Karen Viola is a visual artist and graduate student at SUNY Empire State University, currently pursuing her Masters of Liberal Studies. Both her art practice and academic studies are grounded in a love for the land, the value of ecological literacy, and interdisciplinarity. Her professional background as a book designer, illustrator, writer, and paper engineer informs her dedication to the art of the book and its potential to nurture critical thinking and inspire change. She has hiked more than 900 miles of the Appalachian Trail, one small section at a time, and still counting.
HUMAN VALUES—INSIGHTS, IMPLICATIONS, APPLICATIONS
Not a Walk in the Park: Reflecting on the Inconvenient Truths of Outdoor Recreation
Karen Viola, SUNY Empire State University
“The land knows you, even when you are lost.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass[1]
Exposure to hiking and camping came to me as an adult, and I have embraced both with childlike abandon with a particular fondness for backpacking after discovering the practice of section-hiking the storied Appalachian Trail. Time spent with trees, rocks, and flowing waters fills my well as it does for many others. It has also been as plain as the A.T. white blazes that those “others” are still predominantly White men. The same can be said of other outdoor recreational pursuits, particularly those which facilitate immersive experiences in the natural world such as rock climbing, kayaking, and canoeing. Amidst the 2020 pandemic and in the wake of the broadly shared footage of George Floyd’s murder, Sandra Marra, the president and CEO of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, published a wise and heartfelt “commitment to justice” letter which pointed to the significant amount of anti-racist work to be done, admitting: “The A.T. is not racially or ethnically diverse. It is not accessible to people from low-income communities. It is not always a safe place for women. And, it is not relevant to many people we consider to be part of the next generation.”[2] The backlash to this letter by constituents (White men?) who didn’t want to hear this admission made her point devastatingly clear.[3]
Our land, waterways, and the air we breathe knows no borders. We share one planet with one biosphere. The climate crisis, being anthropogenic, is also a social justice crisis. The industrialized, wealthier Global North has caused the most damage to the biosphere by far, and it is, by far, the Global South who suffers the most. Disadvantaged communities and individuals all over the globe are disproportionately more vulnerable to the devastation of toxic pollution, pandemics, catastrophic heatwaves, wildfires, and floods.[4] The crisis is rooted in colonialism and has festered alongside the “progress” of modern civilization in a globalized economic system hell-bent on benefiting the short-term needs of a White supremacist patriarchy. But in a self-correcting twist of technological fate, our innovations have allowed the world to see itself—in high definition. Eco-social injustices are harder to hide, and a growing number of individuals and groups are not only paying attention but are devoting significant amounts of time and resources to addressing and redressing their complicity. Beyond whatever acronym is used—DEI, DEIJ, JEDI, DEIA, etc.— what matters the most are the structural changes organizations, institutions, and companies enact to become more just, diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible in measurable ways. In this essay I invite readers to meet me at the trailhead of this important cultural shift to survey a small selection of such changes with respect to outdoor recreation and conservation, to stand with me and my hiker’s lens in front of a proverbial “you are here” kiosk to see where it leads. Those who uphold outdoor recreation as a deeply valuable practice have an important opportunity and responsibility to join and amplify the trailblazing movements of underrepresented groups on the journey to the reconciliation, repair, and resilience our shared future requires.
White hikers may be well aware of the lack of diversity on the trail and quick to assume reasons such as inability to afford the time away or gear. But there is a heavier load to unpack. In a 2021 article for the A.T. Journeys magazine, public historian Mills Kelly explains:
Most White hikers also do not understand or even think about the fact that their relationships to the forests can be very different from those of Black hikers, whose ancestors were chased through those same woods by lynch mobs. Krystal Williams, a Black attorney who thru-hiked in 2011, told me, “When I hiked north out of Damascus, I was reminded that I’m walking for pleasure where my ancestors’ blood was spilled. I had a very visceral reaction at that moment. This reality is not understood or appreciated by many White hikers.”[5]
Much the same can be said about White climbers, White paddlers, and White walkers in any forest or park. It’s not a walk in the park. Moreover, as was stated in the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s blog post reiterating their commitment to justice in 2021, “knowing how we got to this place requires us to engage in an understanding of our entire history, including the history that preceded the A.T. We must understand that public lands are stolen lands—lands acquired by the forced removal or genocide of the land’s indigenous communities.”[6] It seems the Conservancy has been both talking and walking the walk. They have established a Next Generation Advisory Council of diverse leaders to guide best JEDI practices and build inclusive partnerships with local communities; organized place-based and virtual education summits using the Wilderness Society’s new Public Lands Curriculum; initiated a supportive affinity group for women and another for Latinx trail volunteers[7]; and created a Native Lands map of the trail identifying, the 22 traditional territories through which the trail runs.[8] The work continues.
Want to decolonize your outdoor adventures? There’s an app for that. Native Land Digital is an indigenous-led, Canadian not-for-profit organization which offers an interactive global map of indigenous lands, providing “a platform where Indigenous communities can represent themselves and their histories on their own terms.”[9] Given the fact that drawn boundaries are a colonial construct and that some native tribes led a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle, this is a complicated task that the creators fully recognize and admit leads to imperfect results. But their work is an invaluable resource for non-indigenous people and has been widely used and praised by educators. The Native Land Digital website also offers guidance regarding land acknowledgements, a performative practice which in Canada began after their Truth and Reconciliation Commission, completed in 2015, revealed the horrific extent of the first nations residential boarding school system of cultural genocide.[10] Land acknowledgments on websites and at cultural events are becoming prevalent in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, but also growing is the importance of ensuring that these acknowledgements aren’t just “rote, sanitized, perfunctory statements that can lead to tokenizing the Indigenous peoples they are meant to show respect to.”[11] Cherokee Native and scholar Trey Adcock further asserts:
Central to a land acknowledgment statement must be a commitment to develop a deeper relationship with the various people and land the institution is attempting to recognize. Land acknowledgment truly becomes meaningful when coupled with authentic relationships and informed action. Statements should be considered living documents that evolve as relationships between communities, and also evolve with the land itself.[12]
As best I can tell from the map, I have walked with the trees, rocks, and waters of the S’atsoyaha, Cherokee, Piscataway, Susquehannock, Munsee Lenape, Mohican, Abenaki, and Wabanaki territories on the A.T. thus far, and counting. My most recent A.T. trek was in what is now called Pennsylvania, or Rocksylvania to backpackers. I drove four hours in driving rain to meet a trusted stranger who would shuttle me 30 miles north from my parked car so that I could hike back to it while ‘seeking fellowship in the wilderness’ in the decidedly un-wild Cumberland Valley. In the rain. For apparently all three days. My driver, however, exclaimed how much he envied me: “It’s the best weather for hiking,” he said, adding that his two young children agreed with him. I was impressed. Last year the three of them decided to hike the A.T. the entire length of the state as a way of working through their grief at the loss of his partner, their mother. Nothing else was working. They found healing and more through their experience. “Rain makes you feel your vulnerability,” he told me. I thanked him for the ride, and for the gift of his words.
So, for three days I embraced the rain, communing with muddy creeks, corn and clover fields, hedge rows, goldenrod thickets, and a 19th-century farmstead and burial plot, letting my mind wander in and out of personal spaces to the rhythmic, squishy tune of sodden boots. This land has a history as rich as its world-class agricultural limestone soil, a foil to the heavily strip- mined hills and boot-killing rocks for which much of the state is infamous. The valley crossing is 16 miles long, the longest on the A.T., meandering right through the storybook village of Boiling Springs, named after its bubbly artesian wells. The village is included in the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom listing because of its involvement with the Underground Railroad.[13] Sheltered by a gazebo and surrounded by a gaggle of expectant geese, I changed my socks and carried on. The rest of the trail was a rolling romp through a young woods of oak and ash with the odd outcrop of rocks and their many shades of green lichens and moss. Slippery when wet.
I took haven in the trail’s three-sided shelters for both nights instead of my tent, which usually means the company of a few other hikers, one of which is bound to snore. But for the time sleep eluded me I was able to read up on some of what lies rooted deep beneath the semi-pastoral veneer of this valley, back in time to the decline of the once large and powerful tribal society who called themselves Conestoga, which means “people of the upright ridge pole” in honor of their palisade construction methods, but were known to others as Susquehannock. They lived and farmed by the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, two of which I had encountered on this trek. When the Europeans came in the 17th century, the Conestoga peoples were subjected to a particularly epic whittling down by disease and the ongoing trading and raiding of colonial encroachment which fueled tribal conflicts, war, and massacres—to the verge of their extinction. All but two of their people survived, but others carrying the bloodline were absorbed into other tribes. They are no longer here in this valley, displaced from their homeland like so many other native diasporas, and they battle every day to be recognized. But the Conestoga-Susquehannock are not a vanquished tribe.[14]
Just a few miles off this section of trail is the town of Carlisle, home of the first off-reservation boarding school for indigenous children, known as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. It was a model for many others of its kind across the country. Children were rounded up by the thousands by physical force and taken away from their families to live in these sites of cultural genocide and egregious abuse.
It was very cold that day when we were loaded into the wagons. None of us wanted to go and our parents didn’t want to let us go. Oh, we cried for this was the first time we were to be separated from our parents. I remember looking back at Na-tah-ki and she was crying too…. Once there our belongings were taken from us, even the little medicine bags our mothers had given us to protect us from harm. Everything was placed in a heap and set afire. Next was the long hair, the pride of all the Indians. The boys, one by one, would break down and cry when they saw their braids thrown on the floor. All of the buckskin clothes had to go and we had to put on the clothes of the White Man. If we thought that the days were bad, the nights were much worse. This was the time when real loneliness set in, for it was then that we were all alone. Many boys ran away from the school because the treatment was so bad but most of them were caught and brought back by the police. We were told never to talk Indian and if we were caught, we got a strapping with a leather belt. (Lone Wolf [Blackfeet], 8 years old, 1890)[15]
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) was founded in 2011 under the Navajo Nation laws at the same time the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was underway. It advocates for all indigenous peoples impacted by U.S. Indian boarding school policies.[16] In June 2023, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act (S. 1723) was passed unanimously out of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The bill still needs to wind its way through the countless committee and legislative hoops in the Senate and House for a full vote. Like many other truths with which the United States needs to reckon, this is long overdue.
Nestled in my sleeping bag, I peered at the spindly trees shivering in the darkness through the curtain of my dripping wet clothing. Surrounded by the sounds of settled sprawl. Hissing highways. The snores of a fellow traveler I will never see again. A barely-audible hoot of an owl. I thought about my shuttle driver and his children, healing their pain together on the trail. The inconceivable trauma of families torn apart. No parent can bear to lose a child. No child should suffer the trauma of separation from all they know that is safe. Nobody wants to be overlooked, erased. No living being should be forcibly uprooted from the soil of their homeland. Will people ever cease to overlook, erase, uproot, and separate each other?
Unspeakable truths must be spoken. But in the divisive, fractured tension of these present days, how do we walk the walk of any aspect of social and environmental justice if we don’t even know how to talk with each other? More recent history on the Cumberland Valley A.T. trail itself offers a clue. In 1968, the A.T. became part of the National Park Service in the passing of the National Trails Act. Ten years later, an amendment provided significant funding for the necessary acquisition and protection of the trail’s corridor, including the Cumberland Valley which at the time was a road walk. Reacting to the perfunctory tone of the initial notification letter sent by a volunteer coordinator on behalf of the Park Service, farmers became furious and afraid they’d lose their farms. The local media exacerbated the tension. Community members resisted and resented the top-down tone which privileged public land conservation and aesthetic ideals over community needs with no regard for their livelihoods or opinions. Many hikers were surprisingly sympathetic to the landowners, and lessons were learned about how necessary a respectful, inclusive approach is to negotiation success. The Appalachian Trail Conference local chapter led a coordinated, face-to-face approach, and it was only after respectfully inviting all stakeholders to the table to voice their concerns, questions, and ideas that common ground could be found. The project, which took more than a decade to complete, ended up benefiting everyone, providing green space conducive to biodiversity and a more “natural” hiking experience which honored the farmers’ way of life.[17] Local citizens, hikers, pedestrians of all abilities, and canine companions must surely appreciate their federally protected greenway now, a strip of peace between highways and the frenzied bloom of urbanization, a visceral ode to the valley’s agrarian past.
On a larger scale, it may well be that more swaths of land need rewilding for the sake of Earth’s biodiversity and ecosystem resilience, but who should lead and do the labor such projects would require? Outsiders? Or those who know the land like the back of their hand?
Settler colonialism is still a pervasive force. “Fortress conservation” and its proponents with their paternalistic “savior” behavior is typical of privileged elites who, although well-meaning, jump to the belief that they know what is best, that they can rush in, take charge, drive progress, and save the land. The land needs knowing first, then saving. Historically, as Minority Rights Group Head Litigator Lara Domínguez asserts: “While nature preservation was framed as a universal good…[it] served as a pretext to exert control over colonised territories and local populations.” She reminds us how “the rapacious exploitation that has taken place on [indigenous] lands during and since colonisation paved the way for processes of industrialization that are directly responsible for the environmental crisis we face today.”[18] Indeed.
The U.S. National Parks were created after the indigenous people living there were brutally removed. Writer and Ojibwa native David Treuer is right: “All 85 million acres of national-park sites should be turned over to a consortium of federally recognized tribes in the United States…. It would restore dignity that was rightfully ours. To be entrusted with the stewardship of America’s most precious landscapes would be a deeply meaningful form of restitution.”[19] This is not such a “wild” idea. Land Back is a growing, cultural movement which arose in the wake of the Bears Ears National Monument controversy in 2018. “Land surveying has been historically problematic,” writes public historian Heather Bruegl; she adds that “that same profession is being used today to help the Land Back movement.”[20] A citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and first-line descendent Stockbridge Munsee, Bruegl offers her expertise as consultant as well as in-person or virtual lectures about Land Back and many other DEIA-related topics. The growth of digital activism has become important for the #landback movement. It should be noted that although the landscape of social media is fraught with misinformation and divisive rhetoric, it has also provided a powerful amplifying platform for all marginalized voices at the nexus of outdoor recreation and race, gender, sexuality, and ability, facilitating important dialogues that continue in real world places.[21]
Although it has left its mark on me, I have left the real spaces of Cumberland Valley behind with no visible trace that I was there. A reflection on outdoor recreation as it intersects with environmental justice would not be complete without some attention to the Leave No Trace program and its complicated links with consumer culture, for better and worse. The program arose in the wake of failed attempts by National Parks to regulate the careless habits of an explosive number of visitors in the decades after World War II. As a nonprofit educational organization, Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics has made a laudable difference, guiding people in how to live and recreate lightly on the land. The seven principles are straightforward: plan ahead and prepare; travel and camp on durable surfaces; dispose of waste properly; leave what you find; minimize campfire impacts; respect wildlife; and be considerate of other visitors.[22] Scholars Gregory Simon and Peter Alagona have written extensively on the program in its cultural context, and although a fuller critique of the outdoor recreation industry and overconsumption at large is beyond the scope of this essay, I cannot in good conscience leave no trace of their salient points: that “to become an outdoor recreationist is to become an outdoor recreationist consumer,”[23] and that the LNT code of ethics should go beyond its well-worn ideals to also address outdoor recreation “as part of an economic system that includes global chains of production and consumption with social and ecological consequences extending far beyond the park or wilderness boundary.”[24] In a globalized, commodified world, this is a valid criticism. Assuredly the seven principles should be upheld, but as a brand-associated slogan, it makes it too easy to think we are “done” when we pack out what we pack in.
The externalized costs involved in flying to exotic locations to be an eco-tourist are obvious. But the footprint of living lightly on even local trails is heavier than one might like to think. What exploitive labor practices, toxic chemicals, and waste dumping in underprivileged communities was involved in the production of my favorite Gore-Tex raincoat, my ultra-light down sleeping bag, my flame-retardant tent, tiny portable stove, titanium pot and spork, water filter, and bear-proof sack of assorted freeze-dried food? These are all items I require to be physically able to spend more than a day on the trail while “leaving no trace.” We can’t not leave a trace, just as there is no “away.” Like with land acknowledgments, outdoor enthusiasts are called to go beyond what is easy. Kudos to REI for their #optoutside campaign in 2015, which became a cultural movement to boycott shopping on Black Friday,[25] followed by their Opt to Act Plan in 2019, a year of 52 different weekly eco-friendly action suggestions and resources. Patagonia, journalist and environmental activist Richard Matthews writes, “has forged a sustainable pathway in the apparel industry which is a sector that is known for abusive working conditions and environmental destruction.”[26] The company, with its fair-trade practices, transparency, and political activism, reflects the values of its founder Yvon Chouinard, who in 2022 donated his billion-dollar company to a trust to keep profits flowing only to projects addressing climate change. In his words: “Instead of ‘going public,’ you could say we’re ‘going purpose.’ Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth for investors, we’ll use the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth.”[27] And because Patagonia tells its customers “Don’t Buy This Jacket,”[28] I know where I will go when I eventually need a new one.
I have hiked and hauled 30 pounds on my back elsewhere on the A.T. through the maw of talus-strewn ridgelines for miles and days, but that struggle has nothing on the work of this essay, the work of interrogating White privilege in the great outdoors rooted in the violent subjugation of indigenous and enslaved others. Gratefully, on-and-off-screen grassroots movements are growing—there are people pulling together even while it seems the world is pulling apart. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s words are wise and true: “In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness.”[29] The trail to truth, justice, equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility is littered with obstacles. It is strenuous. And it is only sustainable if it is grounded in gratitude and grace.
Perhaps, in an abundant spirit of adventure and joy, we might discover wilderness is a state of mind, a place for letting go of the waterproof gear, the preparedness, the careful choreography of a narrative we can ourselves control. In her book Reclaiming the Wild Soul, Mary Reynolds Thompson asks, “what if the process of rewilding the Earth began with rewilding our souls? If we truly grasp the interconnectedness between all living things, doesn’t it follow that every change within us will be reflected in the whole?”[30] Leaning into new outdoor places of elemental exposure is not meant to be just “a walk in the park.” It is sacred work, rain or shine, and it asks us to feel and find strength in our vulnerability. It is the same with the awkward and wrenching discomfort tethered to social and environmental justice work. The land, with all its unmistakable traces of us, has seen it all. It knows our human wounds, and it knows that revealing them will lead the way to healing them.
Notes
[1] Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2013), 36.
[2] “A Commitment to Justice,” Appalachian Trail Conservancy, June 1, 2020. https://appalachiantrail.org/official-blog/a-commitment-to-justice/.
[3] “Acknowledgment,” Appalachian Trail Conservancy, February 11, 2021, https://appalachiantrail.org/ official-blog/acknowledgment/.
[4] “Why Climate Change Is an Environmental Justice Issue,” State of the Planet. September 22, 2020, https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/ 09/22/climate-change-environmental-justice/.
[5] “The A.T. and Race,” Appalachian Trail Conservancy, February 18, 2021. https://appa- lachiantrail.org/official-blog/the-a-t-and-race/.
[6] “Acknowledgment,” Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
[7] “Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion,” Appalachian Trail Conservancy, July 15, 2020. https://appalachiantrail.org/our-work/about-us/jedi/.
[8] “The A.T. and Race,” Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
[9] “Welcome,” Native-Land.ca, accessed November 5, 2023. https://native-land.ca/.
[10] “Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada,” Government of Canada, May 28, 2024. https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/ 1450124405592/1529106060525#chp2
[11] “Native Lands,” Appalachian Trail Conservancy, February 23, 2021. https://appalachi- antrail.org/official-blog/native-lands/.
[12] Ibid.
[13] “Explore Network to Freedom Listings - Underground Railroad,” U.S. National Park Service, accessed November 6, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/ntf-listings.htm.
[14] “General 4,” The Conestoga-Susquehannock Tribe, accessed November 8, 2023. https://www.conestogasusquehannocktribe.com/our-history.
[15] Stan Juneau, History and Foundation of American Indian Education (Helena, MT: Montana Office of Public Instruction, 2013), 25–26.
[16] “History,” The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, accessed November 8, 2023. https://boardingschoolhealing. org/about-us/history/.
[17] Sarah Mittlefehldt. “The People’s Path: Conflict and Cooperation in the Acquisition of the Appalachian Trail,” Environmental History 15, no. 4 (2010): 656–660.
[18] Lara Domínguez and Colin Luoma. “Decolonising Conservation Policy: How Colonial Land and Conservation Ideologies Persist and Perpetuate Indigenous Injustices at the Expense of the Environment,” Land (Basel) 9, no. 3 (2020): 65.
[19] David Treuer. “Return the National Parks to the Tribes,” The Atlantic Monthly 327, no. 4 (2021): 44.
[20] Heather Bruegl, accessed November 9, 2023. https://www. heatherbruegl.com.
[21] Joseph Whitson, “Indigenizing Instagram: Challenging Settler Colonialism in the Outdoor Industry,” American Quarterly 73, no. 2 (2021): 315–318.
[22] “Home,” Leave No Trace, accessed November 9, 2023. https://lnt.org/.
[23] Gregory L. Simon and Peter S. Alagona. “Contradictions at the Confluence of Commerce, Consumption, and Conservation; or, an REI Shopper Camps in the Forest, Does Anyone Notice?” Geoforum 45 (March 2013): 335.
[24] Gregory L. Simon and Peter S. Alagona, “Beyond Leave No Trace,” Ethics, Place and Environment 12, no. 1 (2009): 19.
[25] “#OptOutside on Black Friday and Every Day | REI Co-Op,” REI, accessed November 9, 2023. https://www.rei.com/opt-outside.
[26] Richard Matthews, “10 Reasons Why Patagonia Is the World’s Most Responsible Company,” Change Oracle (blog), September 10, 2021. https://changeoracle.com/2021/09/10/10-rea-sons-why-patagonia-is-worlds-most/.
[27] “Yvon Chouinard Donates Patagonia to Fight Climate Crisis,” accessed November 9, 2023. https://www.patagonia.com/ownership/.
[28] “Don’t Buy This Jacket, Black Friday and the New York Times - Patagonia Stories,” November 25, 2011. https://www.patagonia.ca/ stories/dont-buy-this-jacket-black-friday-and-the-new-york-times/story-18615.html.
[29] Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 111.
[30] Mary Reynolds Thompson, Reclaiming the Wild Soul: How Earth’s Landscapes Restore Us to Wholeness (Ashland: White Cloud Press, 2014), xxiii.
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