American Wilderness
Ocala National Forest, FL
By: Krystal Wares
Zion National Park, UT
Dedicated to my husband, Ty and my grandma, Diane. The ones who inspired me to experience my country.
Hamilton Pool Preserve, TX
Indian Bread Rocks, AZ
Table of Contents
Importance of Wilderness A Democratic Idea See America First
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Flathead National Forest, MT
The Importance of Wilderness
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“Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.� -John Muir, Conservationist
Sequoia National Forest, CA
Yellowstone National Park, WY
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ilderness can be defined as necessity as well as privilege. If you are lucky enough to be a citizen of the United States of America, you happen to own a total of 618 million acres of land. The most beautiful pieces that make up and define the landscape of this great country are not owned by the rich few, but rather, by everyone. America is our playground, a symbol of democracy. Public lands give us the opportunity to be a part of nature, to escape the confinements of city life, the noise, crowds and stress. The importance of wilderness is the importance of space, feeling free to explore, be alone, see
and experience new places, open spaces, monumental American landscapes and symbols, as well as simple meadows, as pristine as the day they were createdz. As John Muir, a public lands activist, author, and conservationist put it, “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.� Access to beautiful open spaces is the opportunity to take a deep breath, slow down, and appreciate and participate in nature.
Waimea Canyon State Park, Kauai, HI
“One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made; that this is still the morning of creation; that mountains long conceived are now being born, channels traced for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes.�
-John Muir
“This need is for areas of the earth within which we stand without our mechanisms that make us immediate masters over our environmentareas of wild nature in which we sense ourselves to be, what in fact I believe we are, dependant members of an interdependent community of living creatures that together derive their existence from the sun.”
-Howard Zahniser
A
s part of John Muir’s long battle to preserve Yosemite and the big trees, he was lucky to have the opportunity to show President Theodore Roosevelt around on a short trip to the Yosemite valley. Roosevelt specifically requested Muir, and Muir only, not to talk politics but rather to experience this place that was so sacred to Muir. After ditching his entourage, Roosevelt was able to finally be alone in the quiet woods, and he and Muir set up camp by the base of a giant sequoia. Roosevelt wrote of that night, “In the darkening of the aisles of the great sequoia grove, the majestic trunks, beautiful in color and symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was conceived, even by the fervor of the Middle Ages.” After waking up in a light blanket of snow, Roosevelt declared, “This has been the grandest day of my life!”
John Muir Wilderness, CA
Hiawatha National Forest, MI
Kahe Point Beach Park, Oahu, HI
Wasatch National Forest, UT
“The ultimate usefulness of our National Parks System is not showing people ‘sights’, still less furnishing them recreation, but offering inspiration. . . elevation of the spirit and education.”
-Stephen Mather
Glacier National Park, MT
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some
From left to right: White Sands National Monument, NM Sequoia National Forest, CA Saguaro National Park, AZ
of us more than we can ever learn from books.� -John Lubbock
Sacred Falls State Park, Oahu, HI
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resident Roosevelt ended up spending one more night under the stars with John Muir. It was said that his whole demeanor had changed from a stressed, overworked man with a mind weighted with the problems of the whole country, to his “bright, alert” self. Roosevelt referred to the sequoia grove as a temple constructed by the hand of God. The very next day when the president gave a speech in Sacramento, he said, “We are not building this country of ours for a day. It is to last through the ages.” He then declared that the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley would be transferred from California state ownership to national park status, exactly what Muir had been lobbying for. The stillness and beauty of the wilderness had moved Roosevelt, and impressed upon his mind the pertinence of preserving the land for generations to come. Cove Palisades State Park, OR
Zion National Park, UT
A Democratic Idea
Grand Teton National Park, WY
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he idea of setting aside mass quantities of land for the enjoyment of the people and preservation of nature seems normal to us now. We have all grown up, if not seeing these amazing places, at least knowing or hearing of their existence. Before our first land preserve- Yosemite
Valley and our first park- Yellowstone National Parkthe idea of the best pieces of land being reserved for all of the people was unheard of. It was a radical idea at the time, unprecedented in the history of human existence. The canyons, waterfalls, beaches, and rivers are not for the rich, but for all US citizens.
Organ Mountain National Recreation Area, NM
Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, CA
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Yellowstone National Park, WY
“Going to the mountains is going home”
-John Muir
his concept of preserving land for the public has roots in one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson had a deep love for “the most sublime of Nature’s works”Virginia’s Natural Bridge, a large limestone arch hovering high above the James River. Out of love for the natural feature and desire to preserve it, Jefferson purchased it from King George for 20 shillings. Calling it a “public trust”, he promised to keep it as is, with no development or defacement. Jefferson thought of the pure, unspoiled, unexplored territory of the United States as Eden. His purchase of the Virginia Natural Bridge for the people of the country was the precursor- by nearly 100 years- to Abraham Lincoln preserving the Yosemite Valley for the enjoyment and recreation of all future people. The leaders of our country could see the potential of all of the pristine wilderness of the country, early on. Preservation of large plots of land in the West started with Lincoln in 1864, and boomed with President Theodore Roosevelt as he signed The Antiquities Act into law in 1906. And even today, parks and monuments are still added to the list of land owned by the people.
Crystal River Preserve State Park, FL
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“There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and wildlife are native and the fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people. Thus the parks stand as the outward symbol of this great human principle.� -FDR
Sierra National Forest, CA
Buena Vista State Forest, MN
“You must have certain noble areas of the world left in as close-to-primal condition as possible. You must have quietness and a certain amount of solitude. You must be able to touch the living rock, drink the pure waters, scan the great vistas, sleep under the stars, and awaken to the cool dawn wind. Such experiences are the heritage of all the people.� -Ansel Adams
Ouray Ice Park, CO
Crystal River Preserve State Park, FL
“Here, the social differences so insisted on at home just don’t exist. Perhaps for the first time, one realizes the common America- and loves it. . . . It is the enforced democracy and the sense of common ownership in these parks that works this magic. In the national parks, all are just Americans.” -Henry Sterling Yard
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Tahquamenon Falls State Park, MI
White Sands National Monument, NM
Kuhio Beach Park, Oahu, HI
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he opportunity to own, visit and be a part of public lands in America is a beautiful freedom. Just as our government and laws were created and headed by the people, our national and state parks, forests, monuments and preserves are for us all to be a part of. Partial ownership of this land we call home comes with responsibility and a deepened sense of pride of country.
“They are a treasure house of nature’s superlatives- 84 million acres of some of the most stunning landscapes anyone has ever seen: including a mountain so massive it creates its own weather, whose peak rises more than 20,000 feet above sea level, the highest point on the continent; a valley where a river disappears into burning sands 282 feet below sea level, the lowest, driest, and hottest location in the country; a labrynth of caves longer than any other ever measured; and the deepest lake in the nation, with the clearest water in the world. They contain trees, dead for 225 million years, that are now solid rock. And trees, still growing, that were already saplings before the time of Christ, before Rome conquered the world, before the Greeks worshipped in the Parthenon, before the Egyptians built the Pyraminds- trees that are the oldest living things on earth. And the tallest. And the largest.�
Sequoia National Forest, CA
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“...as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical...” “But they are more than a collection of rocks and trees and inspirational scenes from nature. They embody something less tangible yet equally enduring- an idea, born in the United States, nearly a century after its creation, as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical. National parks, the writer and historian Wallace Stegner once said, are ‘the best idea’ we’ve ever had.” -Ken Burns
Grand Teton National Park, WY
Bradbury Mountain State Park, ME
3
See America First
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alt Lake City, 1906: A man named Sanford Harris held a conference with businessmen and boosters of Western economy to assemble a 5 year plan for the promotion of the idea “See America First”. While most men who attended did so out of monetary interest, Harris was half business, half purist. His aim was to use propaganda to promote patriotism. After learning that Americans (mostly upper-middle class East coast Americans) were spending $150 million dollars a year on tourism in Europe, Harris devised “See America First” to unite the world of the wild-spirited West with the urbanized, industrial East. The government adopted the slogan within a few decades, to keep our dollars spent within our country and boost American loyalty by means of the tourist experience.
Mt. Hood National Forest, OR
New River Gorge National River, WV
“America’s greatness could best be measured in the natural wonders it seems to possess in such abundance. Whatever it might lack in terms of an ancient Parthenon or a grand cathedral or a museum filled with cultural treasures, they asserted, America more than compensated for in its endless forests, stunning canyons, and awe-inspiring waterfalls.�
Sierra National Forest, CA
San Clemente State Beach, CA
-Dayton Duncan
Yellowstone National Park, WY
“The movement that you strive for in this conference will make better citizens of the tens of thousands of Americans who are now living in ignorance of their own land, will through the agencies of school, pulpit and press bring to the young men and maidens of the land a vision of the regions they know nothing of which are yet under the dominion of the flag we all revere. You are here to preach the gospel of a better-known America.”
-John C. Cutler, “See America First” Convention
From top left: Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM, Smith Rock State Park, OR, Wasatch National Forest, UT Kisatchie National Forest, LA
“There is no way to bring it home to them in a better way than by going from park to park, through the medium of an automobile, and camping out in the open. It is just by trips of that kind that people learn what America is.� -Stephen Mather
“I am very keen about travel . . . for as many Americans as can possibly afford it, because those Americans will be fulfilling a very desirable objective of our citizenship, getting to know their own country better, and the more they see of it, the more they will realize the privileges which God and nature have given to the American people.” -FDR
S
anford Harris’ conference may have been held over 100 years ago, but the idea has been revived in recent years. A campaign backed by the National Parks Conservation Association has created a revival called “See America”, calling for artworks celebrating pieces of our American wilderness and exhibiting them all over the world. Seeing America instills a sense of pride and ownership. As writer Mary Roberts Rhinehart said, “I have traveled a great deal in Europe. The Alps have never held this lure for me. Perhaps it is because these mountains are my own- in my own country.” The American spirit that drove manifest destiny and our push to the unexplored West, to live in the wild and experience the unknown, is the same spirit that one can find by escaping a world of commercialization for a place ruled by nature. Wild places are an American ideal.
Hauula Forest Reserve, Oahu, HI
Presque Isle State Park, PA
Zion National Park, UT
Afterword: My Own Experience In Seeing America
I
n my own experience, I sort of fell upon the realization of the grandeur of American travel by chance. I was leaving for a trip to Europe, flying out of New York City. But I was in Los Angeles at the time. So a cross-country roadtrip ensued. My husband and I hit the road with very vague plans of a couple things to see, without an exact route or any planned places to camp at night. The lack of plans turned out to be relaxing- we could stop and camp when something enticed us, or when we were tired of driving. We only planned 9 days across and 14 days coming back. About a week in, we realized how free
feeling our journey was. There were so many land preserves we could freely explore and sleep in, so many kind, happy people greeting us at each place, and just too much to see in a three week trip. We vowed to take time on our next big trip to see our own country, and within a year we had planned another cross-country trip, but this time for 4 months, so we could take in as much of the beauty of the American wilderness that we could. Since then we’ve been hooked on traveling the US and dream of nothing more than retirement, so we can own an RV that we can take all over our great country.
The End