Blog Entry #5: Alaska's Wilderness

When most people think of Alaska, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the great amount of wilderness in this state.  However, people have very different ideas of what qualifies as wilderness and what is and is not worth protecting.

For the people who live in Alaska, I suppose the boundaries of the wilderness depend on the individual.  Of course, there are legal considerations, but aside from that, whether or not a place qualifies as wilderness is more or less up to the person who observes it.  For instance, one person may consider the trails on the University of Alaska campus to be wilderness- after all, there are lots of trees, birds, and other animals there, as well as a natural lake- while others would scoff at this and believe that Denali National Park better meets the qualification of wilderness.  Still others would disregard the park as being wilderness since thousands of people visit every year, take tour buses through the park, camp, and hike around.  Perhaps they would only feel that a place 100 miles from any town and with no humans living nearby is really considered wilderness.  I suppose that I tend to have a more relaxed idea of what constitutes wilderness.  While there’s no danger of being eaten by a bear or starving to death at UAF, it seems pretty outdoorsy to me!  As a decidedly indoorsy person (who nonetheless finds the outdoors beautiful), any place with shelter too far away to run to before being trampled to death by a moose sounds like the wilderness.

Yes, I do believe that Alaskans should protect the wilderness here.  Not just the wilderness, but the environment in general.  On my midterm and in one of our class discussions, I even wrote that taking steps to protect Alaska’s environment (or at least being involved in it in a positive way) is one of my qualifications for what makes a “real” Alaskan.  I fear that if we decided to lift all protections set in place on our wilderness, it would be completely exploited and destroyed.  Natural resources, animals, trees, rivers, and lakes would be ruined.

Cronon’s essay discussed (in great, exhausting, hour plus of reading detail) the danger that arises when people consider themselves to be apart from the wilderness and end up viewing it as an extension of the comforts of civilization and a place to be revered only when it is unspoiled, with no other humanity around.  I do definitely agree that a false dichotomy can be constructed when people have this idea that the only wilderness is places far from human habitation and free of human influence, while disregarding the bits of wilderness that are much closer to home.  For instance, it would be a tragedy if the UAF trails or the forested area behind Creamer’s Migratory Waterfowl Refuge were disregarded and destroyed because they aren’t secluded enough.  At the same time though, I do not feel that setting out to protect the wilderness gets anything into trouble.  Protecting the wilderness is important, we just need to remember to protect the scraps of wilderness that are closer to home and less awe inspiring.

 Wilderness or not?  Creamer's Migratory Wildfowl Refuge in Fairbanks, AK.  Photo from Igougo's Alaska Journal: Road Trip from California to Alaska and taken by member "TwoIdiots"

Blog Entry #4: Hunting in Alaska

For this week's blog post I will explore the concept of natural resources in several excerpts from the book for our class, The Last New Land.  More specifically, I will examine how the resource of hunting wild animals for sport using a guide and a hunter is presented.  This seemed to be an obvious choice since every one of the readings this week dealt with hunting in one way or another!

The first piece is called "The Battle of the Giants" and comes from W. Douglas Burden's book Look to the Wilderness.  Determined to kill the moose with the largest antlers they can find, a guide sets out with a hunter on a multi-day hunting trip during moose mating season.  The pivotal moment occurs when the two men come across a stadium-like sprawl of land where hundreds of moose have congregated, and two huge bull moose fight for the privilege of mating with the females and the position of the dominant male.  The bulls are both aflame with the deep seated need to fight and be victorious over the other, and eventually one of them retreats.  After the truly impressive display, I found myself hoping the men would let the moose go without killing them, but they proceed to shoot one of the gigantic moose because they want his enormous antlers.  I must admit that I was repelled by their actions in killing the moose specifically because of his antlers.  The men seemed to be exactly like the moose- out to prove themselves and dominate another powerful creature.  This is surely an urge that most animals seem to possess, but it is unsettling.  It seems so prideful and shallow to kill a moose based on the size of its antlers and I find it very interesting that some people feel the need to conquer such creatures while others would spare such an impressive animal precisely because of its majesty.

The second piece is titled "Moose: Season of the Painted Leaves" and is excerpted from the book Shadows on the Tundra by Tom Walker.  Once again, the writing is about two men who set out to hunt a moose for sport, but this time it is from the point of view of the guide who has been hired by a man visiting Alaska and determined to bag a moose.  Walker describes the spectrum that the hunters he has guided seem to fall on, ranging from having a true reverence and love of nature-- to the point that one hunter cried when they shot their moose-- to solely being interested in slaughtering a wild animal in a show of swagger.  The says that the hunter he is working with this time falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, but after he has shot his moose and they begin to gut it, the hunter takes many photos of the carcass.  He intends to show the photos to people who are opposed to hunting in an attempt to make them think about the origins of all the animals they consume and to maybe get them to consider whether or not they should really consume animals that they could not handle slaughtering themselves.  I found this interesting because this is the very concept that made me decide to be a vegetarian.  As a completely tenderhearted animal lover who is fortunate enough to live in a time and place where consuming animals is not necessary to survival, part of why I decided going meatless was right for me is because I would never be able to handle--or even be present for--the killing of an animal, so probably shouldn't eat meat for the sake of not being a hypocrite.  Based on his giddiness and photo-happy behavior after he kills the moose, I'm not convinced that the hunter in question wasn't simply looking for excuses to be self righteous in his desire to dominate animals by killing them, but he does have a good point!

The final piece is the short story "Dall" by Pam Houston.  While this story provoked in me all manner of disbelief, thought, and flat out hostility towards the male guide because of blatant domestic abuse that I considered to be the central part of the story, I will instead focus on the hunting.  In this story, dall sheep are being hunted instead of moose, but once again, it is about two guides and the hunter who pays them for their services.  I found the hunter in this story pretty reprehensible as he seems to be the stereotypical inexperienced sport hunter who needs the guides to do everything for him, including telling him exactly when and where to shoot, proceeds to miss his targets, and then when he finally kills a sheep, wants to simply claim the antlers as his prize and leave the carcass to rot.  To his slight credit, the aforementioned despicable male guide does make the hunter haul away at least some of the meat, but the hunter's attitude combined with his ineptitude border on infuriating.

 Hunter with moose.  Photo by John Mackie and from akmoosehunting.com.