Nature as a landfill

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Emily Lindahl

Through out our walk today, and the past few days, I have noticed how much trash is in places that it does not belong.

On our first ramble I noticed a television behind Watson Hall. On Saturday I was driving off campus and as someone walked across the street an empty coffee cup fell from her bag, we stopped the car for her to go back and grab it but she turned around then looked at it and kept walking. Today on our walk I saw a sink to the left of the abandoned stone staircase. When we walked through the brush and came to the dam, I saw styrofoam cups, beer cans and overflowing trash bags scattering the tree line.

Why is it that we litter? The girl with the coffee cup and the television and sink owners were clearly polluting intentionally but why? Is it because we think that someone else will clean it up because we are just too lazy? Do we think that it won’t have an affect? Maybe we think that nature will just make a comeback and just figure out how to deal with it.

Well, that trash does have an effect. Take a look at this video I saw on Facebook over the summer of a sea turtle who was affected by someone’s decision to litter.

Fads of Nature-Based Outdoor Recreation?

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Virginia Hoyt

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

Little red bugs vs. the metal fence

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Emily Lindahl

On Saturday I took a walk down the Karl Sterner arts trail. As the group who I was walking with separated out, I found that I was in the back. But, I didn’t care because I decided to take advice from class and slow down, really look up and observe.

As I walked, I noticed how the sunlight hit the creek differently with each step I took. I noticed that leaves were beginning to fall and I simultaneously had to come to terms with the fact that my beloved summer was ending. I could go on for pages about the little things that I noticed but one that stuck out the most were these clumps of red bugs on the fence that lined the creek side of the trail.

From afar I thought that the red clumps were little flower buds. As I got closer I noticed that they were clumps of 50-100 red and black bugs. I am no biologist so I have no idea what they were but the idea that they were there stuck with me.

I thought, “were they eating something, are they mating or are they just hanging out on this fence for no particular reason?” Whatever reason they were there, I thought about how nature will always find its way into the man made world. Granted this fence was intended to be outside and interact with nature’s forces to some extent. However, the stark contrast between the rusted, metal fence to the red and small insects opened my mind to this bigger idea of how nature will always make an appearance even in a world that seems so controlled by man.

Of Wolves and Weasels

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Tory Bingaman

We recently read the short passage, Living Like Weasels, by Annie Dillard and upon finishing the passage and trying to understand Dillard’s message I was reminded of a song that has similar ideas.

The song, Furr, by Blitzen Trapper, tells the story of the narrator who goes to woods and becomes part of a pack of wolves. the singer says, “For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah, And my thoughts, they surely were, Turned to instinct and obedience to God”. This mirrors Dillards sentiment that we should be encouraged to turn to instinct like the weasel and act in a pure way, doing what we know best.

The singer goes on the to conclude that the life of the wolf was not for him and return to the civilized world but urges the listener not to forget the wild life he enjoyed for a time. The song concludes, “ So if you’re gonna get made, don’t be be afraid of what you’ve learned”, echoing Dillard’s assertion that she “would like to learn, or remember, how to live”. Again we, see a parallel with Dillard, where they encourage others to explore the simplicity of nature and wilderness.

Feel free to listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZTSriPZCQo

A Human Collision or Missed Opportunity

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Julie Cantor

The other day after my 1:15 class let out, I was checking my phone for texts and social media updates while walking away from the academic building. When I finally tore my eyes away from the little screen to dodge a human body walking towards me, I realized I had also just passed by one of my other professors, our very own Andy Smith. He was actually doing the same exact thing as I was, which was checking his phone for updates (I presume) while heading to his next destination.

This actually saddened me a bit. Not only did I miss an opportunity to say hello to my professor outside of the classroom environment, but both of us also weren’t doing what each other ‘promised’ to say we’d do. We weren’t OBSERVING our campus in times like these; the five minutes outside between classes to take in the environment around us. So this brings us to the reading for today. We have an issue disconnecting from the norm of constant cellular device checking and constant responding. We lose those five minutes to an e-mail, or a scroll of Instagram, or texting. We lost that opportunity to make a human connection. We even lose our ability to walk straight down a sidewalk and with the high possibility of smacking right into someone (That’s uncomfortable). As the “Don’t Drink and Drive” commercials always say…

It can wait. Oh and pick your heads up, you don’t want to miss anything.

The Nature of Choice

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Tessa Broholm

My family is fortunate enough to have places in both Vermont and Maine that we have been able to visit every year since I was very young. Both locations are very remote. Picture dirt roads, grocery stores that are at least a half hour away by car and no drinkable running water. These are the places of my childhood vacations. By nature of being very remote, most of our family activities revolved around being outside. Hanging out on the lakefront while reading a book or playing a board game was something that I was completely satisfied doing for the entirety of the vacation. The rest of my family was a bit more restless and looked to the mountains where miles of trails lead to patches of wild blueberries and breath taking views. These trips were always day long endeavors, and I absolutely hated them. It wasn’t that I was a lazy kid, I played sports year round and was very active. Looking back on it now I think it was the idea that I had no choice in the matter, that my parents required me to come on these adventures because I was too young to be left alone. My sister and I became very good at tag teaming the complaining and whining when the idea was proposed to go on these excursions.

You can imagine my parents shock the first time that I asked my parents to go on a hike. They were in a state of disbelief, saying that I didn’t like hiking and asking the question “are you sure?” So what had changed? For several years my family had not been able to visit these places because of my parents. My dad had his knee replaced and my mom found that her calf muscles were deteriorating from a rare condition, which made walking, let alone hiking, very difficult. So one change was that I had had time to grow and mature. I realized that I missed the sweat of the climb and the burn in your calves that becomes so rewarding once you reach the final peak. More importantly though, was that I had gained my independence. My parents were not able to accompany me on any hikes and I was finally old enough to drive myself to a mountain. The ability to choose to be outside, to have some control over where I wanted to go, at what time and at what pace I wanted to go was so freeing. It all came from the inner desire to be outside, the ability to then be able to follow through and that this was all done by choice. It was my decision and that has made all the difference in my experiences since then.

Why hasn’t anything been done yet?

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Julie Cantor

During the first class on our ‘ramble’ at the second stop we talked about reflective glass on buildings and how buildings cause so many bird deaths. I was wondering at this time if there was a chemical in the bird’s eye that could discern between real and fake objects they’re flying towards, like maybe a glass coating on building’s windows? So I did a little searching and a simple solution was this…

http://www.collidescape.org/

It’s a film to put on windows that makes them visible to birds! (pretty cool right?) Any thoughts? Hesitations? Is this even an actual thing? There are other solutions to this awful problem, but this solution seemed most interesting to me.

Phone Off For More Connection

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Joseph Ritter

Matt Ritchel’s piece regarding the camping trip undertaken to explain media connectedness reminded me of the evolution of an area that I spend a majority of my time, and how it has changed based on cell phone connectivity.

Aquinnah, Martha’s Vineyard, is home to some of the most desolate beaches and clearest night skies I have ever known. A fisherman, I would go out to the beach with my father in hopes of catching striped bass and bluefish under the cover of darkness, when the fish feed and the light is low. The scene is hard to describe to this day; the calm crashes of the waves, the moon and the stars providing all of the illumination that is needed, the occasional splash indicating someone had hooked into a fish. The most beautiful thing was that there was no cell service, allowing for more focus on the fishing, the stars, and the place itself. Fishermen would pass the slack tides by stargazing, talking with one another, and walking the beach. Comparing intelligence on where the fish were around the island is a pastime of the Vineyard fisherman, and people shared in their success with others. But, times change.

Today, cell phone service has been extended to Aquinnah, as more and more houses have come up and wanted cell towers around their residences. This has completely changed the environment, and even the activities of the people who are there. The most beautiful pictures nature can offer human, the clear night sky, is ignored in favor of checking email, social networks, and calling friends to pass the time between fish strikes. As Ritchel explains in his piece, phones can even be used as a means to be purposefully antisocial, and this is certainly the case amongst the new guard of fishermen, as conversations regarding any life topic have been exchanged for the self-imposed solitude that people are placing on themselves when they engage their phones.

I am fortunate enough to spend large amounts of the year on Martha’s Vineyard, but I can never understand when I meet people who are there for the first time or are only there for a few days out fishing who are staring at their phones. It seems to me that the regulars, the locals, the experienced are those who leave their phones behind, rather than those who are experiencing this beautiful terrain for the first time. Perhaps it takes a connection with nature and beauty to have one later on.

Can Nature Disappoint?

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Jeremy Cooley

When you think of Maine, you think of its rocky beaches, picturesque mountain viewpoints, and in a sense its close resemblance to the wilderness that Thoreau wrote so much about; however, in my first trip up to Maine about a week ago I was sorely disappointed at the nature that was presented to me because it was nothing of what I expected. Old Orchard Beach, ME was closer in appearance to Seaside Heights, NJ with the amount of trash and traffic congestion littered throughout than the wilderness haven I was expecting. I was generally disappointed with the nature that was presented to me. I didn’t travel to Maine to see wilderness, or experience nature that was essentially identical to that of what I experience in my backyard of the Jersey Shore.

Out of all the characteristics, the one that disappointed me the most was the fact the beach was made out of sand (Pictured Below). That may sound weird, but when you live so close to a white sand beach at home you travel to experience something new and I didn’t. I was looking forward to walking the cobbled beaches I was told so much about from my parents, but it never happened.

Only white sand here.

I was told by a fellow tourist that to experience the real Maine I had to go further north, but my stay was short and really just unsatisfying. I understand I may have been in the wrong area and my expectations a bit too high, but still I can’t get over the fact that Maine’s so-called wilderness was so unspectacular. The next time I go up and have more time to donate to adventuring I will have to travel futher north up to Arcadia and really experience the real Maine.

Breaking Down in a Flyover State

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Nicholas Gates

Our 2004 Chevy Tahoe chugged down I-90 as we chased the setting sun across the vast green plains of South Dakota. We were on our way to Yellowstone National Park, 3 days into a road trip that we had been planning for almost 2 years. It was almost 9pm and we were closing in on our intended campsite at Badlands National Park, tired and hungry after a nearly 12 hours on the road. As we stared off into the horizon, my three best friends and I sat silently, individually enjoying the splendor of this beautiful land. Soon, however, we noticed that it was too quite.

“Why isn’t my phone charging?” questioned Clarke, keen on getting one last snapchat of the sun. A moment later, the car’s dashboard lights shut off completely. The engine noise died down and it seemed as if the car was shutting itself off. Sensing a problem, we pulled off the highway into the first gas station we could find. As we rolled into a small gas station right off the highway, the car simply died.

Unfortunately for us, it was a Sunday and the small, family-owned gas station was very closed. After half an hour of panic and confusion we came to the realization that we would be spending the night at the Cenex station in Reliance, South Dakota. Here we were, 1,700 miles from home “stranded” in what most would consider the middle of nowhere. With the situation completely out of our control, we put our phones on airplane mode, pulled out the lawn chairs and sat down to watch the sunset.

In that moment, nothing else in our lives mattered. Time became irrelevant as we simply disconnected from the outside world. While the breakdown seemed like a disaster at first, we quickly realized that is was the best thing that could have happened to us. We had no choice but to embrace our surroundings and make the most of our situation. It was relieving to put down our technology and enjoy nature in its purest form.

Just like the scientists in Ritchel’s “Outdoors and Out of Reach” article, we felt no sense of urgency, no anxiety, no commitment to anything besides the moment we were in. It was a sense of freedom and relaxation that I find hard to come by in my everyday life.

The next morning, we were greeted by a confused but friendly gas station owner. He installed a new battery and sent us up the road to a car dealership where our blown alternator was replaced. We were in the Badlands by lunchtime, only a few hours behind our intended schedule. However, that night in Reliance had quickly become our favorite experience of the trip.

Cultures of Nature Fall 2015

Monthly Archives: September 2015