Diary: Sean Hill, (2) This Land Is My Land

Helena National Forest from the east side of MacDonald Pass, Montana. Photograph by the author

Read Part One of this post here

There’s a current and now-shifting understanding of nature and wilderness that views nature as something at a remove from the man-made—it’s primitive, remote, pristine land; untouched land that those with the financial wherewithal, time, and “desire” can access. Going camping. Backpacking. Disappearing into the woods for days on end. I want to posit that I grew up with nature and the idea that the human imposition on the landscape, our built environment, our habitation, is just that: an idea, a perspective, as witnessed by the growth of “weeds,” vegetation that needs to be controlled or cultivated. I think about tall grasses trampled down for bedding or a termite mound or anthill eruption or the way a beaver dam interrupts the flow of a stream, about all the various excavations by animals endeavoring to make a place for themselves, and I wonder if they think of themselves as outside of nature.