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.

Conservation East and West

The section of the reading that really stood out to me this week was from Schneider, 72-3, in which he discusses trapping in the Adirondacks, appearing to take the side of the trappers.  This was surprising to me, because as someone who studies the Adirondacks, and therefore clearly cares about them, I thought he would be against this sort of human intervention, but he makes a convincing argument.  He argues that for Adirondack trappers, “the ability to go into the woods day after day and year after year to collect furs for fun and profit gives them a greater stake in preserving the land around them then they might otherwise have” (73).  Because trappers rely so much on the land for their livelihood, they are in fact more invested and concerned with its conservancy than those who feel they have moral obligation to the animals.  He also points to other factors, such as “second homes, agriculture, acid rain, clear cutting [and] erosion” which he reasons are more detrimental to the wilderness than are trapping or hunting because they invasively alter the landscape, and therefore the nature of the land and the wildlife (73).  Schneider also argues that trappers and hunters have been the backbone of the conservation battle in the Adirondacks, and without them the conservationists would have much less traction.         

This is an argument that sounds familiar to me.  I have spent the last two summers working on a ranch in Wyoming.  Many environmentalists frown upon ranchers and their treatment of the land.  They believe for many reasons (overgrazing, methane from manure, massive consumption of water, erosion), that ranching has a negative effect on the land and the environment.  Ranchers on the other hand, believe that they are in fact the biggest environmental advocates because they rely on the land for their livelihood, and therefore care for it with more experience and devotion than any environmentalist (especially those who have offices in DC).  Because they have generations of knowledge and critical investment in their land, they believe that they are the most qualified to make decisions about how it should be maintained.  Ranches also tend to be passed from generation to generation and therefore the concern is not only for the short term, but also for the prosperity of the land for generations to come.  Ranches are keeping out development because they keep the land from being subdivided.  From this perspective, those who are using the land are in fact the ones who care about it the most and should therefore be the ones preserving it for posterity.   

       

Reconnecting with Nature in the Adirondacks

In class we discussed how the American dream of manifest destiny influenced the settlement of the Adirondacks. Much of this ideology revolves around conquering nature and its resources and claiming it as our own. This initial view of the Adirondacks, as well as the West, established an unequal relationship in which humans exploited nature for their own good.  Terrie goes on to claim that America’s emerging economy at this time and the opportunity to get rich off of the land furthered this imbalanced relationship with the wild. He states “The fundamental American ideology of individually achieved success was from the very beginning tied to widely shared convictions about the inexhaustibility of American nature” (15). Much of our early history is to blame for the current environmental problems we face today.

However, prior to the idea of manifest destiny, many believed the Adirondacks to be foreboding and dangerous. These two drastically different views of nature, one as controlling and one as ominous, are rooted into American history. They have come to define how many of us see nature even today. I believe that as humans we should look at nature as being a part of us as opposed to something outside the human realm. Humans once lived in harmony with nature. Currently we seem to be working against it.

The Adirondacks, however, is special in that it allows humans to once again live with nature.  Those who live their can experience first hand how the wild functions and become less scared and more appreciative of the land. I think there should be more of a push to create protected lands with residents allowed. It is also important for classes such as this one to teach us to go outside and realize we can be part of the natural world. I believe this is a crucial step in protecting the lands we live in and need to survive. 

Survival of the Versatile

In both the McKibben and the Terrie reading I noticed long passages about how the settlers who made it in the Adirondacks were the ones who were versitile. They didnt settle into one occupation and dismiss the idea of learning other trades. In fact, most successful families, either used the "divide and conquer" method, or had one person who could trap animals, grow crops, fell trees, cut wood, raise a family, and play the ukulele all at once (well maybe not the last). These days, most of us will spend the vast majority of our adult lives, fine tuning one skill set, and that will work great for us. It's amazing that the first people who settled in the Adirondacks had so little and worked so hard at so many different things. We admire their resilience, and take a liking to the hippie character McKibben describes again and again because of their simplicity and experience. Perhaps, we even feel a little jealousy when we think about how each day is a new opportunity for them to "try something new", something we are told endlessly to do but cant find the time because we're tied to our nine to fives and schedules. We take camping, hunting, outdoor sports as a luxury, but for these settlers it meant surviving. Knowing that makes me respect their resilient ways and versatile skill set even more.

Hello My Name is Wilderness

     Philip Terrie addresses a number of changes in relationships between humans and the Adirondack's in his second chapter, but nothing resonated with me quite as much as one of the section's final lines. The paragraph discussed the battle with the region's top predators. "So it went throughout the Adirondacks, as every town and county passed ordinances aimed at eradicating predators, the most powerful symbol of the persisting wilderness"(43, Terrie). What drew my attention was the last piece, the description of the wilderness as being "persisting". This personification is one that comes up again and again, illustrating the wilderness as a being, something that moves, lives, and affects those around and inside of it. 

    

     Just as Terrie gives it the power of persistence, those who lived within it also sensed its spirit. Henry Conklin assigned his home humanistic characteristics when he described it upon leaving; "As I glanced at the creek as its gurgling waters were running under the ice, whose music had often lulled me to sleep, I looked back at the cabin and the light was still burning, and I fancied I heard their cries of anguish"(42, Terrie). This time, the wild becomes something that gurgles and creates music - again something human. 

     I can't help but think that this is a bit of an underestimation of the power of the natural world. Perhaps if writers use human-like qualities to describe the wilderness, it will seem like a an entity that can be conquered, or at least molded to fit our needs as a species. Or maybe this is just the only way we know how to describe things - anthropocentrism at its finest. After all, what is the wilderness actually encroaching on or "persisting" against? The wilderness is not invading our territory, rather the inverse. For the most part at least, it seems that the general consensus is that the wilderness is a force to be reckoned with. 

Giving Credit where Credit is Due

In Chapter 2 of Contested Terrain, Terrie addresses settlement into the Adirondacks. He appropriately titles this chapter: "Long Lake Was a Hard Place to Live." This chapter first stood out to me because it reminded me of one of the days during the 90 miler. I found this title captivating because long lake was personally one of the hardest lakes for me to get across that weekend. Despite the fact that there was a tailwind, the fetch that built up along the lake was so large that by the end, the waves were big enough that we were able to surf a couple all the way through. In terms of steering, however, it was a captains nightmare. This memory of that weekend segwayed into the hardships of living in the Adirondacks in the 18th century.

Terrie starts the chapter off by mentioning that people who settled in the Adirondacks were mostly "looking for a chance for a better life for themselves and their children" (20). This brought to the surface the question of who settled there and why. I learned that for the most part, the first settlers of the Adirondacks were very poor and escaped there to start new. It seemed as if these people had nothing to lose in moving to completely new land.

The ironic part to this whole story of new settlers in the Adirondacks were the difficulties that these settlers faced in actually trying to secure plots of land. On page 24, Terrie writes: "One observer of the difficulties facing Adirondack settlers trying to buy land noted that high prices were a major obstacle to "poor men," the only people who "can be induced to go in at first and endure the hardships of pioneer life."" Unfortunately, it seemed like the only people hardworking enough to volunteer themselves to move out into these wild lands weren't even able to afford a plot of land to begin with. As we found out  later in the chapter though, many people got around this issue by simply moving into abandoned lots, ignoring the "technicalities of ownership" (25).

Reading this chapter opened my eyes to the physical and mental toughness that these first settlers exhibited. Not only did they persevere and work through any obstacle they faced, they also seemed to do so with "cheerfulness...and energy worthy of commendation" (27). The settlers didn't just get by on the land - they thrived and worked it to their every advantage. I think a lot of the time its these people that go by unnoticed, overshadowed by the wealthier ones who controlled the larger business deals in the Adirondacks. But if any credit is given, it should go to these people who came in with nothing and acquired the knowledge and willpower to conquer these unruly lands.