“‘You’re not going to kill it, are you?’ It was a question he tried to deflect by saying that the beavers were being captured alive in cage traps… His customers, on the other hand, usually didn’t ask. Asking would result in an answer they didn’t want to hear. They wanted to assume that the animals causing their problems would be removed by LaFountain and then relocated to some place where they could live happily ever after.” (65)

This passage illustrates the widespread ignorance towards environmental problems. While environmental issues are gaining recognition around the country, many still refuse to acknowledge human impact on our ecosystem and climate. Sometimes it is because of a fundamental difference in opinion, but more often than not, we can’t accept the impacts of our actions because we are too scared to acknowledge any wrong doing or any negative result.

In this passage, the people hiring LaFountain want to protect the trees around their house for their own aesthetic benefit. To them, the beaver is an enemy, but when they see it trapped in the cage, they are forced to accept that they are selling the animals life so that they can have a nicely landscaped property.

I stumbled upon an interesting opinion piece from a recent copy of The Boston Globe. The author talks about Thoreau’s in-depth journaling often centered around observations that he was making about changes in climate patterns and how it effected the nature around him.

For years, Thoreau monitored the plants and animals around him, noting how the weather affected them. He kept detailed logs of these patterns which are now being used by climate scientists and students who are examining the impacts of climate change on New England’s environment. Pretty cool!

The author wrote this piece (which paints Thoreau as an climate change pioneer) in response to a recent article in the New Yorker, which takes shot at Thoreau as a person. The author from the New Yorker was not very fond of our friend Henry. (See below)

“The real Thoreau was, in the fullest sense of the word, self-obsessed: narcissistic, fanatical about self-control, adamant that he required nothing beyond himself to understand and thrive in the world. From that inward fixation flowed a social and political vision that is deeply unsettling. It is true that Thoreau was an excellent naturalist and an eloquent and prescient voice for the preservation of wild places. But “Walden” is less a cornerstone work of environmental literature than the original cabin porn: a fantasy about rustic life divorced from the reality of living in the woods, and, especially, a fantasy about escaping the entanglements and responsibilities of living among other people.”

Like most articles in the New Yorker, it’s a pretty long read. However, if you find the time, both articles are pretty interesting and paint very different pictures of HDT.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/10/21/sorry-new-yorker-thoreau-more-relevant-than-ever/XsF28iSLPwrLkiNZIpHmoI/story.html#comments

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum

“Wilderness is a loaded word. It fits nicely into the founding mythology, conjuring up a vision of a forest primeval full of formidable creatures and humans who were not civilized enough to be called anything but savages. Demonizing the landscape and its occupants helped justify their conquest and destruction, which was the first step in the creation of a new Eden.” – Jim Sterba, 22

I was really intrigued by how Sterba explained the colonists’ interpretation of wilderness. Today, we usually think of wilderness as an image of perfection and a dwindling gift that we want to cherish. However, to the founders of this nation, wilderness was scary, burdensome and in the way of development. This passage clearly shows the difference in understanding and respect for natural resources that separates the past from the present. Back then, people saw the world and its resources as limitless. Today, we understand that everything on this planet is finite and that our actions play a role in the planet’s climate. I think that this passage does a cool job of juxtaposing two different trains of thought.

I was also interested to learn that the indians would burn millions of acres of forest for many different and often insignificant reasons.

Let me start by saying that I really enjoyed yesterday’s hike. As I mentioned during our mountaintop discussion, our trip gave me an opportunity to escape the often overbearing Lafayette bubble and retreat into the environment where I feel most alive.

Although this hike was similar to countless other hikes that I’ve done, I found myself more aware of the abundance of people on the trail. I noticed how packed down the trail itself was and how at times, our rest points felt more like a Manhattan intersection than a protected wilderness reserve. It was great to see so many people out enjoying “nature,” but the packed wilderness area really drove home Cronon’s argument that man and nature cannot exist separately.

Another funny moment for me occurred when the large group behind us emerged onto the first ledge. Without a moment of hesitation, one of the teenagers in the group exclaimed “This view is nothing, I’ve been to the grand canyon!” I couldn’t help but laugh as this notion was almost identical to many of the discussions that we have had in class this year. Can we really place different levels of value on different “wilderness” locations? I found it amusing that this individual was so quick to brush off the beauty of the moment with a comparison of one piece of nature being better than another. I guess I’ve always placed value on the moment and place that I am in rather than comparing one place to another.

One final thought from that kid’s exclamation ties back into our most recent paper topic, Nature as Cathedral. Had the roles been reversed, and Panther Mountain was dubbed one of America’s most splendid national parks (instead of the Grand Canyon) would that kid have had the same reaction? Was he looking at the his trips for the experience in nature or for the title and reputation that they carry? Something to consider…

Over the years, the layout of Lafayette’s campus has constantly changed. Widespread development and construction has led to the removal of many trees. I’ve always enjoyed looking at old pictures of an area and seeing how it has changed over time. A few weeks ago, I came across an old book about the history of March Field. As you can see from the attached photo, in the early/mid 1900s, March field used to be a track and athletic field. Surrounding the field was a thick band of trees, many of which might still remain today.

Lafayette College in 1925

March Field, today.

Although I looked at a bunch of trees, I was particularly interested by the large trees that remain intact behind the DKE house. According to Leafsnap, the bright yellow leaves that I found behind the house are Shingle Oaks. Assuming this is correct, this tree is native to the North America and can be found in PA specifically. It would be pretty cool if the leaf I found was from a tree that is likely over 100 years old!

A Shingle Oak, Found behind the DKE House.

I also snapped a video of the leaves shedding in wind, last week.

“Eventually, the first minute toads hopped out of the water and into the weeds, tiny replicas of their parents, whose mating song1had learned to imitate the previous spring. As I watched the little toads jump about, a bulldozer crested nearby piles of dirt, and in an act that has been replicated aroundthe nation millions of times since,proceeded to bury the young toads and all of the other living treasures within the pond. I might have been buried too, if I hadn’t given up trying to rescue the toads. I saved about 10 that day, but for nothing: the pond was gone, leaving nowhere for the toads to breed. Within two years, a toad was a rare sight near my house; soon they were completely gone, along with the garter snakes, whose main prey they had been, and other members of the food web supported by the life in that pond.” (22)

This passage made me feel pretty guilty. This past summer, I spent nearly every weekend turning the woods of my family’s lake house into a lawn. Yes, I was turning a native environment into a lawn… the exact topic we have been discussing for about a week. For my entire life, our “backyard” has been a swampy mess of underbrush that blocks our view of the lake. In my admittedly hypocritical opinion, the view of the overgrown woods took away from the “natural” view of the lake. Thus, my father and I went about rebuilding the backyard into a level forest, free of swamp and underbrush.

Ironically, I had the same toad protection process throughout the reconstruction project. While I was the one operating the excavator, I made a point to move as many of the hundreds of frogs that I could before filling in a certain hole. While we were careful to redirect the flow of water in order to maintain a natural habitat, my father and I probably had no idea what we were doing. We succeeded in improving our aesthetic ideals with the space, but it likely came at a cost of the natural plant and animal life. Looking back on it, I feel pretty bad about it. While I still prefer the view as it is now, did I have the right to alter other species’ natural space?

One last point of interest is that we went out of our way to protect a fox den that we know has been occupied for years. I have to question myself as to why we valued the fox over the toads and the plants?

This past week we decided to reinvestigate the history of our sight and specifically the mills that used to be there.

We began by looking at old pictures of the site and happened upon on captioned ‘Old Groetzinger Mill’ and thought to look into this site. This led us to find out that this Groetzinger Mill was actually located at our site at the end of N. 4^th Street in Easton across from Goose Island on the Bushkill. The Groetzinger family operated the mill for nearly half a century from the late 19^th and early 20^th century. This seemed to us to be an excellent example of the unique story of this part of the Bushkill.

Another article we found said that as early as the 1870’s there have been attempts to set up salmon fisheries on the Bushkill because of their ability to benefit the health of the stream. While the stocking of Atlantic salmon in the Bushkill seemed to be relatively unsuccessful, the people of the Easton area were clearly committed to the idea of manipulating nature to their own advantage.

“this fist is a fact, and in official hands will be irrefutable evidence that the stocking of our rivers with the most valuable fish in the world is not visionary but predictable.”

Today however, the remains of these mills are gone and the general respect for the natural benefits of the Bushkill are lacking as well. Both sides of the creek are thoroughly overgrown, making it difficult to find any historical evidence of previous human development. From a natural standpoint, the Bushkill Creek used to be the center of attention in the area, with humans settling and developing in harmony with the creek. Today, it seems as if the community has built up and around the creek, ignoring any potential aesthetic or practical use. The arts building that bridges the creek is symbolic of the idea that Easton no longer values the creek as local residents once did. It has literally been built over, out of sight and out of mind, providing little more than a source of runoff from the surrounding streets or a shelter for the homeless.

On the Downtown side of the creek, next to the parking lot, is an old abandoned building. It is not old enough to have a relation to the Groetzinger Mill, but it may be built over the original area of the mill. It is so close to the water that we wonder if the creek’s banks were filled in to support such a large building.

On a separate note, the foliage along the creek seems to be changing more slowly that the rest of the area. The leaves on the trees are just barely starting to turn, while the ground cover and shrubbery still looks nearly as full and as green as it did in September. The water level also seems to remain relatively steady.

Final thoughts: We learned a bit more about the artwork hanging from the arts building. Stacy Levy created the piece in 2011. “Bushkill Curtain spans the Bushkill Creek in Easton, Pennsylvania, using the arched opening under an old silk mill. The water flow of the creek varies widely depending on rainfall. Bushkill Curtain will register the changing levels of water, hanging straight down in low water or floating on the surface as the stream rises. It also responds to the wind, blowing like a sheer fabric. This temporary project (June 2011 through August , 2012) was created for The Arts in the Urban Environment Festival. This site is a juncture where the masonry of the industrial architecture meets with the liquid nature of a stream. The curtain creates a meeting point of manmade materials with the elements of wind and water. It is made of 750 buoys strung on steel cable.”

Credit: Stacy Levy http://stacylevy.com/installations/images/bushkill1.jpg

After a few cold nights, the New England ski industry is gearing up for one of it’s earliest seasons in history. The juxtaposition of white snow and the bright foliage looks incredible, but I’ve always found it crazy that ski resorts are able to make snow this early in the fall. I think that the development of snowmaking systems is an interesting example of how human technology allows us to manipulate nature for our own benefit. Here are a couple of photos (posted on Facebook this morning) from two ski resorts in Maine. They even had a coating of natural snow at higher elevations, last night.