Wonderful column, much to ponder. I don't think you or your children or their children will have to give up those activities, unless of course there is a very rapid tipping/acceleration of climate change (which there could be). If for some unforeseen reason we do have a tipping point, I would think we are going to have very large impacts. We are not prepared for what might come, our span of attention is short and our arrogance is very high.
On one hand people hate to walk away, and on the other hand places like where I live are absorbing large amounts of new people who are walking away from their lives in previous places.
I too wondered about fish stocking - I think it's only for us humans. Finis Mitchell did that early on in the Wind River range in WY, and I always wondered why. Just so we can catch them? All about us I think :-(. But maybe I am wrong.
Thanks for the link to Paul's op-ed! I had not been following his last Chapter and will read his essay and catch up on his travels.
The area where we live is pretty resilient as far as community goes, and we have good water (for now) and enough local family farms, so I feel like it's a good place from a practical perspective (except for wildfires). As with your area, plenty of people looking around and deciding this is where they feel safer landing. Lots of climate refugees from areas with hurricanes.
I can't get away from envisioning the climate future that Octavia Butler depicted in her novel "The Parable of the Sower," where society was slowly crumbling as effects like mega fires became more common. It's an incredible book. It's eerie how visionary she was (it was published in 1994).
I read a good article about the fish stocking a while back but can't remember where it was. Might have been in Montana Outdoors, which is published by the state Fish, Wildlife & Parks department, or maybe High Country Journal. Seems such a weird thing! But also a way of trying to keep threatened species like cutthroat around.
Paul's an incredible writer. I find myself always looking forward to his views of the world.
We thought this winter would be a harsh one and harden them off but so far it's about the mildest winter I've ever seen. Two years ago it got down to -40F wind chill they had to keep shutting things down! But this year it's even been sunny, which it almost never is here. Ah well. People migrate, they always have and always will.
Yes, so true. I recall Paul's Chapter One where he started walking in Africa where the discoveries of the first human-like beings were found. It was a dry, desert-like place now, but 50,000 (? not sure of the exact timing) years ago it was not. People moved as the climate changed or their was competition for resources, or whatever. As you say, they always have and always will.
Thank you for asking -- no, it doesn't seem to be any of those things (I'm developing arthritis in my fingers, a different pain). A combination of some old traumas added to a few very bad car crashes and a fall down the stairs when I was a kid. Deep massage helps, like Rolfing if I can find people who do that. The whole joints-on-fire thing is an inexplicable feeling.
No I haven't but that does sound really interesting! There is so much of this kind of thing around and it can be very frustrating. I manage okay but know a few people who've just given up and live with illness or pain. This could be great to share with them, thanks!
I always wanted to go on a big walking venture, continental-wide, you know? I've had to come to accept that it probably isn't going to happen. In one of the interviews I read with Barry Lopez after he passed, he talked about wanting to do a big continental-wide driving adventure, like across Africa, or North America. I have hope that I might be able to do at least that, but how? It weighs on me. In learning about my Métis ancestors, it's clear this need to constantly move about, be here for a while, there for a while, then back to the first here, maybe take a peek up over those ridgelines in the distance just for the hell of it, is part of my genetic makeup, heh. And for so many other people. Yet I feel the constant pull to settle in, to acquire, to double down on consumption. It's hard. It'll be even harder for people who never imagined they would just have to pick up and leave. The only thing I don't feel I could walk away from right now and live with myself is people and pets. Other than that, fuck it. But even that is getting more and more difficult.
I long for that, too, the big walking adventure, and also don't see it ever happening. I get so envious of Paul Salopek. I long to do what he's doing but mostly because I want to live like that. Roaming the earth. I don't know that it's in my makeup at all but it's certainly an embodied craving. On the flip side, I don't understand the desire for huge through-hikes like the Appalachian Trail, but then I'm a process person not a challenge person. I want to walk the world, not conquer it!
I think about snowbirds a lot. We have so many here in the Fish. The weather is given as the reason, but what if it's also a suppressed evolutionary craving for movement? (That said, I can imagine walking across the continent but a second home is a chosen burden I just do not understand the desire for.)
It's amazing how unadaptable a large percentage of humanity has become.
Chris has a great article about the PNT in Montana Quarterly in a 2019 issue I think? I'm having trouble finding it.
I don't know, though, I think for me the reason that through-hiking doesn't attract me is that after researching my book I view all walking and all land so differently. I want to just be able to wander, no trail, no destination necessarily. A freedom unconstrained by fences or roads. (Which would really mean moving somewhere like Scotland!) Wouldn't mind spending a while in the Bob, though, with the kids once they're a touch more resilient about long distances :)
Oh, I read Chris' piece, which is half the reason for my comment. (I'm the president on the PNTA, the non-profit entity for the trail.) There's a stretch of the PNT, on Idaho state lands, where there's no trail.
I did not make that connection! Now I know. Well, maybe I should get in training for when my kids are a touch older and I can leave them to do a long walk :)
Wonderful column, much to ponder. I don't think you or your children or their children will have to give up those activities, unless of course there is a very rapid tipping/acceleration of climate change (which there could be). If for some unforeseen reason we do have a tipping point, I would think we are going to have very large impacts. We are not prepared for what might come, our span of attention is short and our arrogance is very high.
On one hand people hate to walk away, and on the other hand places like where I live are absorbing large amounts of new people who are walking away from their lives in previous places.
I too wondered about fish stocking - I think it's only for us humans. Finis Mitchell did that early on in the Wind River range in WY, and I always wondered why. Just so we can catch them? All about us I think :-(. But maybe I am wrong.
Thanks for the link to Paul's op-ed! I had not been following his last Chapter and will read his essay and catch up on his travels.
The area where we live is pretty resilient as far as community goes, and we have good water (for now) and enough local family farms, so I feel like it's a good place from a practical perspective (except for wildfires). As with your area, plenty of people looking around and deciding this is where they feel safer landing. Lots of climate refugees from areas with hurricanes.
I can't get away from envisioning the climate future that Octavia Butler depicted in her novel "The Parable of the Sower," where society was slowly crumbling as effects like mega fires became more common. It's an incredible book. It's eerie how visionary she was (it was published in 1994).
I read a good article about the fish stocking a while back but can't remember where it was. Might have been in Montana Outdoors, which is published by the state Fish, Wildlife & Parks department, or maybe High Country Journal. Seems such a weird thing! But also a way of trying to keep threatened species like cutthroat around.
Paul's an incredible writer. I find myself always looking forward to his views of the world.
I think those climate refugees from hurricane areas need a few winters of -30F temps to see if they would rather battle hurricanes :-)
We thought this winter would be a harsh one and harden them off but so far it's about the mildest winter I've ever seen. Two years ago it got down to -40F wind chill they had to keep shutting things down! But this year it's even been sunny, which it almost never is here. Ah well. People migrate, they always have and always will.
Yes, so true. I recall Paul's Chapter One where he started walking in Africa where the discoveries of the first human-like beings were found. It was a dry, desert-like place now, but 50,000 (? not sure of the exact timing) years ago it was not. People moved as the climate changed or their was competition for resources, or whatever. As you say, they always have and always will.
I love deep time, and reminders of it. Even more recent time, like when Lebanon was covered in vast forests of cedar over two thousand years ago.
Me too, deep time is mind bending. I've been fascinated with this, https://longnow.org/clock/, still just a nanosecond to deep time :-)
Sorry to hear about your joint pain :-(. I assume you have checked if you have rheumatoid arthritis, and/or seen a rheumatologist?
Thank you for asking -- no, it doesn't seem to be any of those things (I'm developing arthritis in my fingers, a different pain). A combination of some old traumas added to a few very bad car crashes and a fall down the stairs when I was a kid. Deep massage helps, like Rolfing if I can find people who do that. The whole joints-on-fire thing is an inexplicable feeling.
Have you considered writing to Medical Mysteries (https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/medical-mysteries/) or the NYT version of this (https://www.nytimes.com/column/diagnosis). It's been fascinating for me to read some of these and to see what people go through and how they finally get helped/diagnosed.
No I haven't but that does sound really interesting! There is so much of this kind of thing around and it can be very frustrating. I manage okay but know a few people who've just given up and live with illness or pain. This could be great to share with them, thanks!
The latest one (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/magazine/autoimmune-limbic-encephalitis.html) is UNREAL. Why I never ever trust a single Doctor.
Oh wow, that's wild. And scary. Yes, always good to get more than one opinion if you can.
I always wanted to go on a big walking venture, continental-wide, you know? I've had to come to accept that it probably isn't going to happen. In one of the interviews I read with Barry Lopez after he passed, he talked about wanting to do a big continental-wide driving adventure, like across Africa, or North America. I have hope that I might be able to do at least that, but how? It weighs on me. In learning about my Métis ancestors, it's clear this need to constantly move about, be here for a while, there for a while, then back to the first here, maybe take a peek up over those ridgelines in the distance just for the hell of it, is part of my genetic makeup, heh. And for so many other people. Yet I feel the constant pull to settle in, to acquire, to double down on consumption. It's hard. It'll be even harder for people who never imagined they would just have to pick up and leave. The only thing I don't feel I could walk away from right now and live with myself is people and pets. Other than that, fuck it. But even that is getting more and more difficult.
I long for that, too, the big walking adventure, and also don't see it ever happening. I get so envious of Paul Salopek. I long to do what he's doing but mostly because I want to live like that. Roaming the earth. I don't know that it's in my makeup at all but it's certainly an embodied craving. On the flip side, I don't understand the desire for huge through-hikes like the Appalachian Trail, but then I'm a process person not a challenge person. I want to walk the world, not conquer it!
I think about snowbirds a lot. We have so many here in the Fish. The weather is given as the reason, but what if it's also a suppressed evolutionary craving for movement? (That said, I can imagine walking across the continent but a second home is a chosen burden I just do not understand the desire for.)
It's amazing how unadaptable a large percentage of humanity has become.
You guys should hike the PNT! Just from Chief Mountain to Eureka, or the second half from Oroville, Washington to Cape Alava.
Unrelatedly, Antonia, send me an email and I'll tell you a story. charleycarp@gmail.com
I do love a good story!
Chris has a great article about the PNT in Montana Quarterly in a 2019 issue I think? I'm having trouble finding it.
I don't know, though, I think for me the reason that through-hiking doesn't attract me is that after researching my book I view all walking and all land so differently. I want to just be able to wander, no trail, no destination necessarily. A freedom unconstrained by fences or roads. (Which would really mean moving somewhere like Scotland!) Wouldn't mind spending a while in the Bob, though, with the kids once they're a touch more resilient about long distances :)
Oh, I read Chris' piece, which is half the reason for my comment. (I'm the president on the PNTA, the non-profit entity for the trail.) There's a stretch of the PNT, on Idaho state lands, where there's no trail.
I did not make that connection! Now I know. Well, maybe I should get in training for when my kids are a touch older and I can leave them to do a long walk :)