Ask Shannon Huffman Polson discussion

Question from Margot: You write beautifully at the end of your book on the topic of conservation and the importance of preserving and protecting wild lands. How can we city-dwellers encourage in others "a love, respect, admiration and deep regard" for the value of wilderness (as Aldo Leopold called for), especially in folks for whom your story is frightening and/or a reason not to venture into wild territory and experience it for themselves?

This is a terrific question. Frankly, it's one reason I had some reluctance in writing North of Hope. For those not familiar with wild lands, with wilderness, I can understand the idea of predators is a scary thing, especially in light of the circumstances of North of Hope.

I wrote about this a little bit for High Country News after a hiker died last year in Denali to a bear attack (that article is here http://www.hcn.org/wotr/a-grisly-deat...). I think sharing our stories is primary for encouraging a love of wilderness, and sharing that love of wilderness through experience, too. It is amazing to me that the trip I recount in North of Hope led me so directly into wilderness preservation-- particularly Arctic wilderness preservation-- and work with the Alaska Wilderness League. I certainly would not have expected that. But I am hopeful that North of Hope, and other narratives those of us with similar experiences might be able to share, will encourage people to look deeply into this thing they may or may not understand fully. I found the Arctic wilderness to be life-affirming, life-restoring, sacred. In learning more about wilderness and ecosystems, I started to understand that the presence of predators indicated healthy ecosystems.

The other perspective is, as a business school professor said, to look at the base rate. The likelihood of a bear attack is so low. You take proper precautions, and balance your acceptance of risks with what you know to be beauty, but understand that statistically, if you take good care in travel in wilderness, you will be safe. I think of it like a car accident, so much more likely to happen to any of us. And yet we get in cars every single day, even if we know someone who has been involved in a fatal collision. Our minds don't always work rationally without some encouragement. (perhaps not even then)

Thoreau is famous for saying that "in wildness is the preservation fo the world." I believe that. What we fear in predators may well be a fear of ourselves. The most important thing is to educate ourselves through not only reading, but also experience, and then to share that with others.

No easy answer to this I'm afraid. I'm hopeful that the love, respect and appreciation for true wilderness I learned in the Arctic will come through in North of Hope and will be a way of sharing that experience with others, and encouraging us to work to protect these very few places left still undeveloped.

Hi. Here's my 2 cents.

Historian Roderick Nash explores ideas of the wilderness starting with roots in the old world as far back as Christianity. See his book Wilderness and the American Mind, which I assigned in humanities courses at university. (In Massachusetts Bay Colony, Minister Thomas Shepard, a distant relation of mine, wrote and taught the subjugation of the howling wilderness was to be salvation from the antichrist. For others, the idea of the New World was strange and wonderful. The sinister and pastoral idea battle one another in the American view of the wilderness that coalesce in acts of preservation.)


Thoughts?

Jim

Jim,

wow, fantastic! I remember a great forum about this topic by the amazing Eugene Webb where he discussed the wildly changed views on wilderness across the centuries. I will look at the book you recommend as well. But your idea that "the sinister and the pastoral...battle one another (to coalesce) in acts of preservation is fascinating. Certainly the word pastoral would have to be mitigated with something else when one describes wilderness, and I have to wonder if the increase in urbanization allows more appreciation for wild spaces. Would that follow?

Shannon

Shannon,

I appreciate your shout out to Eugene Webb. A book I Want to Read is his Philosophers of Consciousness: Polanyi, Lonergan, Voegelin, Ricoeur, Girard, Kierkegaard. Unbelievable!

The idea that 'The sinister and pastoral idea battle one another in the American view of the wilderness that coalesce in acts of preservation' appears in the latter part of Nash's book, which knocks me out!

I suggest you take your idea that 'the word pastoral would have to be mitigated with something else when one describes wilderness' to his treatment of the Romantic view of wilderness. Moreover, I welcome your thoughts on the Romantics, as well as other stuff.

I am not sure: I suspect there are findings on increased urbanization and appreciation of that which is wild. Perhaps such a causal relationship is as old as cities themselves. 


Jim