American Realities with Bill Youngs
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    • Gods Messengers: Religious Leadership in Colonial New England, 1700-1750 >
      • Table of Contents
      • Preface
      • Chapter 1: The Ministers and Their Times
      • Chapter 2: The Minister's Calling
      • Epilogue
      • Appendix: Length of Ministerial Settlement
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    • The Congregationalists >
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    • Eleanor Roosevelt: A Personal and Public Life >
      • Prologue: The South Pacific, 1943 >
        • Eleanor Roosevelt South Pacific
      • A Victorian Family
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      • Volume One >
        • The Native Americans
        • The English Background
        • The British American
        • Reform in Colonial America
        • Divided Loyalties
        • The American Revolution
        • Testing the Constitution
        • Republican Nationalism
        • The Limits of Jacksonian Democracy
        • Abolitionists and Anti-abolitionists
        • Texas Revolution
        • Reform in the Early Republic
        • Manifest Destiny
        • A Slave's Story
        • The Civil War >
          • Two Soldiers
      • Volume Two >
        • The “Taming” of the West
        • Beyond Emancipation
        • The New Industrial Era
        • The Birth of Environmentalism
        • New Immigrants
        • Expanding American Democracy
        • World War I
        • Modernity versus Tradition
        • The New Deal
        • Total War
        • The Cold War
        • The Civil Rights Movement
        • Turmoil on the Campuses
        • The New Computer Age
        • America, the Cold War, and Beyond
      • Additional Essays >
        • Norsemen in the New World
    • The Fair and the Falls >
      • Part I: Possessing the Falls >
        • Chapter One: James Glover: Purchasing the Falls
        • Chapter Two: Waiting for the Indians
        • Chapter Three: Harnessing the Falls
        • Chapter Four: "The World's Fair of the Northwest"
        • Chapter Five: The City Beside the Falls
      • Part II: Rediscovering the Falls >
        • Chapter Six: The Twilight of Old Spokane
        • Chapter Seven: Urban Blight and Urban Renewal
        • Chapter Eight: King Cole and The Heart of a City
        • Chapter Nine: Visualizing a World's Fair
      • Part III Redesigning the Falls >
        • Chapter Ten: From Spokane to Paris >
          • Tom Foley's Turn
        • Chapter Eleven: Wooing the Foreign Exhibitors
        • Chapter Twelve: Wooing the Domestic Exhibitors
        • Chapter Thirteen: The Environmental Debate
        • Chapter Fourteen: Building the Fair
        • Chapter Fifteen: Marketing, Money, and Management
      • Part IV: The Fair by the Falls >
        • Chapter Sixteen: Opening Day
        • Chapter Seventeen: A Mingling of Peoples
        • Chapter Eighteen: Days at the Fair
        • Chapter Nineteen: The Press of New Ideas
        • Chapter Twenty: The Final Tally
      • Part V: An American Environment >
        • Chapter Twenty-One: Spokane Falls, An American Environment
      • The Fair and the Falls Map

A "Wilderness Wuss"?! Viewing Spokane City Clouds

10/17/2015

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A Rumination of the Spectrum of Wildernesses 
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     I was in the wilderness a few days ago -- in downtown Spokane. I've adapted the following post from a "Fireside Talk" I wrote for my students in "The History of the American Wilderness "at Eastern Washington University....

    Now, I know that some of you will think of me as a "wilderness wuss" what with my finding wildness in a Japanese Garden or a city street. So, in my defense, have a look at my about the death of a polar bear. I'm deep in the arctic, for heaven's sake. More polar bears than people up there! (See Polar Bear post.)

     So I know and cherish many places that are way, way "out there" on Roderick Nash's scale of wilderness saturation levels in ​Wilderness and the American Mind. But that said, I claim two points for my argument that I was in the wilderness when I saw this evening sky from a Spokane street.

     Before I make my case, here is the scene I am writing about:
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     So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, here are my arguments for this as wilderness:

     1) As Roderick Nash contends there is a spectrum of wildernesses ranging from way out there to not out there at all, and as I have argued in an earlier post, clouds are a form of wildness -- often beautiful, sometimes threatening, never by-us controlled. Moreover, the entire universe whether out in other planets and galaxies or right hear on earth is pretty wild. Our cities are kinds of "pods" in the midst of nature. Mark Watney in "The Martian" had his "hab" and his rover and his suit as his pods on an otherwise uninhabitable planet. Our pods, whether individual houses or giant cities, are far more elaborate and are surrounded by air we can actually breathe and temperatures we can actually endure. But we still life our lives in the midst of natural processes that we only partially control. Those impressive clouds over Spokane are a reminder of the natural world.

     2) Measuring wilderness is also a matter of measuring our receptiveness to the natural world. I have been in a crowd looking at a waterfall in the Grand Tetons and experienced a lot more of the noisy crowd there than felt the presence of the actual falls. And I have seen a hawk flying over my house that made me, in that moment, stand in awe of the natural world. It's subjective. What are our receptors are receiving. And on that evening when I took this picture, I was much more sensing the wonder of the natural world than focusing on those concrete and glass walls. 
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     My conclusion: wildness, Mother Nature, wilderness -- call it what you will -- we live in the midst of it and our awe-struck awareness of this fact comes upon us in National Parks and Arctic landscapes, but it is not a "tame lion" and sometimes it visits us in unexpected ways.
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     So be awake and aware -- and enjoy the journey!

​Click here to view a complete list of entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)


If you enjoyed this article you may enjoy these other articles about Parks and Mother Nature:

• New York's Central Park: A Wilderness?
• The Japanese Garden at the Hotel New Otani -- an Exercise in "Parkology"

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The Super Blood Moon and "Spectrums" of Wilderness

9/27/2015

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A Lunar Eclipse as an Invitation to Wonder
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Blood Moon photo downloaded from internet search in Google Images -- credited to USA Today 

I am writing this post on the brink of a "Super Blood Moon" -- the only such lunar celestial event in the half-century between 1982 and 2033. As an historian teaching a class on the "History of he American Wilderness" I see a lesson coming in tonight's sky  about wilderness and civilization.

One of the fundamental concepts in my course comes from Roderick Nash's influential book, Wilderness and the American Mind.  Nash argues that, in view of the difficulty of establishing a universal definition of what is and what is not wilderness, we should agree that there exists a "spectrum of conditions or environments ranging from the purely wild on the one end to the purely civilized on the other— from the primeval to the paved."

          "A Spectrum of Wilderness Conditions"

I have written about varieties of wilderness in several posts on this blog: there is wilderness to be found  in New York's Central Park and in a Japanese garden in Tokyo. Of course, those places have many manmade features, but they also include the wild --  forces, flora, and fauna that we do not control.

Arguably, our civilization exists as a kind of bubble within the larger forces of nature.  God humbles Job with this question:

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
    Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
    Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
    or who laid its cornerstone--
while the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels shouted for joy?

The quintessential feeling of wilderness is a feeling of something great and wondrous beyond our control. 

We tend to be most aware of the natural world when we are far away from human distraction, but even in civilization, we are surrounded by a natural world at extremes of size: down deep among the microbes that inhabit our bodies and far out into the solar system and universe.

A solar eclipse provides an invitation to look and be aware of forces far beyond human control.  Perhaps a once-in-fifty-years super blood moon eclipse will bring with it a sense of wonder. 

I will know soon.

Addendum: Soon Afterwards:

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About 15 minutes of eclipse at. 20 to 1 fast motion:

​Click here to view a complete list of entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)


If you enjoyed this article you may enjoy these other articles about Parks and Mother Nature:

• New York's Central Park: A Wilderness?
• The Japanese Garden at the Hotel New Otani -- an Exercise in "Parkology"
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A Polar Bear's Death: Longyearbyen, March 19, 2015

6/9/2015

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Human Rights and Animal Rights in the Norwegian Arctic

     Someday I hope to see a real-life polar bear. Last March on  the Svalbard Archaeopelogo, I came hauntingly close....

     Longyearbyen, the administrative center of Svalbard, is the northernmost town in the world–so far north that even Iceland is far to the south. A friend of mine, astronomer Jay Pasachoff, organized a tour last Winter to view a solar eclipse near Longyearbyen, and I went along to see the eclipse and explore this corner of the Arctic . At our hotel in Oslo, before boarding my flight to Svalbard, I looked at a globe (see below) and noted that my destination was on a latitude with northern Greenland, less than a thousand miles from the North Pole.

     
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     The remoteness of Svalbard became all the more apparent as our SAS flight crossed the coast of Norway and flew on over the Barents Sea. After a while I could see mile after mile of ice flow in the ocean below. Then the pilot announced that we should expect a bumpy landing at Longyearbyen because the airport was built on permafrost and vulnerable to frost heaves. This was good news to anyone with an appetite for the remote and exotic. "Adventure is out there."

     Here are those ice flows we saw on our approach to Longyearbyen.

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      At the airport terminal, I saw my first Svalbard polar bear. Even stuffed, it seemed formidable:

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     I travelled by bus a short distance from the airport to the town of Longyearbyen and my hotel, a former miner's dormitory known now as "Guesthouse 102."

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       At the guest house I learned that I had a good chance of seeing a polar bear nearby. On one of the popular snowmobile tours from Longyearbyen, a bear had been seen regularly during the past few days. A receptionist at the hotel told me she had seen the bear just the day before--at a safe distance, of course, but close enough for a good view. In Svalbard there are only about 25 miles of road, and tourists usually leave Longyearbyen by snowmobile, dog sled, or on foot to see the surrounding wilderness. They are usually accompanied by a armed guide. I felt lucky that this bear was so "accessible" because polar bears are usually found in more remote sections of the islands. I decided that as soon as I had the chance, I would see that bear.

      But less than a day later the bear was dead. It had injured a camper, been wounded by pistol shot from another camper, and then killed by the authorities.

      In a moment I  will tell the story of the bear's death as recounted by guides whom I met during my week at Longyearbyen. But first here is some context on the legend of polar bear as crafty killer. The image below, painted by a French artist in the nineteenth century, conveys a common impression of the fierce polar bear.

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"Fight with Polar Bears" by Françoise-Auguste Biard (1799-1882)     
Wikipedia Commons     

      In my hotel in Longyearbyen, I saw some humorous versions of the same story. The doors of the shared bathrooms in "Guesthouse 102" were decorated with polar bear cartoons drawn by Gary Larson. Here is one:

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      The Baird painting and the Larson cartoon embody the vicious polar bear theme that must have been on journalists' minds as they published accounts of the Svalbard episode. On March 19-20, 2015, newspapers around the world provided the story of the polar bear episode near Longyearbyen. The typical headline read, "Polar Bear Attacks Tourist in Svalbard." More than 300 newspapers from Australia to the United States carried this version of the story: a party of Czech tourists had come to Longyearbyen to see the eclipse. While they were camping near town a polar bear entered one of the tents and "attacked" a man in his sleeping bag, leaving him with minor injuries on his arms and chest. One of the party shot the bear three times with a pistol. Soon afterwards Svalbard authorities arrived on the scene, evacuated the wounded man on a helicopter, and shot dead the badly wounded bear.

      That is the story that was published outside Svalbard. 

      But in Longyearbyen I heard a different slant on the story  from local guides. I got to know several of these men and women during hikes and snowmobile trips from Longyearbyen. One after another they told me all of the things the tourists had done wrong, usually counting the proper procedure on their fingers: 1) camping near the shore where bears are most likely found; 2) camping in a region known for recent polar bear sitings; 3) failing to construct an effective electric fence around their campsite--they erected one, but it did not work, and 4) failing to keep one party-member on guard all night, ideally with a flare gun.

      Over a meal at Guest House 102 we discussed the polar bear's death from every angle. One guide had seen the bear a day or so before: "She was just playing in the snow. She had killed two seal recently. She was not hungry. She probably just nosed around the tent out of curiosity." These guides were alert to polar bear danger: all of them left town with rifles, a kind of standard issue. But they believed that anyone in the wilderness outside Svalbard should do everything possible to avoid bear encounters. Several seemed on the verge of tears about the bear's death.

      At one point as we were sitting at a long table in the guest house, another tourist came up and said, "I hear a polar bear attacked a tourist yesterday."

      One of the guides shot back, "You mean, a tourist attacked a polar bear!"

     I learned that there will be a government inquiry into the incident. Any time a bear is killed by a human in Svalbard an inquest follows, determining what caused the episode. The polar bear is a protected animal in Norway and in other parts of the world as well.

      After several days in Svalbard I gave a talk at UNIS, The University Center in Svalbard, on "National Parks: the International Experience." I mentioned the recent polar bear incident, and a spirited discussion followed. One of the participants Daniel Börjesson, a Swedish outdoorsman-adventurer, was planning to spend three or four weeks in the island interior traveling with a friend by cross-country skis pulling sled with their supplies. I liked the story and arranged to interview  him the next day. Daniel told me about his plans for bear safety--and his own encounter with the recently-slain polar bear.


Click here to view a complete list of entries on the American Realities blog...
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The Japanese Garden at the Hotel New Otani -- an Exercise in "Parkology"

12/9/2014

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Nature Nurtured in a Famous Garden in Tokyo: "Many of us are birds, for heaven's sake!"
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Photo from the Hotel New Otani's Web Site

While teaching the history of the American National Parks, I sometimes explore park history and policies in other nations. These journeys abroad with my students at Eastern Washington University (real for me "virtual" for them)  give us engaging ways of exploring parks. When I stayed recently at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo and explored its famous garden, I knew I had some wonderful material for my students back home. 

Now admittedly, It is a long way from a Japanese garden in Tokyo to, say, Yellowstone or Yosemite.

Or is it?!

Our class is an exercise in what I like to call  "parkology" -- an exploration of  key themes and events in the life of American parks. As we study one park, we discover instances of comparable stories in other parks in the United States and around the world. These can be stories about roads and trails, traffic control, animal management, or more broadly, the challenge of defining "nature." So when I posted my students about the Otani Garden, I told them that the lesson was "about a particular park in Tokyo, but also an exercise in exploring other places and events through the filter of our understanding of  American parks."

Here are the basic facts about the Otani Garden as presented in  the hotel's web site:
With its 400 years of history, the Japanese Garden at Hotel New Otani is one of the most renowned gardens in Tokyo. The vast ten-acre ground, surrounded by the outer moat of the historic Edo Castle, houses numerous kinds of trees, flowers and foliage. Stone gardens and lanterns, carp ponds and waterfalls offer a taste of Japanese tradition and culture to our visitors. People come by to escape from the hustle and bustle of the city, and to enjoy a moment of peace and relaxation in the profound abundance of nature

"Peace and relaxation in the profound abundance of nature...." The chief apostle of the American park movement, John Muir, might have written those very words himself. They sound like this Muir quotation on a magnet that I keep on my refrigerator door:

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The parallel is all well and good, but is it accurate to credit a well-groomed garden with natural "abundance"? In this quotation Muir talks about climbing the mountains -- hardly a description of a well-tended garden. But then again, Muir does talk about nature, peace, and relaxation, qualities to be found in this Japanese garden. Here are some views of the 10-acres:

These and all following photos in this post are by Bill Youngs

I asked my students some questions via the Internet, while I was posting from Tokyo.  They were to review the pictures I've posted above to help them form their opinions. Here are some of the prompts I gave them for considering the garden in the framework of a "parkology" perspective:

• Parkology 1: During the quarter we have noted that there is such a thing as "park-friendly" architecture - "honoring the landscape." But seemingly in painting the garden bridges red, the builders in this case did not follow that principle. Or did they? Is it "all right" sometimes to build structures that contrast sharply with the landscape? Take away the red paint from the bridge, and does it seem more natural? Or, in this case, does the red paint feel appropriate?

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Parkology 2: (a) These are not wildflowers, but they are, obviously, flowers. What American National Parks are especially noteworthy for their flowers? Does a cultivated flower garden retain any elements of a natural setting? (2) Who does not love a waterfall? But does a waterfall lose something in being man-made?

• Parkology 3: The plaque, the statue, and the straw or bamboo tree skirts-were aesthetically pleasing touches, and seemed to me to "honor" this particular landscape. When are such embellishments appropriate? Should we place straw skirts on the redwoods?!

• Parkology 4: You will have to take my word on this... Part of the natural charm of the Otani Gardens is the sounds of nature. The bird sounds were more abundant than on many of my visits to a National Wildlife Refuge near my home, and the sounds of little rivulets and larger falls were omnipresent. Moreover, the human beings there were silent and respectful as in a church.


• Parkology 5: I asked the students to consider the statue of Yonetaro Otani (pictured below) who built the New Hotel Otani, but set aside ten acres of enormously valuable Tokyo real estate to preserve the historic garden. Wasn't he similar to Stephen Mather the wealthy philanthropist who became the first superintendent of the American National Park Syste?. The statue sits in one corner of the garden:
Statue of Yonetaro Otani
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• Parkology Conclusion: Does this garden resonate meaningfully with what we have learned about the values and quality of our American National Parks? Hint: in addition to thinking of this question in relationship to our natural parks, consider also its relation to our historical parks.

Now, I had persuaded myself that much of what we Americans love about wild places can be discovered in a beautiful garden -- the feeling of being in the garden can nurture feelings consistent with those we sometimes feel in the National Parks, but...

My students weren't "buying it"!

I asked my students to post comments on these parkology questions, and they responded with enthusiasm, but not always with approval of my argument that there was indeed full-fledged nature in this garden. The  best way that I can continue this narrative is to copy below the post I wrote for my students and uploaded from Japan. Here it is:

November 20, 2014

My heart was heavy as I walked from the Hotel New Otani lobby down a passage to the hotel's Japanese Garden. I would be communicating to the objects there the honest but dispiriting fact that many of my American students did not feel that the garden was, well -- real. Not real nature anyway. Two students, for example, had quoted from Alolph Murie, "Let us be guardians rather than gardeners."  One continued, "I thought the garden was very nice, beautiful, peaceful, and relaxing. That being said, it is nature without being natural." And another wrote: "When one visits a national park, there is not a feeling of, wow, it's amazing that we humans are such amazing landscape artists, or painters, or architects. No, it is something else that we experience."

Now honestly, I feel the reasonableness of such reservations. And yet I felt reluctant to pass this news on to the flowers. Would they wilt at the news that they were not truly natural?!
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 I walked on and looked at the water tumbling over a man-made cliff.
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Click below to hear the sound of flowing water and chirping birds in the garden.


The Creatures Respond

As I looked and listened to the water, it seemed to urge me to remember these words from our friend John Muir: "As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche." 

"Can you not listen and learn here as well," the water seemed to say. "Is my spray a false spray, and is my sound imaginary?"

Before I could answer, I heard the birds, the many birds in the trees, calling out, "What about us? Are you going to ask us what we think about this nature business?"

They were all chattering together in Japanese, and so I had trouble understanding every word, but then one of them -- apparently the wisest, spoke words that I already knew, written by a native son of my own Washington State, Justice William O. Douglas. Improbable as it may seem, the bird quoted:

Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole—a creature of ecclesiastical law—is an acceptable adversary and large fortunes ride on its cases.... So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes—fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.
 
The whole garden grew silent...

As this loquacious Wise Bird spoke, the whole forest grew silent, the carp stopped swimming, and the very water of the waterfall ceased falling. At the end of the speech, after a brief silence, all the creatures applauded with wild enthusiasm, as best they could. The birds flapped their wings, the carp flapped their tails, the trees flapped their branches, and the water flopped madly over the rocks. As for me, I jumped up and down on one of the red bridges in a noisy gesture of approval.

When everyone, including me, had settled down, the Wise Bird came close to me and gestured for me to follow into a corner of the garden. In case I had missed the point, he explained to me (in broken English) that if I had taken the time to ask the birds and trees and fish and water if they were free agents they would have responded emphatically,"f course, we are!" 

Then, speaking for himself, he said, "Many of us are birds, for heaven's sake. We don't have to stay here if we don't want to!"

Click below to hear the author do his very best to read these lines on "the creatures response."

Click here to view a complete list of entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)


If you enjoyed this article you may enjoy these other articles about Parks and Mother Nature:

• What's that Motor Scooter Doing on a National Park Trail?!
• New York's Central Park: A Wilderness?
• A Visit to John Muir National Historic Site
•  Danger in the National Parks
• Henry David Thoreau and the Felling of a "Noble Pine"
• On the Road with History 498: "The History of the American National Parks"


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What's that Motor Scooter Doing on a National Park Trail?!

12/7/2014

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Reflections from Taiwan's Taroko Gorge on Indigenous Peoples in National Parks

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This and other photos and films in this post are by Bill Youngs
The history of national parks is frequently a history of compromises. For example, the Organic Act of 1916 creating the National Parks Service for the United States embraces ambiguity from the start. On the one hand the parks will protect historic and natural features, but on the other hand they will make them available for "the enjoyment" of visitors. The result is an ongoing debate about how to make parks accessible without diminishing their natural features with highway or overwhelming them with tourists.

In the United States and throughout the world national parks are facing another dilemma: how to respect the special claim of indigenous peoples on park lands while opening them to all the citizens of the world.

The picture above becomes understandable once we understand its context. The pathway here is the Shakadang Trail in Taiwan's Taroko National Park, one of the most famous park trails in the world, cut in a cliff to allow travelers a superb view of the river below. The man on the motor scooter is a member of the Taroko tribe, one of several indigenous groups in Taiwan. The sign below explains why this particular scooter came motoring down the trail in November, 2014, when I was one of the hikers on the trail. I stepped aside, snapped the picture above, and watched the scooter disappear down the trail.  A sign on the trail explained what I had just seen -- and was a model of compromise: yes we were in a park, but yes also we were passing through "an aborigine reserve land," and the indigenous Tarokos needed to "transport goods" on the trail, but yes again, we walkers also had our rights, and so the Tarokos would do their best to scoot by at designated times.

Giving a Scooter Authority:

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Like the Taiwanese, American park administrators are engaged in bringing indigenous life into sharper focus in our own parks. In my course at Eastern Washington University on the "History of the American National Parks" my students and I explore a variety of themes in park history including the place, over the years, of indigenous peoples in the parks. As the United States approaches the centennial of the Organic Act (1916), which laid the foundation for the park system, park planners are assessing the history and future of the Native American presence in the parks.

One of the first American parks was intrinsically about indigenous peoples--the ancient Americans who built and then abandoned their dwellings in what is now Mesa Verde National Park.

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At Mesa Verde the past of an indigenous people is the essential story -- the park's reason for coming into existence in the first place. That said, the indigenous story continues to unfold. At a site where, in the distant past, unregulated "pot hunters" used dynamite among the ruins, hoping to unearth treasures; in contrast, today the regulations on movement through the park are increasingly strict. Heavy fines are imposed on individuals who wander off trails into sites which might contain more artifacts. I listened to a talk at Mesa Verde in 2012 where the ranger told us that as a boy he (and anyone else) had free access to sites that today -- even as a ranger -- he cannot hike.

At other parks the Indian presence in the parks has usually been more marginal or misunderstood. Take for example this Indian artifact at Lake MacDonald Lodge in Glacier National Park.

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The totem pole is picturesque, but the peoples who make totem poles live about 500 miles away on the Pacific Coast. The decoration at the lodge is just that, a decoration. It tells us nothing about the Native Americans in Glacier. 

One of the first national parks, Glacier was famous in the early days for the "Glacier Park Indians." Along with the mountains they were billed as one of the attractions of the National Park: come here and see real Indians. Although they were in actuality local Blackfeet Indians, their regalia and dances were a fantasy version of indigenous culture designed to entertain rather than educate.

That is changing now in Glacier and other national parks. At Glacier Blackfeet Indians tell stories in summer programs. There and elsewhere the national park shops often feature books about Native Americans and the parks, including Robert Keller and Michael Turek's American Indians and National Parks. The park service has created a American Indians Liaison Office whose activities include seeking to "create a process that could enable a Federally-recognized tribe to enter into an agreement with a park regarding the gathering of certain culturally important plants and minerals."

Taroko's Lessons in Embracing Indigenous Peoples in a Park Culture

 While visiting Taroko National Park this fall, I was impressed by the ways that the Taroko people were a part of the park story and the park presence in Taiwan. And more was involved than those motor scooters on the Shakadang trail.

After that motor scooter went by, fellow hiker Jonathan Butler continued along the trail. Jonathan is a professor at Taipei's Soochow University and had sponsored me for a talk I would be giving on "National Parks: The International Experience." On our visit to Taroko I was looking for park features that I could incorporate into my talk in Taiwan. In the park I saw many ways that Taiwan is addressing challenges common to parks in the United States and elsewhere, such as how best to build trails, manage traffic, and provide signage. There was lots to learn, but best of all was Taroko lessons in the way a park can embrace indigenous persons in its culture.

At the point where the Shakadang trail comes down to the river, you arrive at a place where Taroko men and women run several shops selling food and drink as well as native crafts:

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In the United States park shops sell "Indian" articles, but these items are often made in China. Stores today in American parks will sometimes indicate whether "Native America" merchandise was, in fact, made by Indians. In Taiwan indigenous men and women run the shops and sell Taroko-made products. When I was there, a weaver was actually at work in one of the shops. In another I bought a necklace for a granddaughter whose birthday would arrive shortly after my return to the United States. The shopkeeper introduced herself as "Maria, a member of the Taroko tribe." She spoke English as well as Chinese and Taroko, and I asked her if she would let me film her saying "Happy Birthday" in both languages for my granddaughter to accompany the gift. Here is Maria with her greetings:
The encounter with Maria gave perspective to my fleeting glance of the motor scooter and the sign indicating an indigenous presence in the park. Here was a national park where the tourist could encounter the living presence of a native culture. 

Jonathan Butler and I took another hike in Taroko National Park, this time climbing a trail up the side of the gorge towards a Taroko village. Earlier I had taken this picture of showing a Takoro carrying a basket as a back pack.
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On our hike we saw a similar basket serving as a backpack for a Taroko man making his way down the mountain: 
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Back in the United States, reflecting on the motor scooter on the trail and other encounters with indigenous Taroko men and women, I sense that there was something special about Taroko National Park: it preserves not only the geology, flora, and fauna of a remarkable setting, but also respects a viable indigenous culture. As I review that motor scooter passing by in this film clip I realized that once you know why that scooter is on the trail, you begin to get a sense of Taiwan's achievement in juxtaposing a national park and a native culture. Here is that scooter in motion:
Click here to view a complete list of entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)


If you enjoyed this article you may enjoy these other articles about Parks and Mother Nature:
• A Visit to John Muir National Historic Site
•  Danger in the National 
• Henry David Thoreau and the Felling of a "Noble Pine"
• On the Road with History 498: "The History of the American National Parks"
• New York's Central Park: A Wilderness?

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A Visit to John Muir National Historic Site

12/3/2014

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And a Conversation with Ranger Kelli English, Chief of Interpretation

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John Muir's most famous memorials are his many contributions to the literature and preservation of American scenic wonders. The image of  "John of the Mountains" is inseparable from the image of Yosemite and other wilderness areas. But John Muir spent much of his adult life in a Victorian mansion in an orchard a few miles from San Francisco -- far from the mountains he celebrated. That house and its surroundings is now a National Historic Park in Martinez, California.

This is the way the house looked in 1900:

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Wikipedia Commons

On a bright Autumn day in November, 2014, I visited the park for a look at the landscape and the house and for a conversation with Kelli English, the site's chief of Interpretation. This fall I've been blessed with a teaching schedule at Eastern Washington University that allows me to focus on one course, "The History of the American National Parks." Since the class is on line, I can take my students with me, so to speak, to some of our fabled parks.

My students and I have studied John Muir, naturally, as the person I like to call "The George Washington of American National Parks." We all learned about Muir riding an avalanche down a Sierra mountain slope and clinging to the top of a swaying tree in a windstorm, but I knew less about the Muir who made a fortune in agriculture and hunkered down in a Victorian house to write many of his books and articles.

In the Visitor's Center at the Historic Site a bronze statue of John Muir greets visitors:

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Here is what the Muir house looks like today along with a sampling of its contents: 
The high point of the visit for me was a conversation with Kelli English, the Chief of Interpretation at the Historic Site. We talked about John Muir, but also about broader issues surrounding park management and interpretation. Kelli and I sat at a picnic bench with another historic building, the Martinez Adobe, in the background. In a wide-ranging conversation we discussed John Muir and the Muir house and also a number of issues in modern park policy ranging from snowmobiles in Yellowstone to wolves, bears, and coyotes, oh my. I came away feeling that although I had not been able to talk to John Muir himself that day, Ranger English was the next best thing.

Here is the conversation:

Click here to view a complete list of entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)


If you enjoyed this article you may enjoy these other articles about Americans and Mother Nature:
• A Winter Walk alongside the Grand Tetons
• "Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies"-- Reflecting on a National Anthem...
• Swimmers at Walden Pond: Henry David Thoreau and his Successors• 
• On the Road with History 498: "The History of the American National Parks"
• Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Resplendent in Greens and Yellows
• New York's Central Park: A Wilderness?
• Danger in the National Parks
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Danger in the National Parks

10/19/2014

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One of the attractions of the National Parks has always been the element of danger....,

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"The prolonged howl of the wolf made me insensible to all other forms of suffering." 
Truman Everts in his account of being lost for 37 days during an 1870 exploratory expedition into Yellowstone.
 Drawing is from his article in Scribner's Monthly, 1871. 

NEWS was published recently of the death of a hiker in Zion National Park. He and a companion were hiking up a narrow canyon when a rain storm caused the river to rise.  The men scampered to perches on opposite sides of the canyon. One dropped into the water and swam out; he then called for help for his stranded friend. But before he could be rescued, he apparently fell into the river and drowned.

Such tragedies are common in the National Parks, and naturally, park officials take every step possible to avoid them. The men in this episodes undoubtedly were seeking nothing more exciting that a peaceful walk up a lovely canyon--not inviting danger or death. But many park deaths come from inherently dangerous activities. A few months ago two BASE jumpers were killed in separate accidents in Zion National Park. BASE jumping--also known as proximity flying--is one of the most deadly as well as one of the most thrilling outdoor sports. For many adventurers the exhilaration outweighs the risk. A friend of one of the deceased jumpers has now lost five friends to BASE-jumping deaths during the past year, but says that he intends to continue jumping: "It's a personal choice," he told a reporter.

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BASE Jumper over Switzerland
Still image from YouTube video: "Proximity Jumping with Jokke Sommer"
​(Be sure to click on this link for an amazing ride!)

Although the pioneers in the National Parks never dreamed of donning a wingsuit and flying over the parks--wingsuits did not even exist until recently--an element of risk has been associated with National Parks from the earliest days.  In 1870 the Washburn Expedition was the first scientific exploration of Yellowstone. Until then John Colter's early account of a land of geysers was generally dismissed as a tall tale.  The expedition found the geysers, but lost member Truman Everts along the way. He spent 37 harrowing days in the wilderness and shed so much weight that when he was discovered and asked if he was indeed the missing man, he replied that they were looking at what was left of him. Everts weighed a paltry 55 pounds at the end of his ordeal, but lived, surprisingly, to the ripe old age of 84.

Truman Everts was an early embodiment of the association of parks and danger. He became a kind of hero for his ordeal and was even offered the position of superintendent of the world's first national park. The position provided no salary and so, understandably Everts refused the offer: he had already starved once in Yellowstone.

Another chapter in the story of danger in Yellowstone came in 1877, the year after the region became a National Park. Men and women camping there that summer anticipated no more excitement than bears, buffalo, geysers, and canyons could provide, but found themselves in the middle of an Indian War. Fleeing government troops in the Nez Perce War, Indians came through the park, captured several tourists, killed two and wounded others.

These episodes made great press for outsiders, but they were not invited by the participants. Deliberate risk-taking , however, also goes back to the early days of the parks. None was more daring in experiencing nature than the High Priest of the National Parks movement, John Muir.

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Drawing of John Muir in Yosemite by Cecily Moon
from "The Birth of Environmentalism: John Muir and the American Wilderness" 
One fine summer day in 1868 the young John Muir stood by a cliff edge hung over the Yosemite Valley. A half mile below, the land “seemed to be dressed like a garden—sunny meadows here and there, and groves of Pine and Oak.” Nearby the Yosemite River cascaded through a channel in the rock, sped down a short incline, and sprang “out free in the air.” Muir wanted a clear sight of the waterfall and began to work his way down the rock. Below he could see a narrow shelf that might support his heels over the sheer cliff. He filled his mouth with artemisia leaves, hoping the bitter taste would prevent giddiness. He then worked his way along the ledge; it held him, and he was able to shuffle twenty or thirty feet to the side of the falls. There he found what he wanted—“a perfectly free view down into the heart of the snowy, chanting throng of comet-like streamers, into which the body of the fall soon separates.” In camp after dark that night he recorded in his journal that “the tremendous grandeur of the fall” had smothered all fear. He had had a “glorious time.”
This  passage is from  the essay, "The Birth of Environmentalism: John Muir and the American Wilderness"

John Muir later suggested that he was not entirely comfortable with the risk he had taken on the edge of Yosemite Falls: on a spectrum from brave to foolhardy, he had perhaps teased the foolhardy side. But he often exposed himself fully to nature: climbing mountains, hiking alone, crossing glaciers. He once rode a snow avalanche down Yosemite, exalted in an earthquake in the valley, and climbed a tall tree in the midst of a windstorm, all for the purpose of seeing and knowing nature better. 

So, would John Muir ever have gone BASE jumping? You could say no, because he liked to know the wilderness with his legs planted on the ground--and sometimes with his hands on the trunk of a tree or the side of a cliff. And yet, arguably he did engage in a kind of spiritual proximity flying:  

He often reflected on death and had faced it many times in the mountains. He spoke of it as “going home.” After death the soul would be free to wander through the wilderness uninhibited by a physical body and earthly cares. He once described how he would begin that pilgrimage: “My first journeys would be into the inner substance of flowers, and among the folds and mazes of Yosemite’s falls. How grand to move about in the very tissue of falling columns, and in the very birthplace of their heavenly harmonies, looking outward as from windows of ever-varying transparency and staining!”

That sounds like a slow-motion version of proximity flying, doesn't it?!

Click here to view a complete list of entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)

If you enjoyed this article you may enjoy these other articles about Americans and Mother Nature:
• A Visit to John Muir National Historic Site
• A Winter Walk alongside the Grand Tetons
• "Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies"-- Reflecting on a National Anthem...
• Henry David Thoreau and the Felling of a "Noble Pine"
• Swimmers at Walden Pond: Henry David Thoreau and his Successors• 
• On the Road with History 498: "The History of the American National Parks"
• Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Resplendent in Greens and Yellows
• New York's Central Park: A Wilderness?
  • In Praise of Clouds: America's Unsung Beauty
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The Taxis of the Marne, 1914-2014

9/24/2014

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Visiting a Reenactment in Paris, September 7, 2014

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Photo by Bill Youngs

One of the proudest moments in French history was the "Miracle of the Marne," which occurred in September of 1914.  During the previous month, German troops had sliced through Belgium into northeastern France.  They were now within about 35 miles of Paris, and if they could cross the Marne River, they would likely march down the Champs Elysses  through the Arc de Triomphe into the heart of Paris. They had done just that a few decades before during the Franco-Prusian War, and they seemed about to do it again. Living in a country town a few miles from Paris, American journalist Mildred Aldrich wrote, "All France is holding its breath." (See previous post on her report.)

During the first week of September, 1914, English and French troops regrouped to face the German advance. In the resulting Battle of the Marne (September 5-12) the Allied counterattack succeeded in pushing back the Germans and set the stage for four years of trench warfare on a line from Switzerland to the North Sea.

At a critical moment in the battle, September 6-7, fleets of taxis rushed thousands of soldiers into the French countryside to join the army at the front. Each cab carried five soldiers with their supplies, and each driver was paid by the meter, just as if they were picking up civilian fares. These reinforcements were actually a tiny fraction of the troop strength at the front, but the parade of taxis acquired tremendous symbolic power: here was France using every last resource to stop the enemy advance. And the advance was indeed stopped.

On Setember 7, 2014, a ceremony was held at the Invalides in Paris, on the exact spot from which the taxis had departed exactly a century before. I arose early that morning, and I took a cab (what else) to the ceremony. Here is what I saw:

Century-Old Taxis
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Photo by Bill Youngs
A Military Band

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Photo by Bill Youngs

Reenactors in Period Costumes

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Photos by Bill Youngs
And much, much more. So I decided to let the taxis and the band and the people 
speak for themselves in this video;

Click here to view more entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)

If you enjoyed this article on World War I, you might also enjoy these entries: 
• August 10, 1914: "It is as if all France is holding it's breath...."
• The Battle of the Marne begins, 1914 -Then and Now with Mildred Aldrich
• "Over There": World War I Veterans Sing Songs of the Great War, 67 Years Later
• Memories of the Lafayette Escadrille at the American Cathedral in Paris
• The Outbreak of the Great War, My Grandfather's Diary, and an Elephant Ride
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The Battle of the Marne Begins, 1914

9/5/2014

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Then and Now with Mildred Aldrich

Picture
"French Soldiers Waiting for Assault behind a Ditch"
Wikipedia, Public Domain, Original in Biblioththeque National de France 
(Make-shift  trenches served as protection during the opening days of the war; later the trenches were much deeper.)

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On Wednesday morning, September 5, 2014, I arrived in Paris after a long flight from Seattle. At Charles de Gaulle Airport I rented a car and drove towards Huiry, about 30 miles from Paris, for a rendezvous with Mildred Aldrich and the Battle of the Marne.

As I mentioned in a previous post (August 10, 2014) Aldrich was an American reporter, who had recently retired to the little village of Huiry, about 35 miles from Paris, after more than a decade as a journalist in the big city. She expected to find in her new home a “quiet retreat” for the final years of her life. Instead, at the beginning of September, 1914, she discovered herself on the edge of one of the great battles of World War I.

On August 17, 1914, she wrote “I have Belgium on my soul.” Germany had invaded neutral Belgium, disregarding treaties guaranteeing the integrity of the country’s boundaries. When Belgians resisted, Germany destroyed their fortifications with the most powerful cannons the world had ever seen. When citizens fired from buildings on invading troops, the Germans rounded up thousands of men, women, and children and killed them on the spot. Soon afterwards they entered France.

“All the time,” Aldrich wrote, “my heart is out there in the northeast. It is not my country, nor my war—yet I feel as if it were both.”

But the war for Mildred Aldrich was less the big stories in the news than the immediate events near her home in France. She reckoned that her friends in the United States knew more about the war than she did, due to censorship in France.

The Germans had swept through Belgium, that she knew, and they were marching into northern France, fighting a series of battles along the frontier. She had not yet heard the cannons roar, nor seen soldiers in her village, but other local events showed the impact of the impending war. Mobilization had taken the able-bodied men away from her village, and old men, women, and children were replacing the departed men in shops and fields. The bakers were gone, and so women were baking the bread: it was “not yet very good.”

Aldrich’s servant Amélie and her seventy-some year old husband went to work in the fields at three in morning.  The local blacksmith, “lame with rheumatism” limped up the hill to the fields with his “white-haired wife carrying the lunch basket.”

On August 24 Aldrich made a trip to Paris. Most seats on the trains were occupied by soldiers, but a few were available to civilians. On the short trip into the city she saw signs of war: wire “entanglements” protecting the “outer fortifications” of Paris, “miles and miles” of trains marked with the Red Cross, and lines of trucks pulling ammunition wagons and cannons.

“After all, I am only his wife. France is his mother.”

We were being constantly held up, Aldrich wrote, to let trainloads of soldiers and horses pass. In the station we saw a long train being made up of men going to some point on the line to join their regiments….They were in their working clothes, many of them almost in rags, each carrying in a bundle, or a twine bag, his few belongings, and some of them with a loaf of bread under the arm. It looked as little martial as possible but for the stern look in the eyes of even the commonest of them. I waited on the platform to see the train pull out. There was no one to see these men off…. I remembered the remark of the woman regarding her husband when she saw him go: "After all, I am only his wife. France is his mother.” 
Back at home in Huiry, Mildred Aldrich closer to the front. Amelie urged Aldrich to hide her valuables in one of the old tunnels that criss-crossed the hillside, including one under her own barn. Aldrich says nothing about the famous “Marne Taxis” hurrying past from Paris to the front, but she does describe other commandeered conveyances carrying troops from Paris:

Nothing going on here except the passing now and then of a long line of Paris street busses on the way to the front. They are all mobilized and going as heroically to the front as if they were human, and going to get smashed up just the same. It does give me a queer sensation to see them climbing this hill. The little Montmartre-Saint-Pierre bus, that climbs up the hill to the funicular in front of Sacre-Coeur, came up the hill bravely. It was built to climb a hill. But the Bastille-Madeleine and the Ternes-Fille de Calvaine, and Saint-Sulpice-Villette just groaned and panted and had to have their traction changed every few steps. I thought they would never get up, but they did.

Another day it was the automobile delivery wagons of the Louvre, the Bon Marche, the Printemps, Petit-Saint-Thomas, La Belle Jardiniere, Potin —all the automobiles with which you are so familiar in the streets of Paris. Of course those are much lighter, and came up bravely. As a rule they are all loaded. 
During the next few days nearby villages within a mile or so of her house were evacuated, and hundreds of British soldiers passed by her door. She befriended some of these, offering tea and cakes to the officers and buckets of water to the enlisted men. Her yard offered a useful vantage point for the soldiers looking over the Marne valley to the front.

Many of the visitors were impressed that an elderly American woman abided in her little house so close to the invaders. One confided to her that if the Germans came too close, they would have to fire over her house from higher ground. In that case, the Germans would fire back and likely destroy her home.

Then one day she heard a series of tremendous explosions and learned that the British were destroying the bridges across the nearby Marne River as they retreated.

Picture
Marne River near Huiry
Photo by Bill Youngs, 1987

I had been reading Mildred Aldrich’s account of these events a few days before arriving in France. My first destination was Marne valley near Aldrich’s house on the hilltop. Beside an avenue of trees near the town of Villeroy, I stopped the car and looked and looked at the trees and the fields.

Nothing concrete drew one back into history there. But the very silence of the fields and the wind in the trees evoked for me the mystery of time: here in this very region, exactly 100 years before, the air was filled with bullets and shells, and men were dying by the thousands; the Germans were pressing to reach Paris, and the French and British were trying desperately to deny them entry.

Here are those fields:

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Photo by Bill Youngs, 2014

And here is that row of trees:

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Photo by Bill Youngs, 2014

I am now in Amiens, visiting with Jean and Christiane Vimeux, the French grandparents of my Franco-American granddaughters, Margot and Charlotte. During the past few years Jean and I have made several trips to visit monuments and cemetaries of the great war. Yesterday, during this week in which France is remembering the 1914 Battle of the Marne, we visited several graveyards from the Great War. These memorials take us ahead in time to the 1920s when the world sought to heal the gruesome losses of the war by building some of the most beautiful grave sites in the world. Here is one, for example.

In this my French Grandfather-Counterpart, Jean Vimeux, is studying grave markers.

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Photo by Bill Youngs, 2014

Here is an example of the stone and flower arrangements that characterize many of the World War I battlefield graveyards in France.

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Scenes like this are so picturesque as to make one almost forget the incredible suffering that underlies all of the monuments. 

Two other artifacts of the past, on exhibit in Peronne, reminded us of the war itself.

This is one of the few surviving "Paris Taxis" of 1914 that rushed soldiers to the front during the Marne battle:

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And here was one of the ambulances that carried the broken bodies of the wounded back from the front:
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This Sunday, September 7, France will be remembering "Les  Taxis de la Marne" with a parade from Paris to Nanteuil-le-Hadouin of 100 taxis, 10 of which made the actual journey a century ago. I plan to be there.

Stay tuned.



Click here to view more entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)

If you enjoyed this article on World War I, you might also enjoy these entries: 
• August 10, 1914: "It is as if all France is holding it's breath...."
• "Over There": World War I Veterans Sing Songs of the Great War, 67 Years Later
• Memories of the Lafayette Escadrille at the American Cathedral in Paris
• The Outbreak of the Great War, My Grandfather's Diary, and an Elephant Ride
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In Praise of Clouds: America’s Unsung Beauty

8/28/2014

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Reflections from a Boat in the San Juan Islands, August 27, 2014

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            I was anchored last night off Orcas Island in the San Juans, when the sky put forth a cloud show to match the beauty of any mountain- or ocean-scape I have ever seen.

            The clouds materialized overhead in varieties of shape and color: as multi-faceted as the images in a kaleidoscope, but far more expansive; as startling as the explosions in a fireworks show, but far more long-lasting.

            I stood on the deck of my boat, looking one way and then another. This cloud pageant did not simply enhance the horizon beside the setting sun. It extended overhead and away to the opposite horizon. As I beheld this beauty, I thought of the songs and poems that celebrate so many features of America’s grandeur: mountains, forests, and rivers. But I could not think of one that celebrates our clouds.

            I thought of the men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition viewing another heavenly exposition. At Fort Mandan during the winter on 1804-05, when the temperatures fell to minus 50 degrees, they watched and discussed the Northern Lights. They were so enchanted that they thought they heard music with the lights.

            Last night I could almost hear music in the clouds. Eyes alone could not do justice to the spectacle. 

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            The view was worthy of a vacation destination. But where are the advertisements calling tourists to view cloud exhibitions?

            More so than a mountain or even the sea, clouds keep their own council. They do not linger. They form and dissipate and form again. They are not reliable, like Old Faithful. They come as a gift, not as a possession or a reliable tourist destination. They are evanescent.

            I think of Henry David Thoreau: “The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribably as the tints of morning or evening . It is a star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”

            The images that follow show the beauty of the Orcas Island cloud festival of August  27, 2014. But don’t rush to Orcas to see this very display. It was transitory as it was beautiful. I am sorry, but you missed this performance.

            If you are fortunate, however, and alert, you may well see a similar cloud festival in a sky-theater near you!

            Here is how those clouds looked yesterday evening over the land at Orcas Island:

And here is how they looked overhead:
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