Wilderness
is defined as an unsettled, uncultivated region left in its natural condition,
especially a large wild tract of land covered with dense vegetation.
To most individuals the term “wilderness” holds
specific meaning and when one thinks about wilderness, certain thoughts come to
mind. To get a better idea of what different people thought about when they
heard the word wilderness, I did a little poll. Here are the ideas of several
individuals that are all living in Alaska.
Wilderness means:
-
The woods, a place where animals live and
people don’t, uninhabited land, a place where trees grow thickly, a harsh
environment, any place a person is unaccustomed to, a wild place, the tundra,
camping, anywhere in Alaska, and outside of our homes.
Overall the main idea of
wilderness in Alaska seems to be a wild, natural, inhospitable environment that
is different from the everyday norm. We might venture into the wilderness on a
camping trip, but most people still choose to stay in organized campgrounds
with bear warnings, water pumps and toilets. For me, the Alaskan wilderness is
something amazing.
Since I was a child I
was transfixed by the world outside my window, and at times my “visqueen walls.”
I grew up in a homestead. When I was about seven, my father moved us to a piece
of property in the middle of nowhere. While there was life close by, he could
only afford a plot of land that was well away from the normalcy most people
were accustomed to. My father was a career carpenter and it was his plan to
build out house slowly as he could afford to. We did not have running water or
electricity and our home was a real work in progress. It started as a small
trailer on wheels with a visqueen lean-to built on the side. I had three
siblings and we all slept in the lean to in two sets of homemade bunk-beds. I
can still remember (more than 25 years ago) the sound the wood beetles made
when they got stuck between the layers of plastic in the corners of our make
shift home. They would flap relentlessly, sometimes all night long, and they
were not small insects either, I have seen some an inch long or bigger, and
they have really long antenna. I also remember seeing wolf spiders everywhere,
the big black ones. I would cover my head almost completely with the blanket so
just my nose poked out when I went to sleep. This was in the hopes that nothing
would land on me or crawl on me in the night. I still remember many near
sleepless nights in fear of creepy crawlies invading my space. The fact was I
was invading theirs.
For most people when
they close their front doors, nature stays at bay. We sit in our comfy chairs
in front of the television and watch shows about bears and tigers and such. My
interactions with nature were filled with far less boundaries that most people
are accustomed to. We have had a bat in our living room, mice, voles, and
rabbits burrowing in underneath us, moose at the front and back doors, bears in
the yard, a mother fox and her babies in a den across the road, ambling
porcupines fighting with our dog, a pack of wild dogs chase us on our bikes,
and an angry beaver that scared me to death. I have come in contact with most
of Alaska’s wild creatures at some point in my life and I have managed to come
out virtually unscathed, except for a few bad insect memories, and that dang
hissing beaver! In my point of view nature knows no boundaries, especially in
Alaska! But we must create boundaries from nature to keep ourselves safe and
the animals safe. We simply live in
nature and we must understand and respect to coincide with it. That may sound
cheesy and environmentalist of me but I have come face to face with a mother
moose and while her baby watched from the sidelines, much like the audience in
a cage fight, I underwent a battle of wits with a 500 pound animal in the dark
at 6am (on my way to the bus). This was a common winter occurrence for my
sister and I. We not only acquired immediate respect for that huge burly hunk
of meat, but we got on the bus that day with awe, admiration and nearly wet
pants and I have loved moose ever since. Any animal that can survive all winter,
outside, eating only bark, is a hero to me.
I do not agree with
William Cronon, the author of the article, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” when
he writes about the problem of protecting wilderness. He tells readers, in
order to protect the wilderness from human beings, human beings would have to
cease to exist. He writes,
“The
paradox that was built into wilderness from the beginning: if nature dies
because we enter it, then the only way to save nature is to kill ourselves. The
absurdity of this proposition flows from the underlying dualism it expresses.
Not only does it ascribe greater power to humanity that we in fact
possess—physical and biological nature will surely survive in some form or
another long after we ourselves have gone the way of all flesh—but in the end
it offers us little more than a self-defeating counsel of despair. The
tautology gives us no way out: if wild nature is the only thing worth saving,
and if our mere presence destroys it, then the sole solution to our own
unnaturalness, the only way to protect sacred wilderness from profane humanity,
would seem to be suicide” (1995).
This idea is as
ludicrous as it is idiotic. Individuals who seek to protect wild places are
smart enough to understand that there is a balance in nature. Every living
thing has a place. Human beings, I believe are at the top of the pyramid of
power because we are capable of rational, intelligent thought. We can protect
those who cannot protect themselves. Human beings are the only living species
on the planet whose population continues to rise without a means of control.
When there are too many wolves in an area we jump in our helicopters and shoot
at them. When bears start eating our trash because we have moved into their
home, we shoot at them. When moose attempt to cross the highway to get to the
best trees or to rut in mating season, we run them over. We don’t have to live
at the cost of another creature’s life. Unlike Mr. Cronon suggests, the answer
is not suicide, but “Leave No Trace,” a program that seeks to educate people
about how to enjoy the outdoors responsibly. This program and others like
it support the use of wild areas by teaching responsibility for nature. I think
these programs are important tools for many people and perhaps Mr. Cronon could
learn something from it.
I want to close out this
blog posting with a few amazing Alaska pictures (some from my own backyard).
Moose eating my trees, yum!!
Backyard birds!
I’ve met her, and I lived!
Good old Palmer Alaska!
Hatcher Pass in December.
