d'Aymery

The Global War On Negative Sentiment - Jan Baughman

Achh, Arghh And What? - Milo Clark

On the Suspension of Habeas Corpus - Poem by Gerard Donnelly Smith

Noam Chomsky's Failed States - Book Review by Charles Marowitz

A Phone Call - Short Play by Michael Doliner

Total Refusal - Peter Byrne

Blips #42 - From the Martian desk - Gilles d'Aymery

Letters to the Editor


· · · · · ·

 

[About]-[Past Issues]-[Archives]-[Resources]-[Copyright]

 

 

Swans -- ISSN: 1554-4915
URL for this work: http://www.swans.com/library/art12/murie13.html
Published October 9, 2006



THE COMPANION OF THINKING PEOPLE