South Dakota. The Black
Hills. One phrase that comes to my mind
when I think of that beautiful landscape is “picked over.”
The Black Hills have been picked over by miners, loggers, gem hunters, rock thieves, bikers, hikers – and me. Over two million visitors a year swarm over the hills. European Americans began flocking to the area from the mid-19th century onward in search of gold and timber.
Now tourists visit Mt Rushmore, Sturgis, Wind Cave, Flintstone Village, and any number of resorts, campsites, and festivals.
All of them are looking for adventure or seeking to escape it all. I’m yet another exploiter in a long line that has grabbed what she wants from the hills and left the scratches and marks behind to prove it.
The Black Hills have been picked over by miners, loggers, gem hunters, rock thieves, bikers, hikers – and me. Over two million visitors a year swarm over the hills. European Americans began flocking to the area from the mid-19th century onward in search of gold and timber.
Now tourists visit Mt Rushmore, Sturgis, Wind Cave, Flintstone Village, and any number of resorts, campsites, and festivals.
All of them are looking for adventure or seeking to escape it all. I’m yet another exploiter in a long line that has grabbed what she wants from the hills and left the scratches and marks behind to prove it.
Maybe it’s the mood I’m in, but the time seems right for a
little self-scrutiny and assessment of my vacation time in the hills. Maybe the task I’ve just been performing encourages
me to refer to myself in unflattering ways, for I’ve been scanning my teaching evaluations
and marveling at the range of not-very-creative names that a few of my younger students
call me. Amongst the positive evaluations
are distracting epithets that are nestled like tiny rabbit pellets in a field
of broken quartz. I am everything from “hippie” to “bitch.” And, dear reader, I am “old.” Old as the hills.
A budding stress headache forces me outside for a walk in
the neighborhood. Impressions of my
most recent trip to South Dakota snag in my mind. The scent of the mulch that workers are
spreading at a multi-million dollar home on Fargo’s historic 8th
Street reminds me vaguely of the pines for which the Black Hills are named.
Rand and I camp each year in the Black Hills in a tent that
grows more decrepit each season. This
year, the tent flap’s zipper separated when I thought I’d quickly nip out to
pee before a huge storm hit. The scent
of waterlogged ponderosa, the alarming stillness following a crack of thunder
and simultaneous lightning, and the ensuing sheets of rain cascading into the floor of the tent made
me one bedraggled old hippie bitch at 3 a.m.
It’s always Sturgis rally week when we head to the hills,
because the land we camp on is available to us when the owners head out for
their annual bike week vacation. Above the dusty plain and away from Sturgis,
it’s easy to feel blessed: the air is
clean, mosquitoes are few, and the food in camp is abundant and good.
But we’re also riding on the coattails of all those who have come before us and taken what they’ve wanted from the hills.
But we’re also riding on the coattails of all those who have come before us and taken what they’ve wanted from the hills.
I am part of the population that ransacks the hills. I visit for a short while, and then I
leave. I tell myself that I am not as
bad as the humans that have exploited the Black Hills and left it scarred with
stumps, holes in the earth that gape like wounds, piles of bottles and rotting tin
cans, and heaps of machinery that was useful decades ago. Slash heaps and acres of wood ridden with pine beetle dot the landscape.
Taker. That’s a name
that would apply to me. I do take things
from the hills. Small things. Dried teasel heads to decorate my Christmas
tree. Ponderosa pine cones to pile in a
trug. Pieces of quartz I stuff in my
pockets to later work into my rock garden.
A seed pod from a flower that would never sprout in Fargo, ND.
Hundreds of photos that make me seem like a well-traveled middle-aged (not “old”!) person interested in beauty and adventure. Taker.
It is foolish to think that I am exempt from our tendencies
to take, use, and then minimize the consequences of our contact with the land. We “escape” into the hills on 4-wheelers and
engage in a lot of turf tearing, even though we keep to designated trails and
observe “pack it in, pack it out” rules.
We offer sage opinions on environmental degradation from wheelers that snort and gouge up the logging trails far above the fray. It’s easy to look down on the record masses of bikers below and think that we are not as environmentally problematic as they are because we are fewer, or to look over at a mountaintop cropped bald by the big mining operations and say that we aren’t as exploitative as that. Our impress on the land is comparatively minimal, although there are plenty who would call us menaces and vermin simply because we ride 4-wheelers. More names.
We offer sage opinions on environmental degradation from wheelers that snort and gouge up the logging trails far above the fray. It’s easy to look down on the record masses of bikers below and think that we are not as environmentally problematic as they are because we are fewer, or to look over at a mountaintop cropped bald by the big mining operations and say that we aren’t as exploitative as that. Our impress on the land is comparatively minimal, although there are plenty who would call us menaces and vermin simply because we ride 4-wheelers. More names.
Home now and with a new year of classes starting tomorrow,
in my mind I’m lying in the soggy tent under the pines in the picked-over Black
Hills, staring up at the moth battering at the tent’s apex, and wondering how
to account for and explain the contradictions, ironies, and slant truths.
I’ve always thought of myself as relatively benign, but it’s easy to see a long string of unflattering monikers unfolding in my wake. What name shall I assign myself?
