The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 1999
TOP "i Volume 9, Number 4 MUIR Fall 1999 VULUMJ, J, HUMbEK 1 i; TALL 1333 newsXhtter John Muir's Struggle in the North: Travels in Alaska and The Cruise of the Corwin by Hal Crimmel, Ph.D. raditionally, Muir's reputation has been that of America's foremost wilderness lover, sage,...
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| Summary: | TOP "i Volume 9, Number 4 MUIR Fall 1999 VULUMJ, J, HUMbEK 1 i; TALL 1333 newsXhtter John Muir's Struggle in the North: Travels in Alaska and The Cruise of the Corwin by Hal Crimmel, Ph.D. raditionally, Muir's reputation has been that of America's foremost wilderness lover, sage, and advocate, unrelenting in his quest for a pure wilderness experience. "For Muir, wilderness was not a confrontation," Harold Simonson tells us, "but a confirmation."1 This is the Muir that captured the public's imagination, j|e Muir who could write, "The whole wilderness seems to be alive and familiar, full of humanity. The very stones jtem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly."2 Perhaps with ||ese moments in mind, Edwin Way Teale wrote of Muir, (Always, in truth, he found more than he expected in Sjature. Never did he get enough of wildness."3 Clearly, the Muir we know best was the man who laid there was "perfect freedom and relaxation in the Hoods." The Muir we do not know is the man who sometimes could not stand being out in the wild, who did not feel his psychic seams bursting with joy, but who rather pit oppressed and irritated. Just like the rest of us, Muir, |pe sure-footed, tireless lover of wilderness, encountered wild places that threatened and disoriented him. On his ffiousand-mile walk, Muir felt apprehensive about venturing into the vast swamps and marshes of south Georgia Kid north Florida, with their mosquitoes and malaria. Even in the West, where he "believed rebirth possible,"4 ffluir did not always like what he saw. The "Arizona desert didn't please him"5 and Muir carefully masks his dislike of Yellowstone's roaring geysers, steaming paint pots, and hills of cinder and ashes in his Our National Parks. Muir's journals and letters on the region "articulate |js struggle with the park's uniqueness and his effort to |fnd a Yosemite-like order in the landscape."6 Particularly in Alaska, Muir struggled to recreate the feelings he had for the Sierra, but ultimately failed as he Ibcame overwhelmed by a wilderness unlike anything he jpd ever encountered. Though he repeatedly tries to frame his thoughts using the language and metaphors he had em ployed with such great success in his California writings, his transposition of them especially into the strange key of the Arctic met with little success. What accounts for this failure, resulting in his brooding, fragmented symphonies on ice and water? What significance do Muir's accounts hold for his reputation, and for the coherence of his wilderness philosophy? What do these accounts tell us about wilderness itself? John Muir traveled to Alaska a total of nine times during the years 1879, 1880, 1881, 1890, and 1899. Chronicling these trips were Travels in Alaska, based on his explorations of southeastern Alaska in 1879, 1880, and 1890, The Cruise of the Corwin, a collection of letters, journals, and newspaper articles detailing his trip to northern Alaska in 1881, Letters from Alaska, a collection of previously unpublished letters and dispatches from these trips, and John of the Mountains, a collection of Muir's unpublished journals. Together these writings reflect the limits of Muir's philosophy that "exalted wild nature over human culture and civilization and maintained that all life was sacred."7 Travels in Alaska and The Cruise of the Corwin "depict a more terrifying wildness in nature than described in his California writings," writes Harold Simonson8 and in this sense they do mark a significant divergence from the traditional Muir genre. In Alaska the weather, land, and natives test Muir's convictions about himself and his view of the wild. Early in the trip of 1879 it is evident that Alaska is not easily going to meet his expectations of an unspoiled Ur- California. For a man whose customary enthusiasm for wilderness permitted him to exult over "snow-flowers" and "blessed immortals of light"9 even as his body became "frozen" and "blistered" when a blizzard forced him to spend the night lying in the scalding mud of Mt. Shasta's fumaroles, Muir's descriptions of the Alaskan coast, with (continued on page 3) UNIVERSITY OR page 1 F» A C I R I C News & Notes Edinburgh John Muir Exhibition Just Concluded The City of Edinburgh sponsored an exhibit: "An Infinite Storm of Beauty: The Life and Achievements of John Muir" which ran from July 30 to October 2, 1999. The exhibit included important pieces of Muir memorabilia such as his field glasses, herbarium and plant specimens, his suitcase, commemorative stamps and medallions, family photographs, and portraits. In addition, some major paintings by William Keith from the Hearst Art Gallery in Moraga, California, were included in this exhibit, as well as almost a dozen photographs of the High Sierra by Galen Rowell. At the opening ceremonies on July 30, participants included the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, the American Consul who represented President Clinton, the Minister for the Scottish Environment, Elizabeth Hanna, a great-great granddaughter of John Muir, Harold Wood, representing the Sierra Club, Phyllis Shaw and David Blackburn from the John Muir Historical Site at Martinez, California, and Nigel Hawkins, Director of the John Muir Trust. . . . In the meantime, as further evidence of John Muir's historical importance, his likeness is increasingly being borrowed by the media and imitators, and perhaps to his dismay, were he alive, by advertisers. Next year, for example, there is to be a musical based on Muir's life at the Concord Pavilion near the John Muir National Historical Site. This past September, a weekend fund raiser was held in Martinez, and Russ Hanna, Muir's grandson, was featured with his jazz band. . . Further to the north, remote Rocky Point in southern Oregon, where Muir summered in 1907, is the site of a fierce battle between environmentalists and developers. Ninety-two years ago, Muir stayed at the Upper Klamath Lake lodge owned by E. H. Harriman, and he wrote the following lyrical description of the area: "The shining lake enlivened with leaping trout and flocks of waterfowl; the stream from the great springs like a river with broad brown and yellow meadows on either hand; and the dark, forested mountains, changing to blue in the background, rising higher and higher." A tiny recreational area now of 300 residents, it faces the prospect of the development of a major ski resort on an 8,000 foot volcano north of the town of Klamath Falls in the Winema National Forest where large areas are old- growth reserves for northern spotted owls. Surely, Muir would interest himself in this issue. . . . Winnipeg Conference Coming Up Washington State University and the University of Winnipeg have announced a conference to be held in Vancouver, Washington, May 24-28, 2000. It will focus on the area of Hudson's Bay and surrounding territory, and will feature sessions on the fur trade, Native history and culture and on the Pacific Northwest. For information, contact Theresa Schenck (e-mail: tschenck@wsu. edu), Department of Comparative American Cultures, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164. Announcements The fourth installment of "Reconstructing John Muir's First Public Lecture," by Steve Pauly will appear in a later issue. The John Muir Center announces with great pleasure the publication of its newest book on Muir: John Muir in Historical Perspective, edited by Sally M. Miller. It will be available in time for Christmas gift-giving. It features 13 essays on Muir that were first presented to the California History Institute in 1996. The book is beautifully illustrated and is priced at $29.95. Any lover of John Muir and what he represented will want to own this book. Please contact Pearl Piper of the John Muir Center to arrange to purchase a copy. W NEWSLETTER Volume 9, Number 4 Fall 1999 Published quarterly by The John Muir Center for Regional Studies University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 o Staff o Editor Sally M. Miller Production Assistants . . . Marilyn Norton, Pearl Piper All photographic reproductions are courtesy of the John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Libraries. Copyright 1984 Muir-Harma Trust. This Newsletter is printed on recycled paper. page 2 John Muir's Struggle In The North, by Hal Crimmel (continued.) its "dismal blurring rain," and the "shelterless and inhospitable" region around Wrangell, "where something like a forest loomed dimly through the draggled clouds"10 are downright listless. The subdued tone evident here is a regular feature of Muir's Alaskan writings. Disoriented by weather in an enigmatic land easy neither to appreciate tip: understand, Muir's writing suggests restraint rather I it.m passion. Conditions in the Arctic were not much better. There Muir would say that he had never seen weather so "strong !; bewildering and depressing."" As Herbert F. Smith has •i .ed, "Muir's status as a lover of storms is forced to bow fttthe greater power of the climate of the North Polar Regions."12 The unmatched seventy of the storms in the in ,n region threatened his pride and called into question I'd;: identity as a man who loved storms. In the past, Muir i. • satirized tourists who came to Yosemite seeking mod- He conditions, and the "tender, pulpy people"13 whose Ire for comfort brought railroads into wilderness. He night himself superior to the average tenderfoot who sought affirmation in the gentler side of nature. Yet alter a long months in the Arctic, the inclement weather he H oiimei'cd forced him to reevaluate his identity as a lover - i torms for there he could only endure thorn rather than enjoy them. The electrical storms in which he customarily .need were altogether different there. Between the try- M/ conditions of daily life in the Arctic, and the bruising II i er of the wind and tides, Muir never managed to celebrate storms there as he did in the Sierra. Confronted with the conditions in Alaska, Muir was I Bed to admit that he shared the limitations of the urban iitosses he scorned. Accordingly, Muir's claim, "Just bread water and delightful toil is all I need, not unreasonable < ti ;h, yet one ought to be trained and tempered to enjoy life in these brave wilds in full independence of any par - iN-nlar kind of spiritual nourishment,"14 arising as it did out • 111 n i ner experiences in the Sierra, began to look paro- il.tl. Applied to the Arctic, Muir's declaration looked like ii > sentimental fumbling of an urban romantic, accustom- ;; o a tender diet of succulent weekend trips in carefully ,' uiaged national parks. The weather conditions made -•'• ii to him that he could not, in fact, live anywhere with • i y n ci nsi. of bread tied to his belt. As well, the land's unfamiliar scale frequently spoke toltim in an unintelligible dialect that tested his powers of mprehension. In one instance, as Muir and his party it iitoached the shoreline and glaciers on the rain-soaked inlets near the Baird Glacier, their destinations seemed to fi t "fie before their very eyes, causing them to doubt •v:i -ther they could ever land. Once they arrived, the very jnouiid itself repulsed their exploratory probes. On what magines to be familiar terrain, a glacial moraine, Muir *. .it* his party step ashore, but find themselves wallowing .' "gray, mineral mud, a paste made from fine mountain ■ Id, [which] kept unstable by the tides, at once took us in, swallowing our feet foremost with becoming glacial deliberation."15 The party hastily retreats to their canoe. Humbled by weather in the Arctic and in Southeastern ' t ska, and repulsed by the land itself, Muir also learned that closeness with nature required unusual commitment and sacrifice in the North. In Unalaska the foul smell of Aleutian huts added a new dimension to the idea of being close to nature. The raw spectacle of hunting in the Arctic brought the specter of death too prominently into the wilderness equation for him to pretend it did not exist. These and other encounters with the natives brought challenging experiences and threatening confrontations. Hostile Indians frightened him. He was shocked by birth defects, mental illness, and widespread starvation and disease. In particular, his reactions to the piles of corpses and skeletons in the chapter "The Villages of the Dead" in The Cruise of the Corwin have significant implications for his conception of wilderness. The ramifications of his discoveries and his reactions to them show that Muir was not as accepting of "wilderness" as we might otherwise think. It also shows that the union with nature he so eagerly sought and celebrated in his California writings could be unpleasant, even disastrous. Nowhere was this driven home more dramatically than in "The Villages of the Dead," settlements on St. Lawrence Island where starvation, and possibly disease, had killed two-thirds of the population during the winter of 1878- 1879. In one village, Muir and the party "found twelve desolate huts close to the beach with about two hundred skeletons in them or strewn about on the rocks and rubbish heaps within a few yards of the doors. The scene was indescribably ghastly and desolate."16 Muir describes "shrunken bodies, with rotting furs on them" and "white, bleaching skeletons, picked bare by the crows. . .lying mixed with kitchen-midden rubbish where they had been cast out by surviving relatives while they yet had strength to carry them."17 Even for Muir, this was disturbing scenery indeed. These "still and desolate" villages were indeed "full of humanity" though not of the sort Muir hoped to find and they shook his faith in the "talkative, sympathetic, brotherly" aspect of wilderness he was so enthusiastic about in My First Summer in the Sierra. Muir and the members of the expedition were astonished by the nonplused reactions of the natives. Asking one villager the whereabouts of the others elicits "a happy, heedless smile" from him and a reply in an "almost a merry tone of voice, 'Dead, yes, all dead, all mucky, all gone!'"18 suggesting that the natives accept starvation and death as "part and parcel" of life there. The natives have not temporarily surrendered themselves to the rhythms of the wild, as Muir was wont to do; they are committed to it in a way Muir never had been. For them, there can be no quick escape from hunger or scarcity, or severe weather, no "surrender" that could be terminated should conditions prove too unfavorable. Muir, however, with his California- grown expectations of wilderness, cannot accept this. It shakes him to think that surrendering oneself to nature means just that - not a temporary submission that can be conveniently rescinded. Dismayed and disoriented at having this element of his expectations of wilderness dashed, he blamed civilization for the piles of skeletons on St. Lawrence Island, and called for government assistance. Oddly, Muir did not realize that in a subsistence way page 3 John Muir's Struggle In The North, by Hal Crimmel (continued.) of life, starvation and death are part of the "wilderness experience." Wanting to have his cake and eat it too, Muir could not accept a complete surrender to the rhythms of the wilderness. He hoped to find a wilderness inhabited by happy, healthy natives, who would meet his expectations of primitive peoples. In Alaska, Muir was forced to take a closer look at his vision of the potential for humans and nature to live in harmony, and it behooves us to take note of Muir's reformulation. Endnotes 1. Harold P. Simonson, Beyond the Frontier: Writers, Western Regionalism and a Sense of Place. Fort Worth, Texas: Texas Christian University Press, 1989, p. 32. 2. John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911, p. 319. 3. Edwin Way Teale, The Wilderness World of John Muir. Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin, 1954, p. xi. 4. Simonson, p. 45. 5. Edward Hoagland, Steep Trails. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1994, p. vii. 6. Bruce A. Richardson, '"Fear Nothing': An Interpretation of John Muir's Writings on Yellowstone." in Sally M. Miller, ed., John Muir: Life and Work. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993, pp. 267-285. 7. Thurman Wilkins, John Muir: Apostle of Nature. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995, p. 265. 8. Simonson, p. 37. 9. John Muir, Steep Trails. Ed. William Frederic Bade. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1994 (1918), pp. 53-54. 10. John Muir, Travels in Alaska (introduction by Richard Nelson). New York: Penguin, 1993. p. 15. 11. John Muir, The Cruise of the Corwin: Journal of the Arctic Expedition of 1881 in Search ofDe Long and the Jeannette. Ed. William Frederic Bade. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1917, p. 79. 12. Herbert F. Smith, John Muir. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1965, p. 102. 13. Muir, Steep Trails, p. 248. 14. Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra, p. 103. 15. John Muir, Letters From Alaska. Eds. Robert Engberg and Bruce Merrell. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993, p. 31. 16. Muir, The Cruise of the Corwin, p. 108. 17. Ibid., p 108. 18. Ibid., p. 111. On John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra By Stan Hutchinson In a letter to Henry Fairfield Osborn penned from the Los Angeles home of friend J. D. Hooker June 1, 1910, John Muir wrote that he had "been hidden down here. working hard on books." In mid-May, he had sent his publisher "the manuscript for a small book. .entitled 'My First Summer in the Sierra,' written from notes made forty- one years ago." The title for this book was taken from a sentence in Muir's Our National Parks, 1901, when he described a young shepherd met north of Kings River who "was fresh from the East, and. . .this was his first summer in the Sierra. . ." Biographers of John Muir have had varying opinions on the degree of consistency between Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra (hereafter "MFS"), published in 1911, and his journal chronicling that event. While some differences are to be expected between journal and finished book, their actual extent is difficult to establish. Over the course of several decades Muir reworked his original 1869 Sierra journal out of existence, saving only the drawings. The earliest surviving version of the journal may be found in three worn and heavily marked-up volumes dated from ca. 1887. A further-revised draft of ca. 1910 is also extant. In her biography of Muir, Linnie Marsh Wolfe flatly stated that while preparing his 1869 journal for publication Muir "[wjisely. .made few changes, allowing his text to retain all the fresh spontaneity of his early impressions." Michael P. Cohen and Frederick Turner in their respective biographies of Muir utilized the ca. 1887 and 1910 journal drafts to compare with MFS as published. Cohen stated that Muir reworked earlier journal material with later knowledge into "an honest and truthful book. . .narrated with all the skill that a novelist might muster." Turner felt that, despite some inconsistencies with the ca. 1887 draft, "Muir made few substantive changes," and MFS was "for the most part. . .a faithful depiction of his experiences." Both of the surviving drafts differ with each other and MFS, and We cannot help but wonder how the book compares with the 1869 journal itself. Fortunately something of an end run can be made around that missing manuscript. Two letters written by Muir shortly after his return from that significant first Sierra summer provide tantalizing glimpses of the 1869 journal in its original form. According to Muir himself, and we take him at his word, passages in these letters were quoted directly from his journal and as such are among the few available for comparison with their counterparts in MFS. The first of these letters was penned to his younger brother Daniel, then a medical student in Michigan, and is dated September 22, [1869], the day after his return from the Sierra to the foothill ranch of his employer, Patrick Delaney. To "Dear Doctor Dan" Muir wrote that once while in the mountains he and the shepherd Billy had "got out of flour" and had nothing to eat but "mutton and molasses candy." Then, wanting to be more specific to "a medical man," Muir wrote that he would "quote direct from my diary." His entry for July 2nd begins, "Tea and mutton!. ourstaff of life." He also related that their strong tea made them "dizzy like whiskey" and, reacting violently with the mutton, caused "a series of loud premonitory rumblings like those that preceded the great earthquake last year in San Francisco." In contrast, the longer July 2nd entry in MFS merely notes, "We have been out of bread a few days. ." while "dizzy like whiskey" and earthquake "rumblings" of the journal become, under July 7th in MFS, "Drank tea until half intoxicated. . ." and "digestive distress amid rumbling, grumbling sounds. . .might well pass for'baas'." The journal's July 5th entry begins, "Tea and mutton becoming more and more combative" and so they change their diet to "Mutton and molasses candy. . ." In marked contrast the July 5th entry in MFS is thoroughly optimistic: "Here every day is a holiday." and "Everything rejoicing." The "tea and mutton combativeness" of the journal's page 4 On John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra (continued.) 5th, in quite different content and length, moves to July 6th in MFS; the failed molasses experiment, also of the 5th, moves to the 7th where the sugar-cooking process and its several ramifications are explained with subtle humor. Muir quotes only the opening of the journal's July 6th entry: "Feel weak, sickish, and sour. ." In MFS the July I entry begins, "Rather weak and sickish this morn- lo,"., . .," continues with a 7 72 page discourse on food, and - lcludes shortly after supplies arrived. Muir has un- §| btedly been selective in his journal quotations for Dan, narrowly limiting them to rather humorous comments on their stomachs' reaction to the sheepcamp diet. The most . .ervable differences between the journal and MFS are in language and the dating of entries. ■: Earlier in the year, Muir's Wisconsin friends, Dr. and S Ezra S. Carr had moved to California. In his October : ;thtjj 1869, letter to Jeanne Carr, also written from the llllfaney ranch, Muir quotes an entire journal entry permit- I § a more critical comparison with MFS. After briefly relating several of the summer's events Muir did not try to '■'■ Mrs. Carr all that had transpired, "but," he wrote, "I "ill copy you the notes of one day from my journal." His 320-word entry for September 2nd described I >uds, summits, and his climb of Cathedral Peak as "a i ightful walk upon the north wall" after an ascent ough "a deep narrow passage cut in the granite." The final entry concludes with an experience of little apparent import but which will become one of the most i ring events of MFS: "Had looked long and well for issiope, but in all my long excursions failed to find its 'elling-places and began to fear that we would never • et, but had presentiment of finding it today, and as I {Kissed a rock-shelf after reaching the great gathered heaps •everlasting snow, something seemed to whisper 'Caste, Cassiope. .' and looking around, beholdf,] the long- :ed-for mountain child." Comparison of this entry with September 2nd in MFS reveals that most of Muir's thoughts are more fully developed, his "Castle Peak and its companion to the south" in journal ("Castle Peak and Mount Dennis" in his letter • , Jan) are now identified as Mts. Dana and Gibbs, and ! !te Sierra Cathedral. . .was overshadowed like Sinai" is repeated. But here all similarity ends; in MFS Muir spends st of September 2nd "high up on the north rim of the ■ ey" and remarks that since coming to the Sierra he has - 'ched for Cassiope, "said to be the most beautiful and Ik • ( loved of the heathworts, but, strange to say, I have not foimd it yet. On my high mountain walks I keep muttering, ■siope, Cassiope." :: There is no entry in MFS for September 3rd. The short in y of the 4th notes the approach of autumn, and on the I Muir sketched "the North Tuolumne Church." The entry I he 6th concludes with the baking of bread "for at least one more good wild excursion among the high peaks. . ." The events so briefly and casually described in the una] for September 2nd do not occur until the 7th in i-'S where they assume special significance in an entry . .landed to some 1,150 words: "Left camp at daybreak and made direct for Cathedral Peak." After reaching the summit by noon, having been detained by almost everything he saw, he described near and far views and the Cathedral itself as "a temple displaying Nature's best masonry and sermons in stone." Professing his long admiration of the peak from afar he declares this to be "the first time I have been at church in California, led here at last." As related in MFS, the culmination of Muir's first Sierra summer literally, figuratively, and spiritually seemingly occurs on this 10,940 foot peak: "In our best times everything turns into religion, all the world seems a church. .and lo, here at last in front of the Cathedral is blessed Cassiope, ringing her thousands of sweet-toned bells, the sweetest church music I ever enjoyed. Listening, admiring, until late in the afternoon I compelled myself to hasten away eastward." Years later Muir declared in MFS that he would never forget "this big divine day." There seems to be little evidence to suggest Muir's original journal of 1869 was much more than a short, rough diary of his daily activities sprinkled with profound and sometimes poetic observations obviously written without thought of publication. Much of the material on Sierra geology, flora and fauna, many of the oft-quoted passages from MFS, and the phrase "Range of Light" from the concluding sentence of MFS would probably not have been found among its pages. But decades later the journal would serve as the slight framework around which Muir's successive drafts finally evolved into an American mountaineering classic, still in print after nearly a century, always readable, always uplifting. Maymie Kimes and her late husband, Bill Kimes, in their John Muir: A Reading Bibliography, wrote that Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra "reaps the competence of age while capturing the essence of youth, and becomes, we think, his finest book." Many Muir enthusiasts will wholeheartedly agree with this succinct evaluation. References Bade, William Frederick. 1924. The Life and Letters of John Muir. Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company. The Riverside Press Cambridge. Volume II, pp. 361-362. Cohen, Michael P. 1984. The Pathless Way: John Muir and American Wilderness. The University of Wisconsin Press, p. 351. Dixon, Elizabeth I., Editor, 1964.SomeNewJohnMuir Letters. Southern California Quarterly. Vol. XLVI, No. 3, September, pp. 247-48 (Muir's letter Daniel, written from "Tuolumne River two miles below La Grange, Sep. 22th [sic]," has been incorrectly dated 1870; it is definitely 1869). Kimes, William F. and Maymie B. 1977. John Muir: A Reading Bibliography. William P. Wreden, Palo Alto, California, p. 118. Limbaugh, Ronald H. and Kirsten E. Lewis, Editors, 1986. The Guide and Index to the Microfilm Edition of the John Muir Papers: 1858-1957. Published by Chadwick-Healey Inc., pp. 39, 50. Muir.John, 1901. Our National Parks.BoslonandNev/ York, Houghton Mifflin Company. The Riverside Press Cambridge, p. 293. Muir, John, 1911. My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company. The Riverside Press Cambridge, pp. 98-113 and 324-339. Muir, John, 1915. Letters to a Friend: Written to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, 1866-1879. Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company. The Riverside Press Cambridge, pp. 66-69. Turner, Frederick, 1985. Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and Ours. Viking, p. 377. Wolfe, Linnie Marsh, 1945. Son of the Wilderness: the Life of John Muir. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, p. 328. page 5 Book Reviews Fiber By Rick Bass University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, $15.95 Reviewed by Terry Gifford, Bretton Hall, University of Leeds (Reprinted by permission of the journal Resurgence) It's a rare and exciting moment when you know that you are in the presence of a masterpiece. This gradually became clear to me as I listened to Rick Bass read a story called 'Fiber' at the second conference of ASLE (the Association for Studies in Literature and Environment) in 1997. We were in Missoula, Montana, at a bow in the big river where the plains meet the Bitterroot Mountains. Rick Bass is a well-known nature writer who lives in the Yaak Valley up in the Rocky Mountains of Northwestern Montana. His last book was simply called The Year of The Yaak, a celebration of the valley's cycle of very distinct seasons. Many American members of ASLE at that conference were wondering where their nature writing tradition could go next. From Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Mary Austin, and Aldo Leopold to latter-day nature writers like Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard and Terry Tempest Williams, the first-person anecdotal narrative about epiphanies of connection to landscapes seemed to have become repetitious and unoriginal. . . As I heard it unfold, I realized that Fiber is an answer to the problem in the state of this distinctly American art-form. In a series of surprising twists Rick Bass himself expresses the frustration of an artist whose form has become too cosy to change anything, whilst the clear-cutting of old growth forest encroaches upon the valley he has been celebrating in his last book. The narrator explains that he is in the fourth phase of his life which has moved from the 'taking' of the geologist, to the creativity of the story writer, to the activist on the run from the law, to the 'giving' of his present phase as 'the log fairy.' He cuts fallen timber for the saw mills, but his best logs he places at night individually in the trucks of sleeping loggers or at the gates of the mill. The mystified locals call the unknown person who is doing this 'the log fairy.' Just as the narrator admits that the boundaries between fiction and reality are blurred, he also points out that the function of story-teller and activist can be blurred. This is an early hint that this is to be no ordinary narrative. I'd better point out that this is a narrative of only fifty small pages in a book that is beautifully designed and made by the University of Georgia Press. What Bass manages to achieve within the modest scope of four tightly written parts is miraculous. At first, the runaway of the opening sentence is assumed to be a romantic who wants to be shaped by this landscape, who knows and respects the trees he is working with and who is working towards an environmentally attuned future with his wife and children away from 'the omnipresent hypercapitalism here at post-consumer century's end.' After learning from the mountain forest each day, 'back home, in your cabin, your dreams swirl, as if you are still traveling, still walking, across this blessed landscape, with all its incredible diversity, and the strength that brings.' This beautifully orches trated voice then jumps to admitting, in the same rhythmic phrasing, that back in the first phase of his adult life he took, not just oil as a geologist, but jewellery which he hung on trees, boats which he burned, and cars which he sank. T would look at my two hands and think, What are these for, if not to take?' There is, he tells us, a warrant out for his arrest. Rick Bass teases his audience with the difficulty of interpreting this voice. As I listened to his reading, at one moment I was listening to a lyrical, learning naturalist who had turned his earlier playful capitalist self into a playful, gestural 'log fairy.' At the next moment I was listening to a slightly mad environmental activist who was starving his family in the backwoods of Montana whilst he played out a fantasy of his own: Whenever a new car or truck enters the valley, I run and hide. I scramble to the top of a hill and watch through the trees as it passes. They can never get me. They would have to get the land itself It was from a cabin in backwoods Montana that the Unabomber cycled to post the bombs that, during a seventeen year campaign in the 1970s and 80s, killed three people and maimed twenty in an attempt to 'stop technology.' This narrator is not a Unabomber. He merely hauls logs. "My moderation seems obscene in the face of what is going on on [sic] this landscape, and in this country the things, the misery, for which this country is so much the source, rather than a source of healing or compassion." The third section of this narrative ends with a statement of the ineffectiven https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1058/thumbnail.jpg |
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