Almost Natural

kw: book reviews, nature, simple living

I spent a summer in wilderness areas more than thirty years ago. It was the traditional Geology seniors' "summer field camp." About a month in eastern Nevada, and a month in the Sierra Nevada in California. In both places, the setting was beautiful, though the first was quite arid. I pitched my tent rather far from the others, both places, and pretty much took care of myself. We had a few common activities, meetings to correlate the edges of our maps, group hikes to places of common interest. But mostly I hiked about, planning to cover my assigned area about twice in the time I had.

I particularly liked the many pools, ponds, and lakes in the Sierra camp. I planned each day's loop to put me at a lake midday, where I'd take my daily bath (I use a biodegradable surfactant to bathe, not soap, to this day) and a swim, then lie about to dry off. I'd surface map on the way out, and collect specimens on the way back to camp. I walked 500 miles that summer.

I distinctly remember, near the end of the month in the Sierras, meeting a small group of backpackers who were hiking into the back part of the wilderness area I was just leaving (The Geology camp was just outside the boundary of the designated wilderness). I asked how long they planned to stay.

"A week!" one replied excitedly. "How long have you been here?"

"Almost a month." / "Wow! That's neat!"

I hesitated, then said, "No, it's not. Not really."

Nonetheless, after I left, I entertained fantasies of returning, maybe on a more permanent basis. I never have. In graduate school, I picked a campus that was near the Black Hills, where most Geology Departments across the West and Midwest have their field camps. I figured, if I lived there, I could get my field work done without spending any more time in a tent. I've done my share of living simply, catching or shooting most of my own food, and buying little. I never did try roughing it through a Sierra winter, not even a Nevada winter.

So, reading David Petersen's book On the Wild Edge: In Search of a Natural Life was a bit nostalgic for me. He has done for upwards of 25 years what I only dreamed about. And as I read, I said to him in spirit, "David, better thee than me." He has a chosen path, and is fulfilled in it. I have mine, and am fulfilled.

I have to say this, he is a compelling writer. He tells a story that you find in your dreams that evening.

Half the book is rumination, anecdotes, and deft descriptions. Half is polemic, in the good sense of the word. His edge is shifting, and he is calling the alarm, rightly so.

What is the edge? Consider two extremes, two men. One is the urban denizen of Yokohama or Manila who never sees meat that isn't shrink-wrapped, takes the subway, bus, or taxi everywhere, works hard, plays hard—usually in smoky clubs or noisy concert venues—, and hasn't seen a living tree since he was four. The other is a Japanese soldier who hid for fifty years in the Philippine jungle, living a life more self-reliant and remote than any Crusoe. Both are products of a technological culture, so we're not talking Third World subsistence here in the case of the hiding soldier.

Now imagine a spectrum, a gradation between these two extremes. The inner city grades to 'uptown,' to suburbs, to exurbs, semirural, rural, remote, and maybe a step or two more to reach 'untamed' jungle. Anywhere along this continuum could be The Edge, it depends on your viewpoint. For me, The Edge would be a step beyond suburban living. That summer in the tent was beyond it, for me, and I really don't care to return for more than a short visit.

My graduate school years, I lived right at my Edge. A pocket development, just outside the city limits of Rapid City, SD: eight houses on two to eight acres each, along one side of a country blacktop road. Across that road was a cattle ranch. Usually, we were upwind. My next door neighbor was also a rancher. His ranch was thirty miles further out. Each rancher owned and leased about 15,000 acres, and ran ten cattle to the square mile: 64 acres each. That was a bit more than the 50 acres that would barely support a cow. At various times in our yard, we had runaway calves (with horsemen chasing), pronghorn antelope, pheasant, plenty of songbirds, a few kinds of snakes, and—we found out after getting a cat—quite a variety of mice, voles, shrews, and other mini-mammals.

We planted a shelter belt of trees and bushes obtained free from the County Extension (4H): Russian Olive, Serviceberry, Plum, and Chokecherry. About 50 each. Each fall we went into the hills to pick berries, mainly chokecherry, to make jelly or jam. From a ridge on the ranch across the way I could see Mount Rushmore with binoculars. We got to know everyone within a mile's walk. That came to ten families.

I could drive twenty minutes and be in the midst of pine woods, on rocky ledges and forested slopes where I would like not see another person all day. I'd do what rock collecting or other measurements I needed for my research, whistling or silent, with only animal and wind sounds about. Ten minutes in another direction, and I'd be at Rushmore Mall. Near my office at the School of Mines, I could take a swim in an Olympic size pool.

For me, that is The Edge. I am glad there are people like David Petersen. His Edge is not too close to being a naked man in a cave. He lives with his wife in a cabin he built. They have a few modern amenities, and he makes what money they need writing on a laptop computer. He kills an elk per year, which takes care of their meat needs. Of course, that implies he has enough electricity to run a deep freezer that'll hold 300 pounds of meat. He had an ethic we'd all do well to consider, though few of us could emulate the resultant life.

To people like me, he's the canary in the coal mine. He is getting crowded out, on his mountainside near Durango. That's not good. If his new neighbors had any idea of respect for wilderness and wild things, maybe it wouldn't be too bad. But nearly all are city folk who move to the country, then bring the city, and city attitudes, with them. You can't be raised in the city and develop the kind of reflexes that are appropriate to rural or near-natural living. A pity.