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For information on the Harriman Retraced Expedition e-mail: harriman2001@science.smith.edu |
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As a writer, I believe in the
nearly magical capacity of words to communicate a sense for
the beauty in our world. And yet, I cannot fathom how any
human language could capture even the haziest sense for the
grandeur and richness of the Alaska coast that we have
experienced on this voyage. It isn't just language that
fails, because I've also felt that my mind and my senses
themselves are incapable of grasping what we have
seen. Each day, the abundance and
diversity of plant and animal life has made me feel like the
witness to a renewing, expanding miracle. It has made me
feel like a pilgrim in his own land, like a man who walks
out the door, throws open his arms, and shouts for the joy
of witnessing the world in his own back yard. Alaska's beauty is not just a
reflection of nature's genius, but also of the human genius.
One of the most amazing things we can say about Alaska is
that it looks like a "wilderness" in the purest sense of the
word -- as if people had never lived here -- and yet this
land has been intensively used and intimately known by human
beings for many thousands of years. Of all the places we
have visited, only one -- St. Matthew Island, in the middle
of the northern Bering Sea -- has never had permanent human
inhabitants. Everywhere else, the Alaskan
land is deeply imbued with an invisible human presence. One
manifestation of this presence is the encyclopedically
detailed knowledge of landscape, plants, and animals that
has been accumulated over thousands of years by Alaskan
Native people. When I lived with Inupiaq Eskimo people in
the North Slope village of Wainwright, I saw how they have
thrived in one of the earth's most challenging environments
-- and I learned that they achieved this success in large
measure by knowing their place intimately. How else except
by exquisitely sophisticated knowledge could people using
stone-tipped harpoons and skin-covered boats undertake to
hunt enormous bowhead whales? How else could they hunt polar
bears, one of the most formidable predators on earth? To
illustrate the intricacy of this knowledge, consider the
Inupiaq elder who told me how he lured a polar bear toward
him by laying on the ice and imitating a basking seal, then
killed the bear when it stalked close enough to shoot. The
key is in understanding your prey so well that you can enter
its mind. The first time I hunted caribou
inland with a group of Inupiaq men, I was told to head for a
place called Nasiqruagvik, a name meaning "High Place
to Look Out Over the Land." But because I was unaccustomed
to the flat and seemingly featureless sprawl of tundra, the
"high place" was completely invisible to me. Here was a vast
terrain, intimately known by my companions, carrying
hundreds of names handed down through the generations, but
all that they knew about it was invisible to an outsider
like me. Similarly, when I lived with
Koyukon Indians in the Alaskan interior, I learned about
another world that lay beyond my sight and grasp. This is a
world in which spiritual power pervades all of nature; in
which humans must give gestures of respect toward animals,
plants, and the earth itself; in which misbehavior toward
anything in nature can bring the offender bad luck, illness,
or physical harm. In the Koyukon tradition, for example,
ravens have a benevolent power to help and protect people;
grizzly bears are not only physically imposing but also
possessed by a demanding and temperamental spirit; the
loon's beautiful voice and plumage are an expression of its
spirit; game animals come to the hunter as a gift and their
meat should be treated as a sacred substance; conservation
of animals and plants is not just based on ecological
principles but also on a spiritually based code of morality
toward nature. People like the Koyukon
recognize that their community is not limited to the human
sphere, but includes their entire surrounding environment.
This is a community to which people belong, a community they
must honor, serve, and protect from harm. And, perhaps most
importantly, the natural world is an expression and
manifestation of what we in the Judeo-Christian world would
call God. Similar beliefs and principles to those of the
Koyukon Indians are a part of all traditional Alaskan
cultures, and I believe they help to explain the biological
richness and diversity of Alaska after many thousands of
years of human inhabitation. We newcomers to Alaska -- as
well as the inheritors of these traditions in Alaskan Native
communities today -- might benefit by learning the ways in
which Alaska's land and natural communities have been known,
and by the wisdom of treating nature as an abiding place for
spiritual power. Combining these older views with the
insights of modern science may guide us toward a more
responsible, harmonious, and sustainable relationship with
the Alaskan environment. There is universal value in the
principle of approaching nature with humility and restraint,
taking from our environment in measured and sustainable
ways, giving something back to the natural environment in
return for all that it gives to us, and being constantly
aware that we depend on the earth for every moment of our
existence. The beauty, wildness, and
biological richness of Alaska are a gift not just to those
of us who live here, but to all of humankind. Much of this
beauty is protected today as public land belonging to every
American citizen, land that is permanently locked open so
that all can all visit and replenish their souls here. I
believe this free and open access to our national public
lands is among the greatest achievements of American
democracy. I also believe that protecting this remarkable
national heritage is both a privilege that we are given and
a responsibility that we should undertake. Above all, I
believe that preserving the beauty, health, and biological
richness of the American land is among the highest forms of
patriotism. Much of Alaska today remains as
spectacular, as wild, as naturally diverse today as it was
when the original Harriman Expedition traveled along this
coast a century ago. Grizzly bears still roam the forests of
Baranof Island, humpback whales still breach in the waters
of Prince William Sound, bald eagles still soar above the
Katmai Peninsula, fur seals still crowd the forelands of St.
George Island, polar bears still prowl the ice floes around
St. Lawrence Island. In this sense, Alaska shines for all of
us as a beacon of hope for the future. But I am not suggesting we can
rest on our laurels -- far from it. We must consider what is
to be learned from the ongoing damage to marine life caused
by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound. We
face immediate questions about keeping the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge as it has always been, or opening this last
pristine section of the North Slope for oil development. We
must decide whether to continue clearcutting large tracts of
old-growth rainforest in the Tongass National Forest, or to
let the ancient trees stand for future generations. We must
balance intensive commercial fishing in the Bering Sea
against our desire to maintain healthy populations of
seabirds and sea mammals. Perhaps the most important
lesson Alaska has to teach us is that humans do have a
rightful place here, not just as pilgrims admiring scenery
from afar, but also as participants in our encompassing
natural community, as citizens of the world that gives us
life, and as people who share the great responsibility of
keeping Alaska as rich and beautiful as it was before the
first humans walked across the Bering Strait many thousands
of years ago. As the Harriman Expedition of
2001 sails toward its final destination in Nome, lines from
the concluding poem in T.S. Elliot's Four Quartets drift
through my mind:
For information on the Harriman Retraced Expedition e-mail: harriman2001@science.smith.edu
Expedition
Log
We shall
not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will to be arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
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