Thoughts on Wilderness -- and an Invitation!
Avalanche Lake, Glacier National Park
The Mansfield Library has invited Camas Magazine to do a reading as a part of their celebration the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act. We are honored to be participating, of course, and hope you will all come out to hear our fabulous readers in both the Environmental Studies and MFA programs here at the University of Montana.
As we plan for this reading however, and as I personally reflect on what “wilderness” means to me, I must confess that I harbor a host of conflicting thoughts and feelings when I think of the various ways in which wilderness has been shaped across the U.S. I am, of course, grateful for the protections provided to expanses of land that – among other things – serve as habitats for species that would be more vulnerable otherwise. The Wilderness Act, signed into being on September 3, 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, established a set of protective measures for 9.1 million acres of wild land. After having visited Vietnam for a climate change course with Dan Spencer last winter, I have a deeper appreciation and gratitude for the kind of foresight President Johnson exercised. Vietnam, like many other overpopulated and under-resourced developing nations, is struggling to hold onto rapidly disappearing species and wilderness. And while we certainly have our own struggles here in the U.S., the protected land we do have is a luxury that many nations do not possess.
On the other hand, I am frequently reminded of the ways in which the Wilderness Act deprived Native Americans from accessing their sacred sites and hunting grounds. As reinforced in my Environmental Justice course with Robin Saha, I am uncomfortably conscious of the ways in which the roping off of Wilderness was a continuation of colonization and genocide. Who has access to these wild places now, and why? In traveling to Glacier National Park this summer to experience a four-day backpacking trip with my girlfriend, it was immediately apparent that everyone I saw in the park was White. Indeed, the location of Parks and Wilderness areas are often restrictive: only those with the money for gas and the ability to take time off of work are able to access most of these places. This leaves out a large portion of Americans who never get to experience the beauty and wonder of landscapes like Glacier.
Recognizing and coming to terms with my own privilege and the ways in which I am actively engaged in what has (in some ways) become the consumption of nature, is uncomfortable but important. And I am aware that there are many other questions and concerns that relate to what I have introduced here – but the scope of a blog post cannot begin to address them all. Dialogue with a wide range of communities may be a good starting place, however. And like many of you, I hold space inside myself for both critique of and gratitude for the passage of the Wilderness Act 50 years ago. Perhaps by the 100th anniversary of the Wilderness Act we might find ways to better balance the needs of precarious ecosystems with the human populations that are able to access these treasured landscapes.
And in the meantime, we invite you to be a part of our conversation! A series of short readings will take place on October 8, 2014 at 7 pm in the Mansfield Library’s Theta Rho Room. Coordinated by Camas Magazine, and in collaboration with CutBank Magazine, the readings will explore internal and external Wildernesses. Please join us.
--Emily Withnall, Camas Co-Editor