I’ll sleep with one eye open, ‘neath God’s celestial stars.
–Tom Russell
On a June weekend I walked by the remnants of a concrete foundation on the banks of the Au Sable river. Without the historical marker, I wouldn’t have thought much otherwise, as old foundations aren’t uncommon in northern Michigan’s forests. But this was the remnants of ‘Durant’s Castle,’ a mansion built by the high living son of General Motor’s founder. Well…the mansion burned down not much before the family’s fortune met a similar fate in the Great Depression. The son’s fourth wife sold the land to an auto executive, George Mason, who later gave 1,500 acres to the public. Today, hundreds of fisherman, hikers, hunters, and paddlers pass here every year. Heaven for a few is now paradise for many.
In my blog post Priceless from the Worthless, I wrote about how a lot of public land started as land no one wanted. Other land reverted to the state when abandoned by failed farmers. In still other cases, timber and mining companies strategically defaulted on tax obligations after the land was stripped of resources. Then, some land was donated or willed to the public. Either way, this land was available as the conservation movement rose to prominence and government owned property was organized into national and state parks and other public lands.
In this post, I will write about the juxtaposition in North America between public lands and private property rights and how both these are important to our story and what makes us uniquely American. When early Americans came to this country and travelled westward, they hoped to have something rare for common Europeans. They wanted a plot of land to call their own upon which they could base their livelihood. However, they also found something else–spaces too vast for anyone to put under a roof or till under a plow.
These settlers interacted with Native Americans. Many Natives did not have the same concept of property ownership as Europeans. They did not necessarily recognize a defined plot of land being owned by an individual for his sole benefit. In fact, particularly further north, many families, clans, and tribes migrated from place to place with the seasons. Most tribes absolutely understood themselves to have territories or spheres of influence and they would defend their resources in combat of the utmost brutality. However, they would not as harshly defend defined boundaries as Europeans. This was partly out of culture. But it was likely more so because the vast quantities of land needed for their survival was too great for them to adequately patrol much less defend the boundaries. Instead, people moved around North America and stayed, lived, fished, or hunted in different places with great independence and freedom.
While the impact of Native American culture is certainly more obvious in Latin America, the Native American impact on the U.S and Canada is very real. This impact could not be described fully in a blog post if for no other reason than the term Native American encompasses such a wide variety of different people. But the main impediment to understanding their role has mostly to do with the politicization of their history. In the last hundred years, Native Americans have been portrayed in every manner from wayward savages to pacifistic victims. Unfortunately, when it comes to history, the ‘revision’ is often no more accurate than the original.
As early settlers interacted with Native Americans, some cooperated with them, others became their sworn enemies, and most followed a path somewhere in between. Regardless of their approach, none could escape the fact that they faced many problems on the North American continent for which the Natives had already found solutions. While the Natives rapidly adopted European tools, textiles, and weapons, the settlers mimicked that Native’s tactics for travel, trade, survival, and warfare. It’s ironic that while many Native Americans formed a lukewarm alliance with the British during the Revolutionary War, it was in large part the greater willingness of Americans to adopt Native principles of warfare that led to their victory. There’s a reason why British expeditions into the interior almost always met with disaster and, by the end of the war, the British forces were hemmed into populated areas such as New York and Yorktown. European tactics did not work well in the wilderness, hills, and frontier. When Yorktown fell, that was the end for Britain’s 13 colonies.
While the Native Americans were more accustomed to the land and willing to adopt European tools and weapons, they were unable to adjust their agricultural practices in time to support populations of the size of the growing Americans, especially in the face of European diseases. More importantly, they lacked the political cohesion to resist American westward expansion. Tecumseh, and many before and after him, attempted to unite various tribes against their mutual threat, but they failed one by one. Each stage along the way, settlers found themselves in territory they themselves were unable to defend or control. Their parcels and farms were surrounded by forbidding wilderness where they were, nonetheless, free to travel, hunt, fish, or extract resources. Slowly civilization encroached on each new territory, but not without leapfrogging high mountains, dry desserts, bug infested swamps, and the cold forests of the North.
It was then that the conservation movement found itself on the cusp of history. Would all American lands fall to civilization? Or would some remain? We rightfully credit the conservation movement with saving millions upon millions of acres of habitat, countless species from extermination, and their ecosystems from destruction. But is that the only reason they did it? Were they only concerned with animals, water, insects, plants, and trees? Or did they also care about Americans and future Americans? Did they not realize that the essence of this country’s founding and the legend that made Americans what they are were on the brink of failure? I think they did. Whether you consider the poetic words written by Aldo Leupold or the devil may care swagger written into the songs of Andy Russel, we can see that America is more than the ability to each own a plot of land, buy a car, or make a dollar. They didn’t want to live in a world without the freedom of vast open spaces accessible to everyone.
Well, it didn’t end with Teddy Roosevelt and the early conservationists. As I describe in previous blog posts, the road to today was long. But today, this country has the finest public lands and the finest public land managers the world has ever seen. They aren’t without their faults. Not in my opinion. But given the fetters put upon them by the clowns in our elected government and judicial system, I’m surprised we have an acre, a tree, or an anorexic ground hog left to show for ourselves.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what party you elect these days if you care about our public lands. Here in Michigan, officials have in recent years attempted to turn state forests into a playground for defense contractors around Camp Grayling and now are cutting down public forests for private solar farms. In Washington, the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is little different from the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ of the previous administration. It’s just a Trojan horse for politicians to pay off those people who helped them win primaries and elections. It used to be that they just paid off their cronies with our money. Now some senator from Utah wants to give them three million acres of our land too.
Like it or not, it’s time to join the fight each in our own way. We can speak up, we can write, we can organize, we can contact officials, we can sue, we can engage in peaceful protest. In an earlier blog post I wrote that someday our ancestors will walk through forests with trees hundreds of years old and, further down the trail, find young forests teaming with once endangered songbirds. But now, I hope for one more thing along these trails–everyday Americans.
