Considering the electronic entertainment we have at our disposal and the lifestyle changes exhibited by our society, as others I also would think that nature-based outdoor recreation would lose its popularity. I was impressed to learn after reading Cordell’s piece that nature-based outdoor recreation number of participants and days spent are increasing. This article also introduced to me a concept I had not thought of before; I never really considered how nature-based outdoor recreation has evolved with time.
When discussing this topic of nature-based recreation I am sure that I would have considered the popularity of the activity and about whether this has increased or decreased, but I would not have thought about how these activities change with time. While reading this article I began to think about an experience where this change in nature-based outdoor recreation was actually quite evident and I just may not have noted it as that until now.

Nearly every summer my family camps in the Smoky Mountains. We camp at a site in Elkmont Tennessee, a place that used to be a big summer vacation home site called “The Wonderland Club” in the early 1900s. These homes still remain in a rather dilapidated state, and we always like to walk through this ghost town to admire the history and nature. Every time we walk through I imagine families that would vacation here for their entire summer, and how different that experience is from mine here during this vacation.
Following the creation of national parks in the 1930s, leases for these properties were established so that these homes would ultimately be abandoned to facilitate the conversion of the area into a state park. When I vacation here in the summer it is not in one of the Wonderland vacation homes, and it does not involve any sort of hunting club, vacation neighborhood activities, or casual wildlife strolls. Rather we are here for four to five days camping in our four-person tent, cooking on a fire, and partaking in strenuous daytime hikes to the top of the Smoky Mountain of choice for the day.

This experience showed me how nature-based recreation has changed over time. These remainders of dated nature-based recreation not only showed me the history of this, but also allowed me to imagine what nature-based recreation was like in another time. From a time of vacation homes nestled in the Smokies, to a movement for national park establishment, how we go about nature-based outdoor recreation has changed over the course of time. I can only wonder how nature-based outdoor recreation will continue to evolve.

Here is a website about Elkmont Tennessee. It has some of the images from this area that will give you a better idea of what I was seeing!
http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/tn/elkmont.html