Poems by Cynthia Jatul
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Who Changed Wilderness?
by Cynthia Jatul
Cynthia Jatul lives near the Salish Sea below the Cascade Mountains. The Cedar River Watershed is land of the Coast Salish People, principally the Duwamish. On clear days Mt. Tahoma graces the southern horizon.
What’s the rush? Speed, distance, more mileage, faster times. It’s a message beaming from the ultralight gear, nearly weightless packs, thin plastic water bottles, and ear buds rushing past me in a blur of synthetic-clad forms. The essential question being asked is, how fast can I do this thing? How soon before I post for viewers to register my accomplishment, admire my spectacular images and ignite a firestorm response, then rush out to repeat, exceed, report and repeat?
These networked, speedy young people don’t want to be blamed for overcrowding wilderness trails. Who can fault them? Love of trails brings more people out to experience nature, more feeling a connection to wild places and thus, as the argument goes, more advocates for preservation, more muscle for trail building and maintenance. Yet twenty years ago it wasn’t that hard to avoid our fellow hikers, whom we now encounter in a relentless stream. One of the reasons many of us go to wilderness is to be away from our own kind. We seek solitude in which to experience nature undisturbed. To be out there for long stretches of time and distance with only the sounds of wind through branches, rustling conifer needles, bird song, raptor screech, water coursing over rocks and down stream beds. Under such circumstances, the senses expand and there is nothing to filter out. The busy mind can slow, the ceaseless chatter of interpretation can give way to attentive experience.
Wilderness has changed, becoming a much more human place. Even when free of roads and machines, wilderness has become a ground for encounters with people. Increased human use brings an infusion of human culture. Our outdoor culture in the US now reflects a sizable dose of hyper-achievement. It’s no longer enough to hike 8-10 miles when those around us are planning, doing, and reporting on major through hikes and ever-faster times. This isn’t surprising given that, anywhere we look, the goals are to run more miles, summit without protection, bike super centuries, ski further, and trail run day and night. Gear is developed to maximize distance and speed. It is seductive and ubiquitous; the new normal is to perform. Our device-based forms of social media connect us to this new reality. It laces our neural networks together with a fiendish desire to see and be seen in a viral stew of dopamine hits.
Physical challenges are valuable, and for some an essential component of our well-being. Wilderness travel provides endless opportunity to face the elements, push our distance endurance, climb difficult peaks, forage, fish, endure hailstorms, seek shelter from lightning, and post-hole through deep snow. It’s all out there waiting to test our determination and perseverance. I understand this desire to build resiliency, to throw aside the endless coddling of modern conveniences. Why let ourselves get soft, too needy of that perfectly fashioned latte in the next chic café? And yet I find it frustrating, and habitat destructive, that natural areas in which I’ve long sought such challenges are now overrun with crowds. What was once wilderness is harder and harder to find.
More recently, though, Indigenous movements to regain control of land, water, and other original resources have forced me to reconsider my position. Where does my sense of entitlement to access wild and uninterrupted places come from? This question has helped me to recognize that this isn’t the first wave of overcrowding. I’ve come to understand that, in fact, much of what we consider “wilderness” in the US were lands inhabited, managed, and stewarded by Indigenous people.
The Pemigewasset Wilderness of New Hampshire stretches from the rugged spine of Franconia Ridge to lower elevations of the Desolation Region. Peaks in the wilderness drain water into the east branch of the Pemigewasset River. The area was logged from the late 1800s until 1940, and then established as a 45,000-acre wilderness area by the federal government in 1984. Deciduous forest has returned, logging roads have overgrown, and human use must be non-motorized. Protected and rejuvenating, the river’s name in Abenaki means “narrow and swift current.” The area is part of the Wobanakik, “Place of Dawn,” the traditional homeland now called northern New England and southern Quebec. Epidemics and wars with European settlers took a huge toll on the Abenaki population in Vermont and New Hampshire by the late 1700s.
What has become of the original people of the Pemigewasset? Lee Sultzman observed that New England colonialists came to think of most Abenaki bands as Canadian Indians since they retreated to Canada during wars with settlers, and used it as an excuse to occupy land in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Nevertheless, the unrecognized Abenaki have persisted in their long-inhabited lands. The New Hampshire Inter-Tribal Council was reactivated in the early 1990s, and the Abenaki Nation of New Hampshire has re-emerged.
The world of a wilderness hiker has changed dramatically in recent decades; solitude and a contemplative pace are hard to find. For me, these external changes are juxtaposed with internal changes in the ways I perceive wilderness. Considering the long human history of areas now designated as wilderness, I’ve come to question the very definition of the word. Once conceiving of wilderness in terms of places I longed to explore and for which I advocated preservation, I began to wonder what Indigenous people might think and sought out other perspectives. Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has pointed out that the idea of North America as a pristine wilderness is a convenient myth. Native peoples cultivated farmland, deer parks, roads, water routes and knowledge of resources. Our nation’s wildernesses and national forests, parks and monuments are all lands once stewarded by people living on them in some cases for 10,000 years, and forcibly appropriated through a brutal process of settlement and colonization.
So how do present-day Native people approach wilderness? One February day in the Pacific Northwest, I stood in a gathering of people paused during a prayer walk in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en people of British Columbia as they resisted a gas pipeline being constructed over their land. The walk leader, an indigenous man, spoke of his beliefs about the natural world. Turning to the mountains, he told us he had given up skiing because “the mountains are not our playgrounds.” For him, mountains give to us in the form of clean water, plants, and animals; we must therefore give back to them. Finding a way to have a relationship is what should drive one’s motivation to interact with nature. Instead of dominating and taking, we should forge a connection with the natural places we are part of. He warned that, without that connection, there is an emptiness that makes our life small. I understood him to say that there is no separation from nature, unless we treat it as our workout gym, a place from which to extract experiences.
The ecologist, teacher, and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer beautifully describes the rewards of taking only what is needed, leaving some, and giving back when interacting with nature. It takes time to get to know and understand its gifts, but they are bountiful. Kimmerer posits that nature responds to our care and that we ought to ask what nature needs from us. For me, perhaps this means visiting designated wilderness less often. Recognizing the privilege of accessing appropriated land. Buying less stuff for the adventures, driving less, and flying less. Leaving more for others, making more room for nature to thrive. Yes, using switchbacks, helping with trail work, removing trash, and engaging in acts of stewardship; but what else does nature need from us? Who should lead in determining right land use? Perhaps land conservation and trail stewardship as we’ve known it aren’t enough if our cultural behavior is to turn natural areas into outdoor exercise facilities. We need to turn lands back over to Indigenous methods of stewardship, while also leaving some areas alone for nature to rejuvenate and flourish.
Recently, I sat in contemplation during a mountain exploration, letting the expanse of silence wash away the clatter of everyday life, feeling the draw outward into ceaseless sky, and perceiving the reverberating notes of a spring warbler. Seeing crests of deep, undulating snow, I felt drawn in. Following the first colors of dawn as they illuminated wisps of cloud above a stark granite peak, there was only silence. Once again, I wondered, how should I encounter wilderness? I sensed a challenge: “How does it feel, newcomer, now that you yourself feel overrun?” I heard a raven chortle, pitching feather strokes through a moonless night. A lightly etched path became visible, stretched between lichen-laden rocks and fir, and the words give back arose in my mind. Land back to loving stewardship. Land back to land.
© Cynthia Jatul