Working Hand In Hand

Throughout all of the readings that we have done in class, there has been one idea or another connecting each of them. Whether it’s been wilderness, ecosystems or nature in general, all of the essays relate in messages to their audience. I particularly noticed this between Louis Owens’ The American Indian Wilderness and Thinking Like a Mountain by Aldo Leopold. In their writings, both these authors talk about our idea as humans of what should be in nature. We have in our minds that since we live on the land we should decide what should be here without even thinking of how it affects nature. We do not think about what has taken place in the past to get us here now, or about the future and what impact our actions have. These similarities can be found in the essays among other differences.

The American Indian Wilderness tells about a Forest Service ranger that pulls the duty of burning down a shelter in the Cascade Mountains after its roof had collapsed from the snow. They wanted to take away all “human-made objects” in order to return “White Pass meadow to its ‘original’ state” (Owens, 69). After burning the shelter and transplanting in the area, the ranger meets two elderly native women from the area. He soon finds that the shelter he had taken down was one that their father had built a century ago to store berries. It was meaningful to them, for they had come to visit it yearly. The ranger felt horrible for demolishing their family’s shelter, but the women did not seem to mind as much as he had thought. Owens says, “They forgave me without saying it – my ignorance and my part in the pattern of loss which they knew so well” (Owens, 70). The women were not hurt by the ranger’s actions because they understood that they were once using the land and it was time for the mountain to replenish itself from their use. In Owens’ mind, his thought of “wilderness” was never represented in White Pass. There have always been people using the land for themselves; “there was only the fertile continent where people lived in a hard-learned balance with the natural world” (Owens, 70). “Wilderness” is just an idea that cannot be reached when humans are around.

Leopold suggests his ideas a little differently. In his essay Thinking Like a Mountain, a man hunts for deer but comes across a wolf instead. His instinct tells him to shoot the wolf so that there are more deer around the mountain for him to hunt. After killing the wolf he starts to see the real picture of why the wolf is there; to help keep the deer population down for the vegetation on the mountain to survive. Leopold believes that wilderness is what is protecting the world from harm, not people. He states, “In wilderness is the salvation of the world” (Leopold, 89). The wolves control the deer so if the humans kill the wolves the mountain will not survive. Leopold realized that “just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer” (Leopold, 89). We as humans believe that we are the ones that have the power to control everything in the world. Owens on the other hand shares his idea that we help control the world to bring nature back. By tearing down the shelter in The American Indian Wilderness, the ranger felt that he was restoring the land and cutting down on the foot traffic in order to repair White Pass. Owens and Leopold both agree about restoring nature, but how to go about doing so is where they differ.

In both essays, the authors share the message that anything you do has an effect on another event. By building the shelters on the mountain, the native people created a lot of travel, compacting the land. Even though the building was meaningful to the two elderly women, they understood the purpose of its destruction as they knew it was harming the earth. The Native Americans see this, but Owens does not believe many people do. He states “the global environment crisis that sends species into extinctions daily and threatens to destroy all like surely has its roots in the Western pattern of thought that sees humanity and “wilderness” as mutually exclusive” (Owens, 70). We often do not relate people with wilderness, but this story has proved that they are affected by each other.

Thinking Like a Mountain agrees with this perfectly. Leopold sees that the mountain is its own ecosystem with every part of if working together. The wolves are there to keep the deer from over populating. The deer feed off the foliage on the mountain but if the wolves were not around, the deer would over populate and eat everything. In return, the deer would die because there would not be enough food for them all. We think that we are doing the deer and ourselves a favor by killing the wolves, but Leopold helps us see otherwise. “I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter’s paradise” (Leopold, 89). Obviously everything is here for a reason and the mountain’s own ecosystem shows that.

Both authors make you think about what we as humans are doing to the environment. We have the idea that we are at the top of the world and can use that to our advantage. What we need to remember is that nature was here first and doing fine without us. We come and take over, but tend to hurt the world with our thoughtless actions. Working hand in hand with wilderness is the only way everything will survive. Owens says it best, that

“unless Americans, and all human beings, can learn to imagine themselves as intimately and inextricably related to every aspect of the world they inhabit, with the extraordinary responsibilities such relationship entails… the earth simply will not survive” (Owens, 71).

Each essay sheds light to working “with” nature by their stories. By conveying their messages in the form of a story, you can better visualize what each of the authors is trying to relay. It is much easier to understand than an essay that lectures you or just gives you information.

Overall, both Owens and Leopold’s writings were the most clear and relatable to each other. All of the essays we have read definitely make you think a little more about what impact you actually have on the environment. The American Indian Wilderness and Thinking Like a Mountain are the two readings that I can relate to better. After really looking into what both authors had to say, I can say that I will look at nature and the world in a new way. Not just that it provides for us, but that we help it provide also. We are an interlocking system with wilderness that works together to keep one another going.

Works Cited

Leopold, Aldo. “’Thinking Like a Mountain’ From A Sand County Almanac.” Saving Place. Ed.

Sidney Dorbin. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005. 87-89. Print.

Owens, Louis. “The American Indian Wilderness.” Saving Place. Ed. Sidney Dorbin. New York:

McGraw Hill, 2005. 68-71. Print.