WEBVTT - Ep. 186: American Wilderness (Part 1) 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:08.840 I don't picture running out of roads. I don't picture 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:12.320 running out of towns. I don't picture running out of 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:16.280 places to go shopping. I picture running out of wilderness. 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.960 The term American wilderness is evocative to me, pulling forth 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:27.040 a collage of emotions, imagery, and ideals. Oddly, I'd draw 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.120 from it a sense of personal identity, even though I 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.920 live most of my life inside the confines of modern civilization. 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.080 I'd like to think I came up with all of 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.040 this on my own, or I would have got to 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.800 the same place if I was the first and only 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.280 human to ever set foot in North America. But I 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.080 don't think I would have. I'm in search of the 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:56.040 unique journey that built American ideals on wild lands or wilderness, 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:01.640 and even more foundational than that, to defy what wilderness is. 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:03.280 It's ironic. 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.919 This is a big and complex story, and I think 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.360 it should be in the survival kit of basic knowledge 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.399 of every American, because every one of us has a 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:18.039 doctrine on it. For this challenging pilgrimage, I've recruited the 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:22.720 health of a worthy group of authors. Good authors doctor 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:27.960 Dan Flores, doctor Sarah Dant, Stephen Ranella, and Hal Herring. 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.440 This story is about why wilderness is still here in 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.160 modern times, how we interact with it, and how the 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:40.640 land formed American identity. Let me warn you that this 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.840 is going to be a lot of workfolks, and let 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:48.120 it be known that the Bear Grease Academy of Backwoodsmanship, 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.640 Philosophy and Culture is now in session. You may be 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.160 able to find a buckscrape, or use your phone to 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:01.320 find hunting land, or even catch a catfish on a trotline. 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:02.560 But if you don't know the deep history. 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:08.240 Of your own passion, you ain't no backwoodsman. This is 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.280 gonna be good, and I really doubt that you're going 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:12.320 to want to miss this one. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:17.880 Romantics and environmentalists in particular have elevated it to almost 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.560 a sacred word. It has a kind of a meaning 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:25.079 as an idea that I'm not sure other parts of 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.760 the world other cultures completely share. 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.040 My name is Klay Nukem, and this is the Bear 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:46.079 Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.799 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.960 story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. 0:02:54.639 --> 0:03:00.840 Presented by FHF Gear American Made Purpose built and fishing 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.200 gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:17.640 As we explore. What range of mountains is this over here? 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:22.000 That's the Hamus Range. This is the Orties Mountains. Okay, 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.480 of course, the range behind Santa Fe is the song grays, 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.640 the sungread of Cristo, which means blood of Christ. The 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:33.680 Spanish colonizers named it that because at sunset, the alp 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.720 and glow made the mountains look like they were bloody, 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:39.480 covering blood on the snowfields. 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.960 You may recognize this man's voice. This is author and 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.800 historian doctor Dan Flores. I'm in New Mexico on his 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:56.320 back porch. The song grade di Cristo start in Poncha 0:03:56.320 --> 0:04:00.720 Pass in central Colorado, with ten peaks over fourteenth thousand feet. 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.520 They pushed two hundred and forty two miles south, ending 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:09.839 at Glorieta Pass near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The landscape 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:14.240 closer to us between here and these blood colored mountains 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.920 is a less intimidating stretch of arid high desert. 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.040 I want to describe to you what it looks like. 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:24.320 Imagine the rosette pattern of the jaguar spots, but it's 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:28.039 set on the brilliant tan of an American mountain lion. 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.120 The rolling hills are tinted beige by the dead winter 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.840 grasses and bleached soil, but littered with dark juniper clumps. 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.880 Doctor Flores wants to read me a quote. 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.599 You understand, this isn't the third place I've had wonderful 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:51.159 I have done this, so I'll read you this. J. 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:57.000 Frank Dobe was a very famous folklorist and author of 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.200 the wild but I thought i'd bring you up. He 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.359 just stand in this spot and read what he says. 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:09.000 The greatest happiness possible to a man is to become civilized, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.400 to know the pageant of the past, to love the beautiful, 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:19.599 and then retaining his animal instincts and appetites to live 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:20.320 in a wilderness. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.920 That's that's powerful, isn't it. Yeah, that's what we want 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:26.200 to do. 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.960 We want to be able to have We want to 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:29.919 live in civilization. 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:32.000 Yeah, you want to be civilized. You want to have 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:36.000 access to the world, right, But it's it's so it's 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.680 the thorough thing. Threau had this comment once about you know, 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.840 I like to live with one foot in civilization and 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.480 one foot in wilderness. And the question is always which 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:48.960 one do you rest on? Which foot do you rest on? 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.320 What I've always liked to do is to rest on 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:57.159 the the wilderness foot, and then town's only twenty minutes away. 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:03.599 J Frank, Dobie, Henry, David Threaux, and doctor Flores had 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:08.919 and have a refined doctrine on dealing with wilderness. Doctrine 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.800 just means the way that you live, and truthfully, we 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.720 all have a doctrine on wild places. If you live 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.760 near one or have never been to one, you have 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:22.719 a doctrine. You can't be doctrine less. I'm in search 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.919 of America's wilderness doctrine and how I got mine. I 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:31.080 think a good starting place in this conversation is to 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:36.599 define wilderness, which will learn is tricky. I asked Stephen 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:38.359 Ranella about his definition. 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:41.000 I'll tell you I think when I hear the word 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:47.919 American wilderness, my working present day twenty twenty four definition 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:55.160 of American wilderness. My usage is relative. There are landscapes 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.400 where I would go, as an example, the north slope 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:05.040 of the Brooks in Alaska. I would say that's wilderness 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:12.160 because relative to everything else that is wild. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:14.000 If we put. 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:18.040 Wildness on a one to ten, a one being Manhattan, 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.120 and then we had to find a ten. When I 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:25.840 say wildness natural ecosystem, I'm gonna use another controversial term, 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.480 and I'm gonna say absence of man Okay, absence of man. 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:32.600 If Manhattan is a one, we need a ten. The 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.400 north sorp of the Brooks Range is the ten. It's wilderness. 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.600 And then let me say that if we imagine that 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.920 framework that scale one to ten, I would say, I 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:48.960 suppose wilderness starts at around eight. Here's another I'm gonna 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.480 add another thing that's gonna trip some people out. That's 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:56.280 gonna trip some philosophers and academics out. They're most they 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:01.120 most closely resemble relative to everything else. This landscape looked 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:05.800 like upon European contact with one important caveat Those places 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.960 were sparsely inhabited by individuals at that time, potentially with 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.600 great absences that any given spot might oh ten years, 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.120 twenty years, thirty years without seeing it person, and there 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.640 were people on the landscape. That's my sort of working 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.440 definition that it like I can't ever look at it 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:24.040 in isolation. 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:25.000 I have to look at it. 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.560 Like compared to what so I'm like, it's wilderness compared 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.280 to everything that's not. You're not going to find two 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:33.960 people that are going to give you the same definition 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:34.200 of this. 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.800 On the Ranella scale of wildness, the wild O meter, 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:44.160 wilderness starts at eight out of ten. The spectrum swings 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:48.640 from Manhattan to the Alaskan Brooks Range. That's a helpful analogy, 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.880 but shows the subjective nature of the term. Will learn 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.440 that there are more concrete ways to define it. The 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.200 word wilderness was first used in the thirteenth century the 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.520 twelve hundreds, but gain steam in the thirteen hundreds when 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.840 John Wycliffe's English translation of the Bible use the new 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.800 word to describe the uninhabited land that's spoken of all 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.920 throughout the Old book. The deep etymology of the word 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.920 stems from the Norse languages, and its root is the 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:26.000 word will, as in self willed or wilful. From willed 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:30.200 comes the word wild, which is also connected to the 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:36.720 Old Swedish word for boiling water, meaning unruly, chaotic, or confused. 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:41.959 The second part of the word wilderness, the dur will durness, 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:48.160 is the Old English word for animal diordeo r. Put 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.400 this together with this new word wild and you get 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.080 wild dore. And then you add a ness and you 0:09:55.120 --> 0:10:00.480 can see the word wild door ness, which essentially means 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:08.800 self willed or uncontrollable land of wild beasts. Holy smokes, 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.280 I like the sound of that. It kind of makes 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:15.240 me quiver a little bit. But this word needs more definition. 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.040 Doctor Sarah Dant is a professor and author and she 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.600 works at Weber College in Utah. She just published a 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:28.200 book called Losing Eden. I asked her to define wilderness. 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:33.520 So wilderness, I think can be many things. It kind 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.800 of depends on who you ask. If we went into 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.480 a bar and asked fifteen different people what's wilderness, we'd 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.480 get fifteen different ideas and probably a small bar fight 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.360 in the process. So you know, if we think about 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:50.040 it just as a kind of an emotional reaction to it, 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.959 it is this place that we go where there aren't 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.079 other people, right, It's the place that we go and 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.640 get to be much more one on one with nature. 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:03.200 I think fundamentally, for a lot of people, that's wilderness. 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:08.000 But that's not what the political definition is that creates 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:12.560 boundaries and puts up signs and creates management plans. That's 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:16.720 a very different idea about wilderness. In that case, it's 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.320 the law says basically it's an area that has been 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:25.920 untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor who does 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.280 not remain. And so it's this idea that it's it's 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.400 a place that a lot of people would probably use 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:37.160 the word christine. But I think those kinds of ideas, 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:41.960 how do we talk about places that are not developed? 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.320 How do we talk about places that don't have roads 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.240 and motor vehicles and houses? Those places have real value 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:49.960 in part now because they're so scarce. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.199 Doctor Dant brought up two important components of our conversation. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.680 Number one, there is a legal definition of wilderness, as 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.800 in federally regulated wilderness with a capital W. 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:04.600 Will get to it. 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:09.680 Secondly, and most importantly, wilderness, the self willed land of 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.400 wild beasts, has value because of its scarcity. 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:14.920 Will come back to this. 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.480 I want to introduce you to another fella, but don't 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.160 let the Alabama gravel in his voice fool you. Hal 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:28.360 Harring is a lifelong writer and spokesperson for wild Lands 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.920 who's lived most of his adult life in Montana, but 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.320 he was born and raised in Alabama. I asked him 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.000 to define wilderness. 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:41.760 Well when I was younger and living in Alabama, when 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.120 I was a kid, I didn't really have a definition 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:49.040 of it. And then when I was older and started traveling, 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:54.199 like in Montana at Wyoming, it was beyond the legal 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:59.000 definition or the federal you know, regulation type definition, the designation. 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.000 I think think it was a feeling that there were 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.800 these places left on this earth that you could enter. 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:07.920 I mean, I mean the language in the Wilderness Act 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.760 is that where it will remain untrammeled, where man is 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.360 a visitory, does it remain all that? And that's true, 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.240 that was required maybe to hold on to this feeling. 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.280 But it's the feeling of you're now entered a place 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:25.240 that's ruled by something other than the endeavors of human beings, 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:30.720 and it's a place that's ruled still by older laws. 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:36.120 Nature's time, the world's time, not yours. But to me 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.040 it was freedom. Freedom was the first thing. 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:46.480 Wilderness is a feeling a place not governed by man's laws. Now, 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.880 that's interesting, and the legal definition of wilderness was designed 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:56.880 to preserve a feeling. That's even more interesting. How Aldo Leopold, 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:00.480 who's considered the father of modern American wildern Us will 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:05.040 get more to him later to find wilderness as quote 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:09.400 a continuous stretch of country preserved in its natural state, 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.800 open to lawful hunting and fishing, big enough to absorb 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:18.160 a two week's pack trip, and kept devoid of roads, 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.360 artificial trails, cottages, and other works of man. 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:23.000 End of quote. 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:27.760 That's really functional, But his description of absorbing a two 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:32.480 week pack trip probably delivers the most understandable definition to 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.600 this day. And I did think it was cute that 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.920 he used the word cottages. I have a question for 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:43.160 Steve Ranella, what does the word wilderness do for you 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:45.520 at an emotional level? 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:46.120 Like? 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:48.760 What does does it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside? 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.560 Does it make you fearful? Does it make you want 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:53.520 to go there? Does it make you not want to 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.560 go there? What does what does that term do for you? 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:58.600 Makes me want to go there, but I don't need 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.320 to go there to love it being there. I have 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.480 that I have a fear of running out of it. 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.440 I don't picture running out of roads. I don't picture 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.920 running out of towns. I don't picture running out of 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:16.200 places to go shopping. I don't picture running out of airports. 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.280 I don't picture running out of subdivisions. I don't picture 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:25.560 running out of golf courses. I picture running out of wilderness. 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:28.000 Because you don't. 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:31.520 Get it back. We've never gotten. You don't get any 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.560 of it back. Once it's gone, it's gone. Man, It's 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.160 like when you lay some concrete over it. 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:39.000 It's gone. Gone. 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.960 Everybody we've heard from so far values wilderness. They like it, 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:52.000 which is a very new idea to mankind, well sort of. 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.640 In his book Wilderness in the American Mind, Roderick Nash 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:02.760 states that all ancient culture had an idea of paradise 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.400 as a garden, which is actually the antithesis of wilderness. 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:13.000 A garden is ordered and protected, delivering resources and security. 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:18.520 It's controllable, it's manipulated by man. Considering that primitive man's 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.600 number one concern was simply survival, and lack of control 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.360 was a dangerous variable. Man's greatest good was to live 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.800 a life that rose out of this self willed land. 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.760 This has been a roadmap to man's journey over the 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:38.120 last ten thousand years. Rising out of wilderness and the 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:43.680 rudimentary mechanism of man's control over nature were number one. 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:49.440 Fire initially used to beat back the vegetation and make 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:53.560 clearings that offered visibility and safety. Yeah, it's like super 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:59.360 primitive number two, the domestication of wild animals to secure 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:04.480 meat so horses, and number three domesticating wild plants and 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:11.000 cultivating land to create predictable food sources through crops. These 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:16.360 things congregated people, increased birth rates, and probably most importantly, 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:21.760 joined human minds in greater numbers into collaboration on what 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.520 it meant to be human, of which a primary definition 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:32.760 became humans overcome wilderness and bring it into control. I 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:37.280 am very aware that this is a very general summation 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:42.159 of human history that does not include modern hunter gatherer 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:48.080 tribes that are still functioning at some level even today. 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.160 The word wilderness is used two hundred and forty five 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.879 times in the Old Testament of the Bible and thirty 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.880 five times in the New Testament. The garden of Eden 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:01.000 was the antithesis of wilderness. In God's first punishment of 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:02.920 man was to cast him out of. 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:04.080 The garden into it. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:07.879 Later, the Israelites would wander in the wilderness for forty 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.440 years as a judgment and a time of testing and tribulation. 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.960 In the New Testament, Jesus met Satan himself in the 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:20.119 wilderness in the Temptation of Christ. The wilderness was a 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.200 dangerous place. The wilderness is where you went to die. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.800 A first century Roman poet named Cheris criticized the earth 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:34.280 as greedily possessed by mountains in the forests of wild beasts. 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:38.800 In Greek mythology, a half goat half man creature named 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:42.520 pan was the lord of the woods, and the English 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:47.720 word panic stems from the striking fear one feels when 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:52.800 in the woods and you hear strange, unexplainable sounds. It's 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.840 clear that wilderness cuts deep into our culture. It's also 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:00.840 important not to confuse the Old World's a preciation of 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:07.320 rural pastoral settings with wilderness. Art, folk tales, and music 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:12.520 celebrating livestock and farming were very real and popular, but 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:17.440 that's not wilderness. To this day, Western culture often views 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:22.160 disassembling wilderness and making it productive as a moral obligation. 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.840 Roderick Nash wrote this intellectual legacy of the Old World 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:32.440 to the New not only helped determine initial responses, but 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:38.120 left a lasting imprint on American thought. When Europeans got here, 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:42.080 we thought it was our moral obligation to tame what 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.280 we perceived as wilderness. 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.200 The word wilderness. 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.760 Has forces behind it that may not be evident and 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.639 on these ideas form the basis of understanding of modern wilderness, 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:58.120 and it's evident that our current situation on Earth, comparing 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:03.480 it to early man, has massively shifted. Once civilized areas 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.199 were scarce and the greedy wild lands filled with awful 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:11.479 beasts dominated this place. But this last epic of man's 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.840 journey has turned the tables, and now from the dominating 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:19.560 platform of civilization, we're trying to save an artifact of 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:24.399 wild lands. The contrast between the old world's ideas about 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:30.439 wilderness and many ideas today are vastly different. Here's doctor 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:34.919 Flores breaking down what wilderness is, which will lead us 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.320 into a broader picture of America's wild ometer. 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:44.600 I think I would have to say that wilderness is 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:50.280 both a reality and an idea, and there's certainly overlap 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.520 between the two. But one of the fascinating parts of 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:58.600 the whole wilderness concept, and especially the role that wilderness 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:04.399 has played in America, where environmentalists, romantics and environmentalists in 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:09.720 particular have elevated it to almost a sacred word. It 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.840 has a kind of a meaning as an idea that 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.760 I'm not sure other parts of the world, other cultures 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:23.760 completely share. It's probably more important to us as a people, 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:28.320 to Americans, to Americans than it has been to anyone 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.760 else around the globe. And that has to do with 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.680 the peculiarities of American history. 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:39.960 The peculiarities of American history. I'm very interested in this, 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.800 doctor Flores, But like a load of unfolded laundry sitting 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:46.880 on the table before the company shows up, we've got 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.240 some work to do before we can talk about that. 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:55.000 He said, it's an overlapping reality and an idea. We've 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:59.080 been talking about the idea of wilderness, but the reality 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:04.520 is the actual federal designation of public land called wilderness areas. 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:09.080 The Wilderness Act of nineteen sixty four instituted this, but 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:13.520 the idea of wilderness can be experienced outside of these areas. 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:16.119 This is going to be the most boring part of 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:19.160 this podcast, but we've got to do it because you're 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:24.480 enrolled in the Bear Grease Academy. Here is an excerpt 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:31.080 from the Wilderness Act of nineteen sixty four. It's ridiculously boring, 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:36.760 but this is modern man's attempt to preserve wildness. I'm kidding, 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:37.680 it's really not that bad. 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:38.600 Here goes. 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:44.760 In order to assure that an increasing population accompanied by 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:49.840 expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.560 all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:58.240 no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition. 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:02.240 It is hereby to be the policy of the Congress 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.400 to secure for the American people, the present and future generations, 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:11.440 the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. For this purpose, 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:16.520 there is hereby established a National Wilderness Preservation System to 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:22.200 be composed of federally owned areas designated by Congress as 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:26.600 wilderness areas, and these shall be administered for the use 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:30.000 and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:35.359 will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness. 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:40.280 A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:44.280 his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:47.240 area where the earth and its community of life are 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:51.560 untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:55.800 does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined 0:23:55.840 --> 0:23:59.080 to mean in this act an area of undeveloped federal 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:05.160 land retaining its primeval character and influence without permanent improvements 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:08.680 or human habitation which is protected and managed so as 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:13.720 to preserve its natural conditions, and which generally appears to 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:16.919 have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with 0:24:17.000 --> 0:24:21.880 the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable. It has outstanding 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:27.280 opportunities for solitude, or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation, 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:31.639 has at least five thousand acres of land, or is 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:36.960 of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:43.560 use in an unimpaired condition, and may also contain ecological, geological, 0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:51.639 or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historic value. 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:53.160 We're done. 0:24:53.720 --> 0:24:56.439 Steve Vernella probably could have jazzed that writen up a 0:24:56.480 --> 0:25:01.439 little bit, but that's pretty descriptive, but whole smokes. As 0:25:01.480 --> 0:25:05.199 There been some controversy around the definition of wilderness in 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:06.680 the last one hundred years. 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:08.240 We'll get to it. 0:25:08.880 --> 0:25:12.560 But wilderness with the capitol W is the strictest, most 0:25:12.680 --> 0:25:18.680 conservative land USIC designation in America. Today, there are eight 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:23.800 hundred and six federal wilderness areas that encompass over one 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:27.600 hundred and eleven million acres of land. That's larger than 0:25:27.600 --> 0:25:32.960 the state of California. Wilderness encompasses about seventeen percent of 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:38.760 all public land, and about five percent of all American land. 0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:41.879 Is federal wilderness. That's a lot of land. 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:51.359 I now want to redirect the conversation back to the 0:25:51.440 --> 0:25:54.600 deep human history with wild lands. 0:25:55.119 --> 0:25:56.080 This is a transition. 0:25:56.600 --> 0:26:00.800 So here's doctor Flores talking about the time time before 0:26:01.000 --> 0:26:05.720 these Greek poets, before agriculture and civilization, and when humans 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:07.800 were hunter gatherers. 0:26:08.280 --> 0:26:14.479 I think that wilderness is a very recent idea in history. 0:26:14.840 --> 0:26:19.560 Frankly, wait a minute, what we just said. 0:26:19.640 --> 0:26:24.240 Wild lands are ancient, But what we now call wilderness, 0:26:24.560 --> 0:26:28.720 raw land uninfluenced by man, is the oldest natural thing 0:26:28.760 --> 0:26:33.000 there is. Yes, but the idea of designating it out 0:26:33.200 --> 0:26:36.600 as something different, in calling it wilderness, is new. 0:26:37.480 --> 0:26:41.760 Carry on, doc, I mean, I've spent a good deal 0:26:41.800 --> 0:26:47.520 of time writing about why people migrated around the world 0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:52.800 twenty five thirty thousand years ago, ultimately finding the Americas, 0:26:52.880 --> 0:26:55.720 the last of the great continents on Earth that we 0:26:55.840 --> 0:26:59.639 found and the reason we left Africa, went to Europe, 0:26:59.720 --> 0:27:02.920 then went to Asia, and finally found our way into 0:27:03.000 --> 0:27:07.200 North America and South America was essentially a search for 0:27:07.600 --> 0:27:12.880 what the modern idea of wilderness implies we were looking 0:27:13.080 --> 0:27:18.080 for places without prior human presence. And the reason we 0:27:18.080 --> 0:27:21.320 were looking for places without prior human presence is because 0:27:21.800 --> 0:27:27.720 of the ability of those places to harbor big animals 0:27:28.119 --> 0:27:31.800 with no prior experience with humans as predators, and that 0:27:31.920 --> 0:27:35.560 made them easy to hunt and to take down. And 0:27:35.600 --> 0:27:39.399 so that search for a place out there in the 0:27:39.440 --> 0:27:43.720 world where you were not finding human footprints, you weren't 0:27:43.760 --> 0:27:48.560 finding campfires, you didn't see smoke from an encampment on 0:27:48.680 --> 0:27:52.560 the horizon, but the world appeared to be pristine. That 0:27:52.760 --> 0:27:56.240