“The Hand of Man is Pervasive Here”

And here I’ve spent months learning about the Adirondacks, learning about forest preserves, land use controversies, and the “Forever Wild” clause, only to conclude that the Adirondacks are by no means a “wilderness.” This is a personal verdict on my part, not one that I want to force on others. I’ve experienced quite a bit of internal conflict in our class discussions and readings, especially with the topic of wilderness. It has been difficult for me to rationalize the concept of wilderness with the concept of steady human habitation and use. For the past few months I’ve flip-flopped between definitions of wilderness. We’ve encountered several definitions, all along the lines of “untrammeled by man;” a place where man is a visitor and does not linger. Yet by now I’ve realized that neither the Adirondack Park nor its preserves fit the bill on any of these descriptions—the Adirondacks are not a wilderness, at least not by the terms discussed in class or in the State Land Master Plan.

The Adirondack Park is not a wilderness because human beings are an integral part of its character. We affect nearly every aspect of the region—we have taken the liberty of dividing the Adirondacks into wilderness and non-wilderness plots, we have (re)introduced “wild” animals, we have recreated ceaselessly—skiing, driving, snowmobiling, ATVing, fishing, hunting… and we have extracted minerals, chopped wood, and removed other natural resources; we have settled the park in profoundly non-wild clusters and have, in places, changed the very integrity of the biocommunity, whether that be directly or indirectly (e.g. acid rain). According to Larry Strait, 65% of ponds in the Adirondacks have non-native fish in them (Schneider, 329). People ask Larry whether or not these nonnative species could have arrived naturally, but the honest answer is that this would have been improbable, or at best, an incredibly slow process. It is hard for me to call the Adirondacks a wilderness, even if I am specifically referring to highly protected wilderness zones, when the most obscure glacial ponds must still have their native species reintroduced by humans.

I’m not trying to disparage the Adirondack Park or the people within. I still think it’s an incredible place, and I believe that its patchwork zoning is part of its charm—the Adirondack Park is a place with an abundance of stories: from conservation to preservation, hiking to snowmobiling, Great Camping to barely surviving… and yet these are all human stories. The Adirondacks are a place defined by the ways in which humans use it, by the ways in which we trammel it. Ultimately, the reality of the Adirondacks seems to conflict entirely with the concept of wilderness that I’ve come to understand.

This brings me to the topic of “Forever Wild.”

I suspect that the term “Forever Wild” is actually where much of the park’s logistical issues and statutory loop holes come from—if we were to replace “Forever Wild” with “Forever Protected,” we would be left with a far more accurate description of the park and a more realistic idea of how we might interact with it.

Sure, “Forever Wild” sounds nice, but it’s just not accurate, nor is it precise enough to define and guide legislative action. The current SLMP is riddled with inconsistencies—it defines “wilderness” as an area untrammeled by man, but clearly, the Adirondacks are a region that will always be trammeled by man. Defining Adirondack forest preserves as “Forever Wild” forces lawmakers to conjure up shaky definitions of wilderness, when in reality, no such definition fits with the park. If we were to remove that terminology and replace it with something more practical, I think that would resolve many a controversy.

The problem with “Forever Wild” is that no one really knows what that means. It beckons romantic, Hudson River School-esque images of beautiful landscapes, but beyond that its definition varies person to person. And although this reflects the ways in which the park itself changes—catering to different people differently, a home to one person, an investment to another—I don’t personally think there’s much use in a definition which is blatantly untrue.