A short history:
Every year millions of Americans (not to mention all
those foreign guests) visit the country’s many national parks, whether simply
to enjoy a quick scenic drive, or maybe for a more challenging backwoods
adventure. But which ever one of nature’s calls these visitors heed, most of
them likely arrive with a preconceived notion that the national park landscape they
visit is a repository of America’s “wilderness.” The country’s untamed and pristine Nature,
conquered long ago during society’s long march westward, has been preserved and
maintained within the well-mapped borders of our national parks – or, at least that’s
what many folks believe.
In fact, “wilderness” is not a pre-existing state of
nature into which explorers may forge and over which progress can exert
control. In fact, the “wilderness” that so many seek in places like Yellowstone or Yosemite is not a function of the environment, but of the
brain. It is wholly a social construct. Furthermore, to create its national
park “wilderness,” the United States engaged often-brutal and typically dishonest policies
to removes the areas’ “natural” inhabitants: thousands of Native Americans.
The
1964 Wilderness Act defined wilderness
as a “place where humans are visitors and do not remain.” That 1960s view differed
dramatically from older American conceptions of the wild. In the antebellum era
of westward expansion, before the land was tamed, many Americans had an idea of
wilderness that actually required human habitation, that of natives. Americans
“generally conceived of the West as a vast ‘Indian wilderness,’ and they rarely
made a distinction between native peoples and the lands they inhabited.” One
must look at Mexican-American War, the American expansion
ideology of Manifest Destiny, and the last of the Indian Wars on the Plains, in
order to show how the nation’s ideas of “wilderness” ultimately became transformed.
Unfettered westward expansion combined the triumvirate of racial, political and
geographic “destinies” under a single banner of conquest that “erased the human
history” of the West “and replaced it with an atemporal natural history.”
Even When You Can't Visit...
Read up about our National Parks! There are some great books out there; but honestly nothing is better than visiting these places yourself. I also snuck a game below. I couldn't help it.
 | Tim Janis - Beautiful America (DVD)
Join us for a celebration of the beauty of America's National Parks. From Yosemite to Mount Rainier, Acadia to the Great Smokey Mountains, we present an evening of unforgettable...more
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 | Natural States (DVD)
Explore the unique beauty of the Pacific Northwest including such highlights as Mt. Rainier, Big Sur, Olympic National Park and many more.
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 | National Geographic Society: Our National Parks: A Seasonal Tour (Video)
National Geographic Society takes us on a tour through Our National Parks. Consist of Alaska's glacier-clad Denali , Virgin Islands, Hawaii Volcanoes, Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, Sou...more
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health!
Here is one of the resources I've found regarding a new way to discover health and career together.
Bear with Me
Yogi never was my fave, but I must say these older ones do awaken a sort of nostalgia ...