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Historical and Cultural Benefits of Wilderness

Much of the history of our great nation lies within the boundaries of wilderness, physically and figuratively. Cave paintings and burial grounds tell us a story about Native Americans who lived here before Europeans settled the frontier. Old cabins or homestead sites portray the hardships of early settlers. Archeological sites found in wilderness can provide a more complete picture of human history and culture including clues to the lives of indigenous peoples, conquests, colonialism and independence. Prominent wilderness author Roderick Nash^[1] writes that early nationalists minted new assumptions of the aesthetic, religious, and romantic significance of wilderness to the national ego in order to distinguish the colonies from Europe and its rich cultural past. "Americans, in the anxious early years of their republic, turned repeatedly to wilderness as a source of pride"^{[1 p. 67]}. He asserts that the history of American painting provides a good example of how wilderness became a defining national characteristic. Prior to the 1820's, American landscape painters painted in the English pastoral tradition with "purling brooks, placid cows, and, perhaps, a rustic swan or two"^{[1 p. 69]}. In the years following 1823, however, Thomas Cole captured on canvas the wilder parts of northern New York and New England by depicting the "raw, unkempt power of wilderness,"^{[1 p. 69]} without elements of human significance. His works won him artistic fame and launched the famous Hudson River School of American painting. In art, as in other aspects of American life, our American values of freedom, ingenuity, and independence have been affected by the wild environments from which we created our society.

Although wilderness is a place where we can connect with the past, it continues to shape our present-day culture. Many native peoples and tribes still derive part of their identity from wilderness. In 1979, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes in Montana designated 1/4 of their land base as the Mission Mountains Tribal Wilderness, located adjacent to the Mission Mountains Wilderness\, where tribal members can gather medicinal herbs and roots and engage in religious ceremonies^[2]. Likewise, the Gwich'in people share an intimate relationship with caribou that migrate and calve in Alaska's northern-most wilderness areas^[3]. Native people's, however, aren't the only ones with cultural identity rooted in wilderness. Many Americans view routine trips to wilderness--such as Saturday day hikes or an annual backpacking or hunting trip with friends--as a defining part of their lifestyle. Freedom is key to these special experiences and is a quintessential American value. Howard Zahniser, author of the Wilderness Act, chose the word "untrammeled," meaning self-willed and free, to define wilderness. Today, as it did in early America, wilderness embodies the ardent preservation of freedom that defines American culture and what it means to be American. As windows to our past, present, and future, the historical and cultural values preserved in wilderness represent the very essence of our American existence.

References

1. Nash, R. (1969). The Cultural Significance of Wilderness. In: McClosky, M. E. & Gilligan, J. P. eds. Wilderness and the Quality of Life, pp. 66-73.
2. White, G. (2005, April 5). Tribal Wilderness in the Mission Mountains. In: 26th Annual Wilderness Issues Lecture Series: The Future of Wilderness in America: Change, Continuity and Conservation, Missoula, MT: Wilderness Institute. Retrieved on September 14, 2009.
3. Gemmill, F. (2003). Community Voices in National Debates: The Case of Gwich'in Values. In: 24th Annual Wilderness Issues Lecture Series: Wilderness, the Commons, & Sustainable Public Access, Missoula, MT: Wilderness Institute.