Man! What a beautiful snow storm we had the last few days...left the ground and the trees absolutely beautiful. There is something about when it storms, that the next morning, when the sun is finally coming up, its is soooooo quiet. It is so peaceful, everything is starting to wake up, and you realize your world has been transformed into something very very white. This here is a tree by my yard, right in front of the barn (cudos to my mom who took the picture in the morning).
This week we focused more on management and preservations in wilderness ethic. A time began when support was needed for people to see how cool wilderness is! Well, support did come...and a lot of it! Pretty soon protected areas were getting thousands of visitors every day! There was no management, soils were eroding, plant life was disintegrating, and animals left the area..sounds like a great wilderness. When nature gave people an inch, they took a mile.
Today, there is much more regulation, but preserved wilderness is there mostly for people to enjoy it. Behind my house there are acres and acres of protected "town" land. It contains a historic site of old foundations and stone walls, a small museum, and trails that are maintained by the Nor'easter club of our area. Taking our horses is incredible, and the trails are so well maintained with wood chips! In the winter, snowmobilers occupy the entire area. I have seen a deer or two, and once a moose...but for wildlife that's about it. Here's my dog Lola on a walk the other day, to show how much the trail is being used.
So i'm trekking up the path with Lola, and a snowmobiler comes by... there's not a whole lot left on the ground but they are still active. It slows down and passes, and the smell of gasoline lingers in the air for quite some time. Nothing better than trying to get some fresh air, right?
I stopped to take this picture of the trail because of what I had read earlier this week. Loving wilderness to death is a strange concept but it is very true. When the first pioneers set foot into the wilderness and came back, they did not keep their mouth shut. They told anyone and everyone that would listen about the wonderful experience they had! Nothing was ever like it! Nothing could compare! Well if someone ran out of the woods with a huge smile on their face, their perspective on life changed, and their attitude nothing but positive....I would definitely want to see what the hype was about.
Roads came, and everyone decided to take vacations into one of the defining characteristics of America- the outdoors. It seems that in this transition, we have made wilderness only suitable for ourselves, for our own enjoyment. We disregarded the preservation of wilderness for the sake of leaving it alone and uninhabited.
The conserved lands behind my house offer one of the best tension releasers, stress reducers, and happiness builders I could have ever gotten. Growing up I rode horses out there, walked dogs, cross country skied, mountain biked and ran every inch of those trails- I could walk them with my eyes closed. These trails are for me, not for nature. It's a strange thing to think about and it makes me feel divided on whether I should be guilty for exploiting the resources I have, or grateful for the appreciation is has strengthened.
Probably it is a bit of both...
No comments:
Post a Comment