Program Notes

When I committed to my first ever five-day backcountry hiking trip in wild Alaska, I had one focus in my mind—you will not die. Countless individuals go missing in national parks every year, and I made it my mission to not join that list. For seven months, I rigorously trained my body to prepare for this trip. I still almost died many times on the trip—but I never complained. Denali National Park is not my house. If I did die in the wilderness, that’s simply the laws of nature consuming me because I was foolish enough to think I could withstand them.

The rhetoric of “the Last Frontier” and ideals of the conservation movement are built on a crucial fallacy: that the American Wilderness is an untouched vastness of purity with which we were blessed, and it is our American duty to treasure and preserve it. Sure, Alaska is “the Last Frontier” in the eyes of American democracy and Manifest Destiny, but it is quite literally the contrary “First Frontier”. The first “Americans” crossed the Bering Land Bridge hundreds of thousands of years ago, far before European societies decimated their populations. Many national parks were technically empty when they gained their protection, and in many cases, this is because the people who lived there first had been forcibly moved, killed, or long extinct via Columbian disease.

I feel selfish and cruel when I walk into these now protected lands and their unawareness of anthropologic history. It’s a hard pill to swallow, especially since I find so much meaning in our national parks—they inspire me, they move me to tears, they make me feel more alive than any other force in this world. In addition to the sadness of human history in these parks, their literal riches are rapidly disappearing thanks to the carelessness of the capitalist humanity. Soon enough, many of these lands will be wasted, far out of reach of the native peoples who first appreciated them, and not even usable for the tourists and tycoons who bled it dry.

It would take a seismic shift in international regulations and the destruction of massive corporations to reverse or even slow the damage of climate change. We can dream about that.

There are many rules individuals must follow to help preserve what is left of these lands. While none of these individual actions will ever be able to fix what can only be accomplished at the global scale, it’s nice to know that we can try to not make it even worse. This sad truth calls to mind national campaigns for wilderness safety, especially the U.S. Forest Service’s Smokey Bear posters. The title of this piece is lifted from a 1949 Smokey poster that reads:

“ANOTHER 30 MILLION ACRES WILL BURN THIS YEAR—unless YOU are careful! Remember—Only you can PREVENT FOREST FIRES!”

The earth is on fire. I want to make the most of it before I get burnt. And maybe, our dream can come true. In the meantime, we can be kind, gentle, and careful.

During our last hike, we ate lunch on the side of Cathedral Mountain and watched Denali ghastly move in and out of the clouds. I thought about my life and everything that ever led me to that moment. I cried a bit. Two hours later, we saw a grizzly bear up high from the road and watched her roam through brush for a few minutes before she disappeared across a ridge. In both of those moments, I thought to myself, I am so glad I’m alive.