Anthropocentric Thinking Persists

            It's amazing to me what an effect a first impression can have. In the late 18th century, as Terrie described in the reading, many new settlers, mainly farmers, were moving into the Adirondack Park from New York and New England. Upon their arrival, these settlers began looking to start farms to support their families, and began clearing trees and brush in order to make room for their crops and animals. Typically, these were poorer farmers who did not possess the funds to seek out better agricultural land in the west, and settled for the "cheap and abundant land in a little-known, barely explored norther corner of New York." (Terrie, 24) Coming to the Adirondacks for the first time, the new settlers saw the Adirondack forest as "both a resource and an obstacle to their own prosperity." (Terrie, 29) This original assessment is entirely based upon the needs of humans. It is an opinion formed around human entrance to the park, and doesn't take the forests themselves into account. At this point, many of these new settlers didn't see the point in maintaining the forest. To them, the actual forest was arbitrary, even inconvenient, if it wasn't being used.
            Even more concerning than viewing the wilderness on human terms, these new settlers seemed to see the forest as inexhaustible. According to one Adirondack resident, Martin Byrne, "there was always wood" (Terrie, 29) to be used for various things around the house, and "there was always another wood lot to be cleared" (Terrie, 29) to make space for more farmland. His use of the word always implies that the settlers assumed that these trees were never ending, and could never be used up. This understanding of the forest is also depicted by the rapid growth of the logging industry, especially with the development of new forms of transportation, and the overuse of the land by incoming tourists, a few years later.
             I think this original judgement of the Adirondacks has created an underlying idea of how the land should be used and treated. Obviously, in recent years we have come to a larger understanding of the importance of conserving the land. However, this anthropocentric way of thinking has lasted, and we tend to base our reasoning for conserving or utilizing the land on ourselves, allowing our needs and conveniences to determine the fate of the wilderness.
   

Strange Company: French expats and John Brown in the 'dacks

      The Adirondacks attract a great variety of people, each with their own reason for venturing into its wilds. Poor settlers looking to make it big, rich city folk looking for a breath of fresh air, intrepid trappers intent upon cornering the market. And even, it seems, French expatriates fleeing the guillotine. The image of French noblemen building a refuge in the wilds of upstate New York seems incredibly incongruous. Like most settlers, the members of Castorland found their dreams of an agrarian lifestyle sorely tried by the Adirondack's thin soil and long winters. Whatever society they had dreamed of building was trampled by the harsh reality that so many others faced. This, more than anything, speaks to me of how persuasive the idea of the Adirondacks had become to people of the time. The Adirondacks were the unexplored frontier, rich in possibility. Even an ocean away, such potential was difficult to ignore, particularly with the threat of the guillotine hanging over one's head.
        Having not heard it before, I found the story of John Brown's relationship with the Adirondacks incredibly interesting. Even more so when I read that he is buried near Lake Placid, a place I've visited many of times. Prior to this, I had only heard of John Brown in reference to his involvement in Harper's Ferry, and so was blown away by what seemed an entirely different side to the militant abolitionist. According to Schneider, Brown loved the Adirondacks and was fully determined that he be buried there. He endeavored to help the newly freed slaves that had also settled in the area, succeeding only to a limited degree (another testament to the Adirondack's thin soil and short growing season). After doing further research on Brown, I find myself both drawn to and repulsed by his single-mindedness. While I respect his abolitionist ideal, the bloodiness of his involvement in Kansas and West Virginia are hard to stomach. Nonetheless, Brown's love for the Adirondacks is further proof of the area's ability to attract people from all walks of life. Add 'zealots' to the ever-growing list of people that have found a home there.
       

"In a sense this book is a romance"

Something I found very interesting about the introduction in the Schneider reading was the first line of the book, which says, "in a sense this book is a romance, a story of first love between Americans and a thing they call wilderness". This struck me as a very interesting way to begin a book that is described as a "biography of a place". Although we have spoken a lot about how romanticized these books are about the wilderness and the Adirondacks in particular, I think there is a key part of romance we are forgetting when we describe man's relationship to nature. Romance is usually a love shared between the two parties involved. The way that romance is used in the relationship between man and nature is a greedy, self-entitled love that man has for the Adirondacks. There is no reciprocation other than the passive loss of resources that man has taken and used from the land. It seems so ironic that we can describe nature as the first love of Americans. A statement like that seems laughable with all the environmental issues of the world and especially our country. Even the most nature friendly, Adirondack loving man takes his individual toll on the land he loves and gives nothing in comparison back to it. Take McKibben who has chosen to build a home there and leave his own footprint. Even he, who we consider a writer that greatly “romanticizes” the area derives his love from what he can take from the Adirondacks rather than what he can give back. I know this is not necessarily what we mean when we say that many writers paint a romantic picture of this park but I think it is an interesting thought to consider when speaking about how well loved this land really is.

ADK Paradoxes

As we read more and more about the Adirondacks, we come to identify two general narratives that Emmons points out - one describing the Adirondacks as a natural landscape where residents live intimately with and have a deep appreciation for their surroundings, and the other as a place where people struggle just to make a living and work hard to support their families (18).

On the one hand, Emmons (and Terrie) are contrasting the struggles of early settlers with the picturesque perspective of summer tourists. But before tourists began to infiltrate the region, you could also find hints of both narratives in single families. This was one of the many paradoxes of the Adirondacks - that families could have such deep affection for and simultaneous antipathy to the backcountry. The best example of this was how long winters were so dreary, but the summers too pleasant to resist (27). I think it's important to keep this complex relationship in mind when thinking about the history of settling the Adirondacks. They were neither the mythic frontier that many sought nor the brutal, unforgiving wilderness that others feared. They were a mix - a personal and intimate relationship that was unique to each that lived in the Adirondacks, as evidenced by the endless variety of narratives that could be told.

This relationship made me think about the enduring question that Terrie writes: "who should control the land - those living on it or someone else? (25)" When emotions are such an integral part of the relationship between residents and the Adirondacks, this question is made even more complicated. If "outsiders" controlled the land, how could they understand the intricacies of the relationship and be sensitive to those inhabiting the region? But if residents controlled the land, how can we be sure that their judgment isn't clouded or narrowed by personal connections with the landscape? We then fall into the paradox of trying to control a system of which we are necessarily a part.

In the Schneider reading, I found that the focus on the trapper and his life in the Adirondack Park highlighted a culture that might not be taken into account when people discuss the current state and future of the Park. Perspectives on the Park always revolve around the human presence there and how it affects the Park, which is obviously important. But those conversations create this notion that in many ways, this situation is about humans vs. wilderness. There doesn't seem to be any "in-between" scenario or person.

This trapper, Toby Edwards, is the first true "in between" character I've seen. He more than just lives in the Park, like many people who have summer homes there. He works in it, and more importantly, he knows so much about his fellow beings that live beside him. I was immensely impressed with the amount of detail he could speak about the various animals he traps with. He knows what they like and what they don't like. He knows where they are going to be. Edwards knows the animals in an almost human-like way, despite the fact that he hunts them. There is also a culture that comes along with it. There are traps passed down through generations. The trapping culture is one that lives and breathes the Park along with those who inhabit it. It's sad to think that because of other people who "ruin" it for others, as McKibben claims, the Toby Edwards of the Park become obsolete. I personally do not think there is anything wrong with what Toby does, as long as it is not excessive. He isn't driving around on a lake in his motor boat. He isn't driving up mountains. He's walking around, being with the forests, and hunting beings that he has grown up with and knows so, so well.

The trapper's point of view

Before this week's reading in Sneider’s book, I had always just assumed that trapping animals in the wild was a bad thing; I believe in the rights of animals and I would never wear a real fur coat. But as Hallie mentioned in her blog post, Sneider appears to be taking the side of the trappers in his book, a side which I have never heard before and which I found very thought provoking. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the biggest threats to animals in the wild are not hunters or trappers but the loss of their homes due to factors such as acid rain, erosion, etc (73).  Instead of having a negative impact on the surrounding environment, trappers actually help it and keep it in balance by controlling animal populations. Having too many beavers in the Adirondaks is just as bad if not worse than having no beavers at all.

After reading about the trapper’s view point, I do feel a bit bad for trappers since they have to combat big animal rights groups and regular people who feel they have an 'anti-fur moral superiority'. Although trappers kill and sell animals for a living, they should not face the wrath of angry animal rights activists because they are simply doing their job, (which isn’t always easy or safe, as Sneider explains) and they are just trying to make a living to support themselves and their families. As Sneider mentions on page 99, many farmers in the Adirondaks dabbled in many forest industries including trapping to earn more money and survive.

Instead of animal rights activists directing some of their anger towards trappers I think they should be  instead directing all of their anger to those who wear expensive fur coats as a fashion statement, because they are the ones that are creating a market for fur in the first place. Trappers should not be harassed because most of them are licensed and smart people who follow strict guidelines and support conservation.

Something that Terrie touches on very briefly in the first chapter of his book is the naming of the park. He provides a quotation in which Emmons proposes the name "Adirondack"(13) for a group of mountains in order to commemorate a tribe of natives who lived, or at least hunted, there. Terrie then digs deeper into the issue of naming land in America and how arbitrary the names really were, despite the intentions of people like Emmons in honoring natives who may have once been there or using the real, Native names of places. The issue with naming was that there was and had never been any evidence that Adirondack land had been named by Native Americans, despite the Romantic belief that land had been named. I believe that the lack of naming by native populations in America exposes a fundamental cultural split between Europeans and the Natives. Inherent to naming something, particularly after one's self, is ownership or a claim to that place. This is exactly what European settlers began doing as soon as they landed in New England; they divided land in the Northeast arbitrarily and named the land immediately (thus producing a unit of a commodity to sell which had some kind of legal backing). I think this need to name places stemmed from the economic interest of Europeans in the New World. I find it interesting that in the thousands of years that Native Americans roamed the Adirondacks, they found no need to assert individual, or even tribal, claim to land in the park, but within decades of the introduction of Europeans to the area, naming and claiming of land in the Northeast had such deep roots.