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A few years ago, PBS and film-maker Ken Burns combined to produce the documentary series, “The National Parks—America’s Best Idea.”  Many of us would agree—the 400+ units of the National Park Service are a treasure beyond accounting.  And why have those treasures been preserved and prospered over a century dominated by growing population and development?  Because an “Organic Act” established the National Park Service on August 25, 1916.

Of course, the national park idea itself preceded the National Park Service (NPS) by about half a century.  President Lincoln established the first national park, Yosemite, in 1864, but gave management of it to the state of California.  Eight years later, in 1872, President Grant established the first official national park—Yellowstone.  A few other parks were created in the following decades.  Preserving public lands took a big leap forward in 1906, when President Teddy Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act, which gave presidents the power to declare federal land protected as national monuments.

But this was a haphazard process.  Some protected lands were under the Secretary of Interior, others under the Secretary of Agriculture, and still others under the Secretary of War.  And protection itself was always in doubt, as proven in 1913, when two dams were authorized inside Yosemite National Park to provide water and power for San Francisco.  A better system was needed if our great national treasures were to survive.

Stephen Mather had a plan.  Mather was a California businessman who made “20-mule-team Borax” a highly popular cleaning product; and that product made Mather a very rich man.  But he also suffered from what we now call bipolar disease, and being outdoors in nature helped him escape the bouts of depression that plagued him.  He appreciated nature for himself, but he also understood that nature was part of America’s innate personality.  Visiting Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks in 1914, he despaired over their poor management and care.  He lobbied his friend, Secretary of Interior Franklin Lane, to do something.  Lane did—he offered Mather the job as his Assistant Secretary in charge of parks.

Mather, along with colleague Horace Albright, took on the challenge.  They improved the situation as best they could, hiring staff (which Mather paid with his own funds), expanding parks (with land purchased by Mather himself), professionalizing the training and procedures at parks and encouraging visitation.  But they understood that the great mission of their agency needed higher status if it were to prosper.  Along with other dedicated conservationists, Mather and Albright lobbied congress for two years, achieving their goal of a National Park Service Organic Act when President Wilson signed the agency into existence on August 25, 2016.

An “organic act” is important because it establishes a federal land-management agency through passage of a law approved by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.  Therefore, the agency cannot be changed administratively—reorganized, eliminated, combined, broken apart, given a new mission—like other parts of the executive branch.  An organic act gives an agency permanency, exactly what is needed for the part of our government devoted to preserving our national treasures for all time.

The NPS Organic Act established the National Park Service, and gave it several specific features.  First, it gave the NPS jurisdiction of all “national parks, monuments and reservations,” moving lands from other agencies to the NPS.  From 35 units in 1916, the NPS continued to grow, with transfers of lands from other agencies and the addition of newly created parks and other areas through time.  Today, the NPS system includes 417 separate “units” covering 84 million acres.  Some are huge, like Yellowstone, others are small, just a historic building and its surrounding lands.

Second, the organic act defined the purpose of the NPS.  That purpose is “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”  The act answered the question of whether resources could be exploited in national parks—and the answer is “no.”

Third, the organic act gave the NPS authority to use whatever tools and techniques it required to accomplish its mission.  Rules and regulations can be set to avoid damage and control use.  Resources can be managed—timber cut, animals harvested, facilities built—to protect the ecosystems and allow their use.  NPS units are not wildernesses (although parts of some are), but meant to be accessible to and enjoyed by visitors.  And visit them we do.  In 2017, the NPS reported total recreational visitors of 330,882,751—more than one visit on average by every person in the United States.

Stephen Mather became the first Director of the National Park Service, a job he held from 1916 to 1929, just before his death.  Plaques erected in his honor in all parks at the time read, “There will never come an end to the good that he has done.”  Americans disagree about many things today, but I suspect that we would be nearly unanimous that there is no end to the good that our national parks have done—and will do.

References:

Dilsaver, Lary M.  1994.  America’s National Park System—The Critical Documents.  Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.  Available at:  https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/anps/index.htm.  Accessed July 3, 2018.

National Park Service.  Quick History of the National Park Service.  Available at:  https://www.nps.gov/articles/quick-nps-history.htm.  Accessed July 3, 2018.

PBS.  Stephen Mather (1867-1930).  The National Parks, America’s Best Idea.  Available at:  http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/nps/mather/.  Accessed July 3, 2018.

For decades, outdoor enthusiasts have wished for—and worked for—a national park in northern Maine.  In 2016, their wish came true, partially, when President Barack Obama declared an 87,500-acre tract as the 413^th unit of the National Park Service.  On August 24, Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument became real.

The path to a new NPS property has been as rugged as the country that it now occupies.  The northern region of Maine, an area of more than 10 million acres known as the North Woods, remains one of the most remote, undeveloped parts of the eastern U.S.  During 1820-1860, most of that land was sold by the state of Maine in huge parcels to timber companies.  For more than a century, timber companies cut trees sustainably, made paper, provided good jobs and maintained a laissez-faire attitude toward other traditional uses of the land—hunting, fishing, hiking and later snowmobiling—by local residents.  And those local residents, famous for their independence and distrust of outsiders, liked it that way.

But as the 21^st Century approached, the timber economy started to decline.  Several mills went bankrupt and timber companies began selling off their lands.   Even before that, as the northeastern U.S. began to fill up, some Maine leaders saw the need to put land, even in Maine’s remote North Woods, into protected status.  For decades, former governor Percival Baxter bought up lands around Maine’s highest mountain, Mt. Katahdin (5,268 feet in elevation), and eventually donated the land to the state to become Baxter State Park, established in 1931.

Fast forward 70 years to 2011, when Roxanne Quimby announced she wished to donate land in the North Woods to make a national park.  Quimby had moved to Maine in 1975, where she began a small company with a local beekeeper, Burt Shavitz.  They sold beeswax candles and then hit on a product—Burt’s Bees lip balm—that made them wealthy.  Quimby began buying land, including 87,500 acres just east of Baxter State Park.

She donated those acres to the U.S. government for a park, along with $20 million to support its development and another $20 million promised for the future.  President Obama signed the park into law on August 24, 2016.

Not everyone is happy about the new national monument.  Some local residents object to their loss of free access to the land—commercial timber harvest is illegal, snowmobiling is restricted to just parts of the area, but fishing and hunting and other recreational uses are still allowed.  The current governor, Paul LePage, has been a fierce opponent of the national monument, and refused to allow information signs about the park to be posted along state roads.  He convinced President Trump to include Katahdin as the only eastern national monument in a review of large monuments that had been approved since 1996.

Although some individuals and local governments still object to the park, the mass of public opinion is in favor.  Public and private groups, including businesses, have endorsed the park, as have the majority of public comments submitted in various reviews.  Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke issued his report in August, 2017.  He recommended that Katahdin remain a national monument, with no changes in size, but did suggest that timber harvest be allowed to promote a “healthy forest.”  No further action on that recommendation has occurred.  And local businesses are beginning to see an uptick in tourism that they hoped for, to replace the declining timber economy.

Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, however, remains a largely undiscovered gem.  Fewer than 30,000 people visited last year (the National Park Service’s visitor statistics site doesn’t even include the park yet).  If you are looking for an eastern park unlikely to be overrun by tourists, head to northern Maine—your campsite, although primitive, awaits!

References:

Abel, David.  2017.  In Maine, a national monument may be in peril.  The Boston Globe, July 30, 2017.  Available at:  https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/07/30/national-monument-peril/pKqoFMHCMVJzNfm5s2hVmO/story.html.  Accessed July 2, 2018.

Domonoske, Camila.  2016.  In Maine, Land From Burt’s Bees Co-Founder Is Declared A National Monument.  NPR, August 24, 2016.  Available at:  https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/24/491206413/in-maine-land-from-burts-bees-co-founder-is-declared-a-national-monument.  Accessed July 2, 2018.

Miller, Kevin.  2017.  Interior secretary wants to keep Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.  Portland Press Herald, August 24, 2017.  Available at:  https://www.pressherald.com/2017/08/24/interior-secretary-wants-to-keep-national-monument-in-maine/.  Accessed July 2, 2018.

Natural Resources Council of Maine.  National Monument Timeline.  Available at:  https://www.nrcm.org/projects/forests-wildlife/katahdin-national-monument/national-monument-timeline/.  Accessed July 2, 2018.

It is known as the first major environmental controversy in United States history.  It broke John Muir’s heart.  To this day, it remains as controversial as when it was built.  “It” is the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park to provide water and power to San Francisco.

According to John Muir, the Hetch Hetchy Valley was the twin to the world-famous Yosemite Valley.  The area was inside the borders of Yosemite National Park, and, therefore, was protected from any exploitation.

Or so it seemed.  But San Francisco needed water, and it coveted the clean, clear, reliable supplies from the high Sierras.  For many reasons, the Hetch Hetchy Valley of the Tuolumne River was the perfect spot for a dam and reservoir.  Others thought it the worst of ideas, as John Muir stated:  “Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.”

Forces aligned to protect Yosemite and to exploit it.  The battle to dam Hetch Hetchy had reached a stalemate until the 1906 fire destroyed much of San Francisco.  The city lacked water supplies to put out the fire.  After that disaster, the cause to save Hetch Hetchy was lost.  The Raker Act was introduced into Congress to allow two dams to be built in Yosemite; it quickly passed and was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 19, 1913 (a year later, dispirited by this act and the start of World War I, John Muir died).

Construction on the “Hetch Hetchy System” began soon afterward.  The project included two dams and reservoirs inside Yosemite National Park.  The first was Lake Eleanor, a relatively small project that produced power that was sold to support the cost of the bigger project in the Hetch Hetchy Valley.  The Tuolumne River was impounded by the O’Shaughnessy Dam, completed in May, 1923.  Originally 226 feet high, the dam was later raised to the current height of 312 feet.  The Dam flooded about nine miles of the river, including the Hetch Hetchy valley.

The main power facility in the system, the Moccasin Powerhouse, began commercial operation on August 14, 1925.  Some years later, water began flowing to San Francisco.  Since then, the “Hetch Hetchy System” has continued to grow, now including nine impoundments and three powerhouses.  The system provides about 75% of the water for San Francisco and surrounding communities, and about 20% of the region’s electricity.

More than 100 years after the dam’s approval, Hetch Hetchy still throbs with controversy.  Calls for removing the dam continue, as part of a nationwide trend to remove old and obsolete power dams and restore the submerged ecosystems.  Several Secretaries of the Interior, both Republican and Democratic, have floated the idea, but never implemented a process.  In 2012, San Franciscans voted on a ballot referendum to study the feasibility of dam removal and alternate water and energy supplies; 77% of voters said no, a resounding defeat.  Californians, perhaps more than citizens of any other state, know the value of water and are committed to renewable energy (although some renewable energy advocates reason that hydro-electricity is not greenhouse-gas neutral, that argument loses merit for a nearly century-old dam).  Despite the referendum defeat, pro-dam-removal groups have continued to raise legal arguments for removing the O’Shaughnessy Dam.

Dams represent one of the most interesting dilemmas on the route to a sustainable planet.  They are massive intrusions onto the landscape, with unavoidable consequences to the local environment (when a landscape is flooded, it changes) and often devastating consequences to people forced to move (although these are political rather than environmental failures).  However, dams provide reliable water supplies for irrigation, domestic and industrial uses.  They reduce flood damage and generate electricity without burning fossil fuels.

August 14, 1925 saw power first begin to flow from the Hetch Hetchy System, and it has continued to flow unabated since then.  And right along with it, the power of environmental controversy has also flowed, equally unabated.

References:

Bolin, Leslie K.  1987.  Hetch Hetchy:  Facts and Figures.  U.C. Davis Environmental Law Society.  Available at:  https://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/volumes/12/1/bolin.pdf.  Accessed June 30, 2018.

Restore Hetch Hetchy.  Hetch Hetchy Today.  Available at:  https://www.hetchhetchy.org/hetch_hetchy_today.  Accessed June 30, 2018.

San Franciscon Public Utilities Commission.  2005.  A History of the Municipal Water Department & Hetch Hetchy System.  Available at:  https://sfwater.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=5224.  Accessed June 30, 2018.

Sierra Club California.  Hetch hetchy—timeline of the ongoing battle over hetch hetchy.  Available at:  https://vault.sierraclub.org/ca/hetchhetchy/timeline.asp.  Accessed June 30, 2018.

Water Education Foundation.  Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and Water System.  Available at:  https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/hetch-hetchy-reservoir-and-water-system.  Accessed June 30, 2018.

It is one of the driest places on earth.  Average rainfall is 0.5 inches per year; some areas have no recorded rainfall—ever.  But when it does rain, as it did leading up to August 23, 2017, watch out!  The desert blooms!

The Atacama Desert in Chile lies along the northwestern edge of the country, a thin line stretching for more than 600 miles, squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the foot of the Andes mountains.  It is a high, cool desert, at an elevation of nearly 8,000 feet and with daytime temperatures only in the high 60s, Fahrenheit.

Even in its usual dry state, it is starkly beautiful.  Some areas are painted by a variety of mineral deposits—cobalt, gypsum, lamprophyre.  At sunset, the ringing mountains are bathed in orange and yellow.  At night, the lack of water vapor in the air and the absence of human settlements bring the sky to life.  So vivid is the night sky that the European Southern Observatory maintains two facilities in the area.

And every so often, at intervals of 5-7 years, a drenching rainfall produces what locals call the “desierto florido” or “flowering desert.”  That unusual rainfall occurred in early August, 2017, leading to the bloom centered on August 23.  The desert blooms as dormant seeds of more than 200 flowering plants burst from the soil.  The normally barren landscape is then carpeted in millions of colorful flowers, white, yellow, blue, purple.  Although individual flowers may last for only a few days, the different germination rates among species means the phenomenon as a whole lasts for several weeks.

Most of us who love nature know that the desert teems with life.  Plants and animals have adapted to the harsh conditions, finding ways to harvest and retain water or being active only at night.  A hike through the Sonoran Desert of Arizona reveals abundant life from massive cacti to scurrying insects.

But the massive bloom of Atacama is an especially rare and beautiful reminder that we must be humble about our understanding of nature.  What we experience through human eyes on occasional forays into a desert is the equivalent of the small part of the iceberg that lies above the water’s surface.  What we don’t see or experience is the massive storehouse of life that hides from our casual understanding or observation.

One of my pet peeves is the environmentalist’s claim that nature is fragile.  Nonsense.  Nature isn’t fragile or weak or on the brink of destruction.  Nature is strong, resilient, dismissive of human attempts to corrupt it.  Yes, nature might not produce what we think is scenic or valuable at our command or on our schedule, but what nature produces of its own choosing is both mighty and awesome.

Sometimes the awe comes from the fearsome and immediate forces of a lightning strike or tornado.  Sometimes it comes from the slow, relentless forces of a drought or insect invasion.

But sometimes the awe comes from a desert floor awash in colorful blooms that we never knew were possible.  Look at nature with open eyes and an open mind—and be awed.

References:

BBC News.  Chile’s Atacama desert:  World’s driest place in bloom after surprise rain.  23 August 2017.  Available at:  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41021774.  Accessed June 27, 2018.

Encyclopedia Britannica.  Atacama Desert.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/place/Atacama-Desert.  Accessed June 27, 2018.

Gibbons, Sarah.  2017.  See One of Earth’s Driest Places Experience Rare Flower Boom.  National Georgaphic News, August 30, 2017.  Available at: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/chile-atacama-desert-wildflower-super-bloom-video-spd/.  Accessed June 27, 2018.

Leadbeater, Chris.  Exploring Chile’s Atacama Desert.  National Georgraphic Travel.  Available at:  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/south-america/chile/explore-chile-atacama-desert-stargazing/.  Accessed June 27, 2018.

One of history’s most controversial films was released on August 21, 1942—Bambi.  How could an animated film about a white-tailed deer cause such furor?  How could discussion of the film become an industry in itself?  No doubt, it underlies our universal dilemma of both using and protecting nature simultaneously.

Bambi is a product of Walt Disney, the founder and long-time leader of one of the most successful entertainment companies in the world.  Disney began making full-length animated films in the late 1930s.  Bambi was supposed to be Disney’s second release, with production beginning in 1936, but it took so long to make that it became fifth, finally getting to theaters in 1942.  Disney wanted the film to be accurate and look good.  He sent artists to the Maine woods to sketch forest backgrounds for six months.  He received two white-tail fawns that artists used to model their drawings of body form and movements.  He required artists to work in oil rather than watercolor to make the scenes more vivid, slowing the work to a snail’s pace.  Getting the spots to move correctly on Bambi’s coat and making his father’s antlers look correct in all orientations presented particular obstacles.

The idea for the film was not original to Walt Disney, however.  It was based on a 1928 book, Bambi: A Life in the Woods, by Austrian author, journalists and critic Siegmun Salzmann (writing under the pseudonym Felix Salten).  Considered by many to be a metaphor for the treatment of Jews by the fascists, the book (and all of Salzmann’s work) was eventually outlawed in Nazi Germany.  Salzmann’s book, written for adults, describes the life journey of a male roe deer in a forest beset with dangers from humans and other animals.

Disney, as we all know, deviated from that script. He set the book in the United States, with the main character a white-tailed deer. In Disney’s Bambi, the animals are all friends, cavorting happily in the forest, sometimes hungry but usually enjoying the good life.  Until humans interrupts the utopia.  The warning cry goes up among the animals, “Man is in the forest.” Hunters kill Bambi’s mother (although that happens out of sight), then they go after other deer, including injuring Bambi, and accidentally setting the forest on fire.  Except for the death of Bambi’s mother, however, the rest turns out well, with Bambi becoming the new prince of the forest and siring a new generation of deer with Faline.

Reactions to Bambi were immediate and extreme.  Hunters immediately saw the film as anit-hunting, an Outdoor Life editor saying it was “the worst insult ever offered in any form to American sportsmen.”  The magazine tried to get Disney to include an introduction explaining that the film was a fantasy, not representative of ethical hunters.  A writer for Audubon, however, praised the film for raising the environmental consciousness of the general population, comparing it to the impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on views of slavery.  And the controversy and rhetoric have never cooled off, with terms like the Bambi effect, Bambi factor, Bambi Syndrome and Bambi backlash still firing up admirers and haters.  In 1980, George Regier wrote in Field & Stream that “Naturally once Bambi is raised in status from mere deer to Jesus Whitetail Superstar, man’s hunting of deer becomes a crime comparable to the persecution of Christ.”

The film itself is one of the most successful in Disney’s catalogue of animated features.  At first it lost money, but re-releases over time have filled the Disney treasury.  Gross proceeds from the film are around $300 million worldwide, not counting a long list of commercial spinoffs.  The American Film Institute considers it among the top ten animated features of all time.

So, we can either blame Bambi for making a sentimental mess of our approach to managing natural resources, or we can thank Bambi for being one among many Disney messages cautioning us to pay attention to how we treat the natural world.  Take your choice.  But you have to agree that Thumper is one cute rabbit!

References:

Class Movie Hub.  Bambi.  Available at:  http://www.classicmoviehub.com/facts-and-trivia/film/bambi-1942/page/1/.  Accessed June 26, 2018.

Lutts, Ralph H.  1992.  The Trouble with Bambi:  Walt Disney’s Bambi and the American Vision of Nature.  Forest and Conservtion History 36 (October 1992):160-171.  Available at:  https://www.history.vt.edu/Barrow/Hist2104/readings/bambi.html.  Accessed June 26, 2018.

Murray, Robin L. and Joseph K. Heumann.  2016.  How ‘Bambi’ Hoowinked American Environmentalists.  What it Means to Be American, April 19, 2016.  Available at:  http://www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org/ideas/how-bambi-hoodwinked-american-environmentalists/.  Accessed June 26, 2018.

University of Cambridge.  2008.  The Bambi Factor.  Available at:  https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/the-%E2%80%9Cbambi-factor%E2%80%9D.  Accessed June 26, 2018.

The Northwest Passage—a sea route across the Arctic region between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—had been a dream for centuries.  It became a reality in 1905 when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen completed the journey.  Today, climate change has made what was once a dream into a certainty.

The mariners who tried to find the Northwest Passage reads like a who’s who of explorers.  Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Henry Hudson, James Cook, James Franklin and, finally and successfully, Roald Amundsen.  Amundsen lived from 1872 to 1928 and conducted many polar expeditions.  His most famous was his traverse of the Northwest Passage, which occurred from 1903 to 1906.

He had studied other attempts to cross the Arctic Sea, all of which ended in failure.  He decided to try another tactic, using a small fishing ship, the Gjoa (70 feet long, but with a very shallow draft), and a small crew (seven men) that would allow flexibility and access to shallow waters.  They left the southern coast of Greenland in summer of 1903 and picked their way through the ice up, across and down Baffin Island and somewhat farther west, stopping at King William Island.  There, at a protected bay they named Gjoa Haven, they stayed for two years, learning survival skills from the native Inuits, taking scientific measurements and searching for the magnetic North Pole.

On August 13, 1905, they set sail again, heading west through narrow and shallow straits.  A few days later, they encountered a whaling ship headed east, and Amundsen knew he had completed his quest.  As he wrote in his diary, “The North West Passage was done. My boyhood dream—at that moment it was accomplished. A strange feeling welled up in my throat; I was somewhat over-strained and worn—it was weakness in me—but I felt tears in my eyes. ‘Vessel in sight… Vessel in sight.’”  They were soon iced-in again and spent another winter before landing at Nome, Alaska, the following August (perhaps on August 13 again, but I can’t confirm the date).

Amundsen’s achievement was world news, but it had little practical impact.  He used routes too shallow for commercial vessels and spent years to accomplish the journey.  Various other voyages, using modern ice-breaking ships, managed to make the journey in recent decades, but those outcomes were still novelties.

Climate change, however, is changing all that.  The Arctic region is warming much faster than the rest of the world, taking sea ice with it.  Arctic sea ice has dropped by about 1.3% per year since the 1970s.  An ice-free passage between the Atlantic and Pacific opened for the first time in history in 2007.

Commercial ship travel has begun, with a still-modest record of 30 ships making the transit in 2012.  In 2016, a luxury cruise ship, the Crystal Serenity, made the trip from Alaska to New York, charging up to $50,000 for a stateroom.  The increase in commerce raises many questions about the future of the Arctic.  Increased exploitation of oil, minerals, forests and wildlife is likely.  A legal fight over ownership is developing between Canada, through whose territory any Northwest Passage route will flow, and other Arctic nations, who claim joint sovereignty of the region through treaties.

Ecological impacts are also likely as the climate warms and the ice continues to melt.  Migration of species between the oceans will occur—gray whales from the Pacific have recently been seen in the north Atlantic.  The poor condition of individual polar bears, which rely on sea ice as their primary habitat, has been broadly reported, but the impact on populations of polar bears remains unknown because of scarce data.

References:

ArcGIS.  Roald Amundsen Northwest Passage Map.  Available at:  https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=605b5c99c1ad42678ddfa6b1d47cbc7d.  Accessed June 15, 2018.

History.com  Northwest Passage.  Available at:  https://www.history.com/topics/northwest-passage.  Accessed June 15, 2018.

Kahn, Brian.  2016.  This Is What the Ice-Free Northwest Passage Looks Like.  Climate Central, August 23, 2016.  Available at:  http://www.climatecentral.org/news/ice-free-northwest-passage-20624.  Accessed June 15, 2018.

King, Hobart M.  What is the Northwest Passage?  Geology.com.  Available at:  https://geology.com/articles/northwest-passage.shtml.  Accessed June 15, 2018.

Royal Museums Greenwich.  Roald Amundsen North-West Passage expedition 1903-1906.  Available at:  https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/roald-amundsen-north-west-passage-expedition-1903%E2%80%9306.  Accessed June 15, 2018.

We know it by heart:  “I am the Lorax.  I speak for the trees.  I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”  The trees got their voice on this day, August 12, in 1971, when Dr. Seuss published The Lorax.

Dr. Seuss is one of the most beloved authors in 20^th Century American literature.  Kid’s literature, true, but I’d guess that every adult still thrills to read his anapestic tetrameter, see his phantasmagoric drawings and escape to his whimsical worlds.

Dr. Seuss was born as Theordor Geisel in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts (died 1991).  He was an industry cartoonist, and Standard Oil was his biggest client.  But he wanted to accomplish more significant work, writing serious books.  The only problem was that his Standard Oil contract forbade almost every kind of moonlighting.  There was one loophole—he could write for children.  And so he did, writing and drawing more than 60 books, many of which can be found in every child’s room in America.  He wasn’t immediately successful—his first book (And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street) was turned down by 26 publishers before hitting bookshelves in 1937.

Fast-forward to the start of the 1970s.  Seuss, now a publishing whirlwind, was living in La Jolla, California, and was increasingly disturbed by the commercialization of the town and its environment.  He decided to write a book about taking care of the world rather than just exploiting it.  But he was blocked, unable to grasp how to present his ideas.  A friend took him to Kenya for inspiration, and while watching a herd of elephants, inspiration struck.  Back at camp, he sat down and wrote the text for The Lorax on the back of a laundry slip—in 90 minutes!

When the book hit stores in 1971, it wasn’t very popular.  Readers and critics were disappointed that this story was serious, a downer compared to the zany tales they had come to expect.  Some politicians and forestry leaders objected to what they saw as an indictment of the logging industry.  After all, the Once-ler did cut down every last Truffula Tree to turn them into Thneeds.

But Dr. Seuss didn’t intend it that way.  The book was about conservation, not preservation.  Seuss didn’t object to logging, just to logging that was excessive and thoughtless.  He said, “The Lorax doesn’t say lumbering is immoral.  I live in a house made of wood and write books printed on paper.  It’s a book about going easy on what we’ve got.  It’s anti-pollution and anti-greed.”  He wanted to support the idea of sustainability—to live today so that others can live as they wish later.

As the environmental movement gained traction, so did The Lorax.  When Lady Bird Johnson, the U.S. First Lady, began her environmental work, she positioned The Lorax at the center of her campaign.  Anti-logging sentiment in the West also drove sales of the book, perhaps spurred by a rebuttal book by the logging industry called Truax.  Since then, The Lorax has sold more than one million copies and been adapted into a feature film and TV special.  It sits at 33 on the list of the 100 best picture books of all time as judged by school librarians (in 12^th place is another Seuss book, Green Eggs and Ham).

The Lorax is far from Dr. Seuss’ most popular book, however.  Green Eggs and Ham takes that honor, also, with about 8 million copies sold.  In all, Dr. Seuss’ books have sold about 70 million copies, making him the most popular children’s author of all time.

So three cheers for Dr. Seuss, whether he’s just making us smile or also making us think.  And let’s get out there and plant some real-life equivalent of Truffula Trees!

References:

Ayers, Kyle.  2012.  The Environmental Message Behind ‘The Lorax.’  CBS New York, April 9, 2012.  Available at:  http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/04/09/the-environmental-message-behind-the-lorax/.  Accessed June 14, 2018.

Barber, Bonnie.  2012.  Professor Donal Pease Shares the ‘Story Behind The Story’ of The Lorax.  Dartmouth News, February 29, 2012.  Available at:  https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2012/02/professor-donald-pease-shares-story-behind-story-lorax.  Accessed June 14, 2018.

Bird, Elizabeth.  2012.  Top 100 Picture Books Poll Results.  School Library Journal.  Available at:  http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/07/06/top-100-picture-books-poll-results/#_.  Accessed June 14, 2018.

Priceonomics.  2001.  The Statistical Dominance of Dr. Seuss.  Available at:  https://priceonomics.com/the-statistical-dominance-of-dr-seuss/.  Accessed June 14, 2018.

“Conservation means the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time.”  The man who coined that sentence, adding “for the longest time” to the end of a long-used democratic sentiment, was Gifford Pinchot, the country’s first professional forester and the father of the profession.

Gifford Pinchot was born on August 11, 1865, in Connecticut (died 1946).  His family was wealthy, made rich by lumber manufacturing, real estate brokering and importing fancy French wallpaper for upper-class homes.  He received the best education money could buy, including an undergraduate degree from Yale and repeated European travel.  But he was always attracted more to the outdoors than he was to the schoolroom.  Eventually his father, seeking a future for his son that would build on his happiness in the woods, asked Pinchot, “How would you like to be a forester?”  He jumped at the chance.

No training existed in the U.S. at the time, so Pinchot journeyed to Nancy, France, to study at their National Forestry School.  He learned the principles of European forestry, including selective harvesting and silviculture—the planting and care of forest trees.  Cutting his schooling short so he could start practicing forestry, he returned home after one year and began work as a professional consulting forester—the first in the nation’s history.

His big break came in 1892 when George Vanderbilt hired Pinchot to manage the forests on his sprawling estate in Asheville, North Carolina.  Pinchot was given wide latitude, creating a forest management plan modeled in the European style but with changes unique to American trees, landscape and climate.  He specified all aspects of management—which trees to grow, how dense to plant them, when and how much to thin, what to expect in terms of growth and yield.   He hired a German silviculturist, Carl Schenck, to conduct the work directly.

His efforts led to broad recognition, and he was appointed to the Forest Commission of the National Academy of Sciences in 1886.  That commission recommended that the federal government create what we now call national forests, recognizing the need for more pro-active management of the public lands.  Two years later, President McKinley appointed Pinchot as the chief of the Division of Forestry, responsible for carrying out the commission’s recommendations.

Pinchot continued in this role when Teddy Roosevelt succeeded McKinley as president.  The partnership of Pinchot and Roosevelt is the stuff of legends—both vigorous outdoorsmen, both ambitious and tireless, both committed to the idea of conservation.  When Roosevelt created the US Forest Service in 1905, he appointed Pinchot its leader, the first Chief Forester of the United States.  He stayed in the position until 1910, when Taft succeeded Roosevelt.

Pinchot used his opportunity as chief forester to the fullest.  He expanded national forests from 32 to 149 and from 75 to 193 million acres.  He arranged for national forests to be transferred from the Department of Interior to his own agency in the Department of Agriculture.  He increased the agency’s professional staff by an order of magnitude, hiring virtually every graduate forester the country produced.  And virtually all of those were produced at Yale University, graduating from the School of Forestry that Pinchot founded with his brother in 1900.  In the same year, he helped found the Society of American Foresters, still the nation’s premier scientific and professional forestry organization.

Along the way, Pinchot also established the principles that drove conservation—of forests, wildlife, fisheries, soil and water—for most of the 20^th Century.  In his 1910 book, The Fight for Conservation, Pinchot established that conservation was about the wise use of resources.  Natural resources should not be wasted and overused, but neither should they be squandered by lack of use.  He wrote, “Conservation demands the welfare of this generation first, and afterward the welfare of generations to follow.”  This has come to be known as the “gospel of efficiency,” as controversial then as it is today.  John Muir, for example, split with Pinchot over the question of preserving at least some forests without using them, and Aldo Leopold re-framed Pinchot’s idea of “use” by adding preservation (or non-use) as a legitimate kind of “use” for some lands.

Pinchot also deserves great credit for moving the idea of conservation into the mainstream of political and philosophical thought in the United States.  He wrote about the importance of conservation in all parts of life:

“The principles of conservation thus described—development, preservation, the common good—have a general application which is growing rapidly wider.  The development of resources and the prevention of waste and loss, the protection of the public interest, by foresight, prudence, and the ordinary business and home-making virtues, all these apply to other things as well as to the natural resources.  There is, in fact, no interest of the people to which the principles of conservation do not apply.”

            Pinchot followed his career in national forestry matters by a career as a politician.  He helped Teddy Roosevelt form the Bull Moose Party and lobbied for the party’s progressive ideas.   He was twice elected governor of Pennsylvania.  As governor, he worked tirelessly for rural development and the common person.  He built 20,000 miles of rural roads in his state, known then and now as “Pinchot Roads.”  He greatly expanded Pennsylvania’s state park program, with the goal of having a state park accessible for every citizen for day-use.

Pinchot died in 1946, aged 81.  His home, Grey Towers, in eastern Pennsylvania, was donated to the US Forest Service as a museum and educational center.  A national forest in Washington was re-named for Pinchot.  The highest honor in the Society of American Foresters is called the Gifford Pinchot Medal, awarded bi-annually.  All fitting for the father of American forestry.

References:

Dennehy, Kevin.  First Forester:  The Enduring Conservation Legacy of Gifford Pinchot.  Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.  Available at:  http://environment.yale.edu/news/article/first-forester-the-conservation-legacy-of-gifford-pinchot/.  Accessed June 13, 2018.

Encyclopedia Britannica.  Gifford Pinchot.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gifford-Pinchot.  Accessed June 13, 2018.

Pinchot, Gifford.  1910.  The Fight for Conservation.  University of Washington Press, Seattle.  (facsimile printing 1967).  152 pages.

U.S. Department of Interior.  2017.  Gifford Pinchot:  A Legacy of Conservation.  Blog, 8/9/2017.  Available at:  https://www.doi.gov/blog/gifford-pinchot-legacy-conservation.  Accessed June 13, 2018.

Wilderness Connect.  Gifford Pinchot:  America’s First Forester.  Available at:  https://www.wilderness.net/nwps/Pinchot.  Accessed June 13, 2018.

Townsend’s Warbler, Townsend’s Solitaire, Townsend’s chipmunk, Townsend’s ground squirrel, Townsend’s mole.  Ever wonder who this Townsend fella was, who has all these animals named after him?  He is a largely forgotten early ornithologist and naturalist who died a much-too-early death.  Let’s restore his history a bit.

John Townsend was born in Philadelphia on August 10, 1809 (died 1851).  He was raised and educated as a Quaker, attending schools known for their scientific and natural history expertise.  He studied the birds around his home, becoming well known as a local naturalist, and became an acquaintance of John James Audubon. As was required of a birder at the time, he became an expert shot, willing and able to kill the specimens he wanted.   In 1833, he shot a small bird that was previously unknown and gave the specimen to Audubon, who named it after him (since then, the reality of it being a different species has been debunked).

A wealthy easterner with ambitions to enter the western fur trade mounted an expedition to the Pacific Northwest, inviting Townsend to join as a naturalist along with the much more famous botanist Thomas Nuttall.  Starting in 1834, they journeyed from St. Louis west, eventually traveling down the Snake and Columbia Rivers to Fort Vancouver.  Nuttall was a bit of absent-minded professor, roaming ahead of the caravan to find undisturbed plant specimens.  Townsend, an expert marksman, regularly rescued his senior mentor by shooting animals stalking him.

The flora and fauna entranced the team.  Townsend wrote, “None but a naturalist can appreciate a naturalist’s feelings—his delight amounting to ecstasy—when a specimen such as he has never before seen, meets his eye….”  They collected hundreds of specimens, but the rigors of the journey often got in the way.  Once a worker craving alcohol drank all the preserving alcohol from a vat of reptiles, leaving the specimens to rot.  On another occasion, Townsend shot a unique owl specimen, but before he could prepare the specimen a hungry worker had eaten it.

After reaching and exploring the Oregon coast, the team sailed to Hawaii to continue collecting.  He returned home in 1837, after a 3 ½ year expedition.  In all, Townsend collected about 30 species previously unknown to science.  Back in Philadelphia, he sold 93 specimens to Audubon for inclusion in his Birds of America.  Townsend’s specimens were the models for 74 of Audubon’s bird paintings, which irked Townsend because Audubon didn’t credit his contributions.

But others appreciated Townsend’s ornithological skills.  He was hired as a bird curator for the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences and for a precursor of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.  He was an expert taxidermist, as one colleague noted:  “Townsend can skin, stuff and sew up a bird, so as to make it look far superior to any I have ever seen, in five minutes.” However, Townsend’s taxidermy work for the government became his downfall.  His brother-in-law reported watching “John when employed by the government to mount specimens in Washington, bending over a big tray of arsenic, ….enveloped in a cloud of dust.”  Arsenic poisoning brought Townsend an early death in 1851, at the young age of 41.

Townsend wrote a popular memoir of his western journey, two books of natural history and many papers in scientific journals.  Although little known today, he was considered one of the leaders of “the second wave” of western exploration.  His collections provided a window into the biota of the West almost totally unknown during his life.   As we like to say, he is one of the giants upon whose shoulders later conservationists have stood.

References:

Jobanek, George A.  1999.  Introduction to “Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, but John Kirk Townsend.  Oregon State University Press.  Available at:  http://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/narrative-of-journey-across-rocky-mountains-to-columbia-river/intro.  Accessed June 12, 2018.

Linda Hall Library.  2017.  Scientist of the Day – John Kirk Townsend.  Available at:  https://www.lindahall.org/john-kirk-townsend/.  Accessed June 12, 2018.

Oregon History Project.  John Kirk Townsend Biography.  Available at:  https://oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/biographies/john-kirk-townsend-biography/#.Wx_TvkgvxRY.  Accessed June 12, 2018.

Rose, Mary.  Tributaries:  A Confluence History Blog.  Available at:  http://www.confluenceproject.org/blog/1834-letter-describes-awful-magnificent-grandeur-at-the-mouth-of-the-columbia-river/.  Accessed June 12, 2018.

Williams, Sartor O. III.  2009.  John Kirk Townsend:  Collector of Audubon’s Western Birds and Mammals.  The Auk 126(2):468-469.  Available at:  http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1525/auk.2009.4409.2.  Accessed June 12, 2018.

Perhaps “born” isn’t quite the correct verb.  Smokey “was conceived” on August 9, 1944, when the first poster bearing his imaged was commissioned.  Since then, Smokey Bear has become one of America’s best known and best loved images, filling out the trio of Mickey Mouse and Santa Claus.

Smokey was, from the beginning, a patriotic bear.  The impetus for Smokey came from worries during World War II.  After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Japanese submarines and other vessels appeared along the country’s Pacific Coast and once successfully fired shells into a coastal oil field, starting a fire adjacent to a national forest.  Forestry officials worried that enemy shelling of coastal forests could cause devastating fires.  And with most fire-fighters and other men away on war duty, those fires might readily spread out of control.

In an effort to raise the awareness of forest fires as a national-defense issue, The US Forest Service, Association of State Foresters and the War Advertising Council formed the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention program.  The program began promoting forests as essential to winning the war—and preventing forest fires as a patriotic duty.  Slogans included “Forest Fires Aid the Enemy” and “Our Carelessness, Their Secret Weapon.”

They soon hit on another idea that proved to be a winner.  Walt Disney aired the film “Bambi” in 1942, including the blazing forest fire scene that scared us all as kids.  Disney allowed the program to use Bambi’s image on a fire-prevention poster for one year.  It proved so popular that the program knew it needed a permanent mascot for their cause.  On August 9, 1944, the program agreed that a bear should be their symbol.

They commissioned artist Albert Staehle to draw the poster.  Staehle, who lived from 1899 to 1974, was one of the best known advertising artists during the first half of the 20^th Century.  He was especially renowned for his animal subjects, including Elsie the Cow, Borden Dairy’s famous spokes-animal (remember the contented cows?).  Staehle’s initial rendition of Smokey appeared on October 10, pouring a bucket of water on a campfire.  The poster read, “Smokey says—Care will prevent 9 out of 10 forest fires!”

A star was born!  Smokey’s image became so popular that the federal government had to pass a law that removed Smokey from the public domain and trademarked it for commercial purposes (royalties that still come in are used for wildfire prevention).  Over the years, Smokey’s look evolved, from a bear cub to a realistic adult bear, complete with fearsome fangs and claws.  US Forest Service artist Rudy Wendelin took over Smokey’s image, eventually molding him into the human-like character we know today, complete with human hands and dressed in jeans and hat. Being Smokey’s “caretaker” became Wendelin’s full-time job for the remainder of his career with the Forest Service and on into retirement.

The message evolved, too.  In 1947, his slogan became, “Only you can prevent forest fires.  In 2001, his slogan changed again, to “Only you can prevent wildfires.”  The change emphasizes the danger of wild fires to human life and buildings.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that the imaginary Smokey would turn real one day.  During a forest fire in New Mexico in 1950, fire fighters rescued a small black bear cub from the fire.  The bear’s paws and rear legs were burned, but it recovered under care by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.  The story of the rescued cub “went viral.”  Soon, Smokey was transferred to the National Zoo in Washington, where the bear lived until its death in 1976.  Smokey is buried at the Smokey Bear Historical Park in Capitan, New Mexico.  No living specimen replaced the original.

But Smokey’s legacy certainly lives on.  He is still so popular that he has his own zip code (20252), along with his own Facebook (300,000 friends), Twitter (24,000 followers), Instagram, YouTube and Flickr accounts.

One final point.  There’s an old joke, “What is Smokey the Bear’s middle name?”  The corny answer is “the.”  Except it isn’t.  Smokey doesn’t have a middle name.  He is simply Smokey Bear, always has been and always will be.  However, a song about him, written in 1952, stuck  “the” in his name so the lyrics would match the song’s rhythm.  Remember that for your next trivia contest.

References:

American Art Archives.  Albert Staehle (1899-1974).  Available at:  https://www.americanartarchives.com/staehle.htm.  Accessed June 11, 2018.

CBS News.  2014.  Smokey Bear turns 70, and he’s burning up social media.  CBS News, August 8, 2014.  Available at:  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/smokey-bear-turns-70-and-hes-burning-up-social-media/.  Accessed June 11, 2018.

Pearson, Richard.  2000.  Rudolph Wendelin Dies at Age 90.  The Washington Post, September 3, 2000.  Available at:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2000/09/03/rudolph-wendelin-dies-at-age-90/676783da-263d-41e4-a920-9782c69b4337/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.16b43e68c384.  Accessed June 11, 2018.

Smokeybear.com.  About the Campaign.  Available at:  https://smokeybear.com/en/smokeys-history/about-the-campaign.  Accessed June 11, 2018.