Transcript
Speaker: This is the Out of the Wild Podcast with Ken Ilgunas.
Speaker: Roderick Nash helped establish environmental history as a field and founded the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara. His landmark 1967 book. Wilderness and the American Mind traced one of the great changes in American culture.
Speaker: The transformation of wilderness from something feared and conquered into something admired and protected. In his later work, including The Rights of Nature and His Vision of Island Civilization,
Speaker: He extended that history into questions about the moral rights of other species and the shape of civilization a thousand years from now. Roderick, it's a... Honor to be. chatting with you right now.
Speaker: Thank you, Ken. Pleased to be with you. You had a look at some of my stuff. you were saying and you liked my allusions to thoreau yeah he was a bit of a literary hero of mine and inspired me to kind of secretly live in my van for a couple years and separate myself from society. But he he resonated for you too, didn't he?
Speaker: It did indeed. and It's interesting that people like you and I have picked up on him. and at the time when he was writing Let's just pick the date, July 4th. 1845 when he went to Walden Pond.
Speaker: deliberately on July 4th to make a statement. about what he didn't like. about American independence in America. with slavery, with the Mexican War. But at that time,
Speaker: he was pretty well ignored. And as I say in the Wilderness Book, It was John Muir who came later. I believe you're speaking from... A place very close to John Muir's.
Speaker: birthplace on a rather austere highly disciplined. Farm. A highly disciplinary father that he eventually broke away from when he got to Wisconsin.
Speaker: Okay. um Muir reaped the... Glory. Popularity. that might have gone too thorough. But Thoreau came about 50 years too soon.
Speaker: Muir had the good sense to be born when the frontier was ending in 1890, American frontier. and people were prepared to listen to what he had to say. He was a guy who had front page articles in the Atlantic and so forth.
Speaker: Thoreau. had a library as he famously said of 700 books. 650 of which were written by himself. Which as an author, you know what that means the publisher sent them back to him in cell.
Speaker: So here was a guy who was pretty well ignored and then sort of resurrected in the post -frontier. Context. could you Could you think back to a time?
Speaker: One of your earliest. wilderness. experiences I know you grew up in New York City. When did you feel you had like ah ah so like a serious wilderness experience?
Speaker: Good question. ah And thinking just for a moment about New York City. That's where Wilderness lovers come from. places like New York City.
Speaker: i'm not quite sure where you came from niagara falls new york Okay, a lot of people around there. People came out of cities. George Catlin, for example, came out of Philadelphia.
Speaker: um The biggest city. at at the time, one of the biggest cities in See you. early 1800s in America. So I came out of New York and you've... perhaps seen. some of my statements.
Speaker: one of them which is We have to become civilized enough to appreciate wilderness. Wilderness appreciation doesn't come out of Moab, Utah. even though I've lived in more of Utah. It doesn't come out of places like that.
Speaker: comes out of places like New York. Maybe Niagara Falls, maybe Cleveland. Maybe St. Louis. Um, So in other words, the people who didn't have to fight wilderness anymore, who didn't have to regard it as an adversary and could begin to think about it as an asset.
Speaker: Okay, so the question... was on my own. my own relationship to wilderness, I was a silly kid. I hated living in the city.
Speaker: It's a terrible place to grow up. Concrete jungle. Maybe a great place in your 20s. Lousy place. from eight years old, say to... 21.
Speaker: But my father was a professor at New York University. and He walked to work. Washington Square. downtown New York.
Speaker: but My parents. Luckily for me. Got me out. into some western areas. that were pretty special. There's a picture of me and my father writing down the Bright Angel Trail in Grand Canyon.
Speaker: when I was eight years old. I was placed right behind the head wrangler. seemed like I was pretty young. to do that. They told me there was a big river down. there. at the bottom of the trail. I couldn't see any river.
Speaker: Eight -year -old? What are you talking about? What are these adults talking about? A river down there. But eventually we did get down to that river. I didn't know it at the time.
Speaker: But... um I would later. become. One of the early whitewater boaters in the Grand Canyon. starting in the 1960s.
Speaker: when there were no permits, when it was show and go. where You. And perhaps... a few hundred people a year running a river that now has 25 ,000 or 35 ,000 a year. running it.
Speaker: And so... Walking across the Grand Canyon as I did when I was 11 and 12. And the boys camp. In Arizona? was I don't know if I would have called it a wilderness experience but it It certainly got me out into...
Speaker: country. where I realized My insignificance. and the significance of of the wild. a context in which I was in.
Speaker: When I started running the river, in the 60s. in my own boat I began to realize... that Here was a ultimate wilderness.
Speaker: Here was one of the great wildernesses of the planet. Too bad they're still running motors through it. Mhm. ah which they are, motor boats. through it.
Speaker: but um The scale. of the place. and the longevity of time that's displayed. Word. overwhelmingly powerful.
Speaker: Let's go to mal Walden Pond for a minute. Um, You don't have that feeling. You don't have the feeling of looking at pre -Cambrian rocks. the original crust of the earth that existed before life. on the planet um I had that experience.
Speaker: I have that experience of sitting. with those rocks, living with those rocks on a day -to -day basis. and uh So I would say. those experiences.
Speaker: In the early time... of the Grand Canyon. where the canyon has a way of consuming you. Um, Some people call it rapids, rabies. Some people call it... Love.
Speaker: Some people say, It's the last thing you think of. When you go to sleep. and the first thing you think of when you wake up. Hmm Maybe you've been in love.
Speaker: I have maybe occasionally. with a woman. But I've also been in love with country. and I've also been so fixated on the Grand Canyon that it was all I thought about.
Speaker: let's Let's... Talk about that for a second. You're talking about... Wilderness in romantic terms and What might come with that are... moments of aesthetic arrest when you're really taken aback by something you see.
Speaker: um by the sublime. I don't want to hold you to any certain period in your life, but can you maybe pick out a point or two when you felt kind of awestruck? by the natural world or a geographic formation or something like that.
Speaker: um You know, good. I'm glad you said geographic formation. Because it brings me back to something I saw in the 1960s when I was starting in to the Grand Canyon.
Speaker: And at this time... I went up. the reservoir Those of us who love the Colorado River don't call it lakes. I don't call them lakes, but some people call it Lake Powell.
Speaker: I call it Reservoir Pal. I went up the reservoir. to something called Rainbow Bridge. You ever been to Rainbow Bridge? I have not, no. Okay. not too many people had in the 1960s. It was only sort of discovered.
Speaker: If we use them. white person's concept of discover ah to It was discovered as a huge arch of stone.
Speaker: it's It's truly... As far as a single... geological geographical thing. One of the most impressive, the most impressive thing I've ever seen. I stood there in awe of it, as I'm sure Native people.
Speaker: had stood. in awe of it and probably called it some kind of a god because that's what we did then. Um, and that was with things that surpassed our our understanding.
Speaker: That was a moment. you know That was a moment. Um... that ingrained itself. into me and of course it was you know stupendously large.
Speaker: ah There are other fleeting fleeting moments. Um, Sure, you and I have both seen a lot of sunsets. I saw a lot in my 60 days last summer. from the boat.
Speaker: I saw sunsets every night. People say can you see the ocean from the window of your cabin? Professor Nash. I said, yeah, I can see it from all four windows.
Speaker: four sides. Oh, how do you do that? I live on a boat. Oh. It was as though Thoreau might have been anchored in a boat in Walden Pond.
Speaker: except He could have gone out of the mouth of this little bay. and he could have cruised around the world. I published a book about wilderness at the end of the 1960s.
Speaker: Just a couple years after the Wilderness Act had been passed in 1964, And it was a good book. But it's also a very lucky book. I say that in the preface. It's a very lucky book.
Speaker: I was, I caught the wave. You know? a cough When you were writing that book, when you were writing Wilderness and the American Mind, and I think it was an outgrowth of your... dissertation. Did you have a moment where you're like...
Speaker: This is gonna be big. like this This is really going to hit. This isn't just going to be some niche publication, but I i think this has a chance to to go far. I did have i did have ah some ah some premonition of that.
Speaker: my mentor. a major professor at the University of Wisconsin. where I went. Why did I go there? Deliberately because John Muir had gone there and because Arthur Leopold had taught there. And I thought, hey, this is the kind of stuff I'm interested in.
Speaker: So... My major professor was Merle Curti, C -U -R -T -I, Pulitzer Prize winner in the 1940s for a book called The Growth of American Thought.
Speaker: And I remember going to him. shortly after I arrived in 1961, in six fall of 60. This would have been in 61. And I said, you know, there's a national contest for masters.
Speaker: Theses. master's essays in history. National contest. And... um I said, i'm I'm thinking of entering it. And Merle Curti.
Speaker: who was a very mild -mannered guy. and not given to. these kinds of statements. looked up at me from his desk and he said, you'll win. Mmm. And I came back to him about six weeks later. And I said, I won.
Speaker: Which I did. So yeah, i knew I knew I had a good topic. I knew about the Wilderness Act. I knew about the Grand Canyon dams.
Speaker: because I was starting to float the Grand Canyon. I was asked by Martin Lytton. Now we have Porter and others. to join them on a trip. through the Grand Canyon. So and they said we're asking you because your book has been a...
Speaker: a changer, an epic changer. Life Magazine said a book that changed the world. The world was ready to be changed. Mm hmm. So that's when I said lucky.
Speaker: That's why I say lucky. And... Here the book is still in print 50 plus years. I saw you speak at... Duke in around 2010, which I think is around the time when you first... published.
Speaker: island civilization. And then you would, I believe, revise that. and put it in the ah epilogue. of The fifth edition. of Wilderness of the American Mind. And interestingly, I noticed some differences between those those two documents. But why don't you talk about the...
Speaker: idea behind it because What I've noticed about academics is that... Some people who work in universities sometimes... They are the most. gun -shy uh people not really willing to kind of go out on a limb not really willing to kind of think about the deep future but you just said to hell with it i'm gonna write about this kind of speculative ah future Did you have any sort of...
Speaker: caution or like, what am I doing? What are my colleagues going to think of me? Did you have any of that hesitancy? Very good question. And you do, I think, accurately.
Speaker: say that a lot of academicians are reluctant to to be activists. and espouse causes. But let me give you a little background, both of my my literary background and some of my... my attempts to be an activist.
Speaker: 1969, a few years after I went from Dartmouth College to the University of California, Santa Barbara, 1969, we had an oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel. It's kind of forgotten now.
Speaker: Made the national headlines, mid -world headlines, oil -soaked birds. Um, Not sufficient safeguards for the environment. and for the tourist economy.
Speaker: Uh, And in 1970, the first anniversary of that, I wrote a... at the at the uh urging of the
Speaker: Organizing. people who were fighting the oil spill which continued by the way. It wasn't just like a one -day spill. It just kept going and going and going. I wrote... um Something called the Santa Barbara Declaration of Environmental Rights.
Speaker: And I wrote it on a sailboat. Uh, in one day. Took out deliberately Simplify, thorough. Took out. A pad of paper.
Speaker: Cancel. and the Declaration of Independence. And I used Jefferson's Declaration as a model for what I was going to do. and I wrote a Declaration of Environmental Rights.
Speaker: Same way Jefferson did. Talked about that. problems. Talked about the solutions. I had a preamble. like Jefferson did with those famous words about Uh,
Speaker: certain inalienable natural rights. I talked about... environmental rights. I talked about Following Leopold. Um,
Speaker: the rights of nature. And... It received a good deal of attention. But I didn't get... too much too much criticism from my senior colleagues. They did wonder why I started right away.
Speaker: Um, sponsoring or concepts like Earth Day, which the first one occurred. Four months later, in April of 1970, And I also...
Speaker: As an assistant professor, non -tenured, started the Environmental Studies program. interdisciplinary, problem -oriented,
Speaker: Time was ripe. for it First time I offered the class, I had 30 students. Next time I offered the main class, I had 300 students. And we had a major soon after that.
Speaker: One of the first in the country. I think it was the first. in the country now almost every campus including Duke, has an environmental studies by whatever name they call it.
Speaker: program. going on. And... i i' might I made it very clear that There have been a lot of oppressed minorities. and part of the American democratic tradition.
Speaker: has been to... to work for the rights of oppressed minorities. Um, Perhaps the most oppressed minority. Not blacks.
Speaker: Not natives, not women. nature. Nature is an oppressed minority. ah Why not? How about the salmon? How about the frigging salmon?
Speaker: You know? Talk about. about Civilization denying the rights. of something alive. There you have it.
Speaker: So... I did that. and I was also publishing a lot. I was also doing a lot of I had huge classes. You see There's a difference between a...
Speaker: I don't know if you follow baseball at all, but if If you're really hitting 390. You can get away with a lot of stuff. that if you're hitting 190, you can't. I see. So you were hitting 390 with the big courses. And my department said, this guy's pretty good.
Speaker: yeah We're lucky to have him. He's got more students than all the rest of the department combined. And he's hitting 390. So I was lucky. i Let's face it.
Speaker: I want to touch on island civilization, but we're on an interesting... path here. I want to follow it for a little bit. I was reading the America What was that called? America Earth. I think was edited by Bill McKibben, ah a large collection of of environmental themed essays. And it goes all the way from Thoreau to modern day. And I think...
Speaker: As you look at like the first hundred years you know from Thoreau, let's say through the 60s. it's It's a lot about protecting. scenery, landscapes. wilderness and then um the environmental movement.
Speaker: expands considerably. it's about environmental justice. It's about climate change. much class about food systems and ah and on and on. And I'm wondering where you think we are. right now. with wilderness.
Speaker: Do you think we've kind of is Is our interest in wilderness... on pause because we're focused on this other stuff. Are we lagging in our interest in wilderness? How do you generally feel about how we as a country are thinking about wilderness right now?
Speaker: Very good question, Ken. Very well articulated. Um... I believe that the Wilderness Movement that I detailed in Willamette's American Mind book. 1967 first edition.
Speaker: I believe the wilderness movement was pretty much an anthropocentric. story. Human -centered. Things like scenery. Recreation.
Speaker: Economics, by that I mean tourist economics. Let's set aside this national park. People come. Be good for business. Scenery, recreation, economics. And also...
Speaker: Art. and also religion. And also... moral philosophy. All these were kind of human things. Um, And I began to realize fairly early on, maybe back about the time of the oil spill,
Speaker: that um Perhaps... The real value of wilderness is not so much as an asset. for Humans. And it is a... um Sanctuary for other forms of life.
Speaker: and it will be regarded and should be regarded. as a... um Civilization. other than our own. That's a throwing phrase.
Speaker: He said, wilderness is a civilization other than our own. If so, it should have rights. leading on to the concept of the rights of nature. Title of my 1989 book that you know of.
Speaker: Rights of Nature. So I was kind of following this thread, and I think the anthropocentric... thread of valuing wilderness. Might have kind of...
Speaker: petered out or hit its hits Crest. You know, at the top of the tennis ball. as Agassiz used to say. ah when you want to hit it. And I kind of hit it.
Speaker: at the top. But then it was like, well, black people aren't going there. And, you know, it's a pain in the ass. and development and there's Trump and Where I think the future...
Speaker: is going. So we're going to move through this anthropocentric. into what I call an ecocentric. defense of wilderness. You know what that means.
Speaker: an eco -centric defense of it. as a civilization other than our own. as the homeland of other species, as in the words of Howard Sennheiser,
Speaker: The Wilderness Act of 1964. Where humans will be. Important word here. Visitors. who do not remain.
Speaker: visitors who do not remain. I think that kernel... that word, that phrase. was what led me on to the concept of island civilization. Can we be visitors who do not remain? Can we be...
Speaker: Not selfish. but unselfish. about. R. technology. 10, and this is an important. statement. Can technology, for the first time in human history,
Speaker: Be an aid. to protecting. Nature. rather than exploiting it. run your mind Run your mind back. everything from fire on through.
Speaker: All right. Just yesterday, as I was doing some research for my book, um I had on someone from the University of an Edinburgh. or and one of the things he was working on is an eco robot to plant seagrass and kind of uh Damaged.
Speaker: marine ecosystems. In Scotland. What is it like? for you to kind of watch some of these emerging technologies. come into being, whether it's ah ecological engineering, ecological robot robotics.
Speaker: um genetic work. uh de -extinction what is it like to kind of see some of this happening right now ah Unlike the robots. Um,
Speaker: When I talk about technology, ah becoming a ah asset, high technology becoming an asset. I mean... And. um implosion, not explosion, an implosion. of our civilization thanks to high technology. where we can take away the dams.
Speaker: You can take away the roads. No more Roman in that damn van, Ken. Take away. We can take away. I don't have the van anymore. It's okay. That's good. Or you can take away the fences.
Speaker: where we can take away the idea of having to have food grown in fields. and pastures and ranges. because of technology. Remember, in island civilization, I'm talking a thousand years out there.
Speaker: thousand years. Think of what's happened in the last 50. thousand years. Yeah. So... um Technology for the first time.
Speaker: not giving us a bigger stick. to beat wilderness. But giving... Us. and by wilderness I mean the whole non -human ecosystem.
Speaker: where man is a visitor who shall not remain. a civilization other than our own. Simple phrase. Leave it alone. Just leave it alone. No robots.
Speaker: Just leave it alone. See what happens. Who knows what will happen? in a thousand years or ten thousand. Maybe those megafauna will come back. Mhm. we they we we didn't We weren't very good neighbors to them, were we?
Speaker: Sadly not. So let's let's say... as a hypothetical scenario. That um you're. reincarnated, you're you're you're born in the year...
Speaker: 31 26 or something like that and you're born into a An island. Civilization. you can choose your region the the northeast the the west coast the rockies I think you first imagined about 500 communities and then you were like, okay, we there can be a lot more or less, whatever.
Speaker: what would your What would you want your life? to be like. um coming from this island civilization i'm guessing you're not gonna dick inside the civilization for the whole time you're probably going to go out for a wander but how would you imagine An ideal life unfolding. And this. futuristic, speculative vision.
Speaker: That's a very good question. And... Well, the first thing kind of to say is that island civilization as I articulated in the fifth edition of the Wilderness Book.
Speaker: they're also There are also ah intimations of that ideas or leaves. 18 as 1990 in some articles that I that i did. but um That concept of well what about the outside?
Speaker: ah These islands... Let's make it clear. are highly civilized. And by this time people are... So plugged in. to their technology.
Speaker: That's a are content. to live, many of them. silly people. I have a couple of granddaughters like that. silly people. Um,
Speaker: But then there's the outside. Well, I have a couple ideas. I didn't spell them all out. because really what I was doing in Island Civilization was putting forward a vision.
Speaker: Martin Luther King called it a dream. He didn't have all the details. I don't have all the details. But I do. I can't answer the kind of question that you posed, which is, well, what would you do? What would you want to do? Were you living there? Mm -hmm Okay, well option option one would be to commit to living. outside.
Speaker: And I'm calling it outside of these islands, these highly civilized islands. that produce our food, that produce our water. that produce our knowledge and entertainment. than our basis for us to go to the stars.
Speaker: But outside...
Speaker: There could be an option. for people living out there permanently. If they did so... They would have to. use this sort of old cliche, live off the land.
Speaker: They would have to be wilderness people. and forego. Modern medicine. Forego modern comforts. Two.
Speaker: Truly say, I'm walking away. from high -tech civilization. Not for a week. Maybe forever. Or maybe every five years they can revisit it.
Speaker: There's some novels about that. Um, There also might be opportunities to to go out there, and this was where I would see myself fitting into it. Opportunities 2.
Speaker: to savor and learn from. V. intensely high -tech civilization that we will have in a thousand years. Let's keep remembering, in a thousand years. Mm hmm. where All knowledge.
Speaker: that's ever been will be in our heads. where we speak every language. but we listen to every at the same time to every music. that's been written. I'm guessing here. I'm dreaming It's science fiction.
Speaker: Watch out. You know, there's a lot of science fiction that kind of came true. what I would do. Were I living in island civilization a thousand years from now? I would.
Speaker: I would teleport. And I think that will be available. I would teleport. into CodeStream. Alaska or into - Cold foot. Cold foot. Yes. Cold foot. or i would I would teleport into some place.
Speaker: And I would bring some equipment. um And I would. attempt to live out there without without Driving out or flying out. Again, going back to my last... study without without flying in everywhere.
Speaker: but maybe teleporting into a certain spot. and then being able to say, walk the length of the Grand Canyon. or Or walk. the Scottish coastline. which would be wild.
Speaker: Um, And that... um Uh... and then come back. and then come back without taking from. that wildness Being a good guest. being a good visitor.
Speaker: Good job. remain, a good visitor who does not remain. I would be that visitor. And I would come back. into The high -tech world.
Speaker: Because as Thoreau said, it's nice to have both. It's nice to have modernity and it's nice to have... wilderness. One kind of... Practical. question. You know, when you're out in this speculative island civilization world we're living in a thousand years from now You know, you kind of got you got to survive in the wild. You're going to be... collecting nuts, you're going to be collecting berries, maybe you're fishing.
Speaker: Have you wondered about kind of where you draw the line in terms of you know killing other things? Are we allowed... the Clovis spear point or do we have to kind of go pre -Clovis technology? I'm guessing you don't imagine rifles.
Speaker: um arm us armed with rifles in this futuristic scenario. I believe that... people who were outside. could um take take other lives.
Speaker: perhaps with not rifles, but in some manner. as long as they were Consumed. And done. reverently and respectfully. I'm going back to sort of some kind of native idea here too.
Speaker: Um... but not attempting to build up a Elon Musk fortune. or in any way harvest. and sell. or create an economy.
Speaker: or create a Keystone pipeline. Out there. But to go out there. and live. and to take a fish. Maybe to kill a deer.
Speaker: Um, the ah Whole idea would be not to. try to bring civilization out into that country. the I frontier idea. Right?
Speaker: America did. The frontier idea. We start with the mountain men. We start with Lewis and Clark. We go right up here to Las Vegas. Wrong direction. Let's see if we can go the other direction.
Speaker: Let's see if we can take a Las Vegas, make it a whole lot nicer. to live in. And. Have that desert. Not connected to LA by a road.
Speaker: But have that desert out there. You want to go out into the desert? You want to take a bighorn? for your own personal use and your family. Do that. Mhm.
Speaker: It's fun to think about the future because it can kind of get you outside of the present. you're like oh 2026. maybe not the best year in the history of the earth, of humanity.
Speaker: But maybe in a thousand years, we'll have come to our senses and sorted it out. So it's kind of like you can kind of live in two worlds. at once um And what what do you yeah what do you actually think about...
Speaker: 2026? Because I think if I were to ask most Americans, what do you think of the state of the health of nature, the health of conservation in 2026, people would say, oh, you know we got Trump. he's not uh an environmentally friendly president he's Pulling back here and there.
Speaker: But you, as a historian... You can think from... you know like a a centuries -wide view I mean, wilderness in the American mind, you're going back hundreds. of years so you can kind of see like if not thousands into the old testament era Exactly, yeah. So you're able to kind of...
Speaker: take a much broader view. of things. So. Taking a step back from 2026, the Trump administration. What do you...
Speaker: See as the. presents the trend. in conservation? Is this a positive trend? Is it ah is it a negative trend? I've been writing letters. can too mine.
Speaker: great -grandchildren. I have three now. great -grandchildren. I know you have a daughter. Um, How was your daughter? Six years old. Six years old. Okay, my great -grandchildren's film.
Speaker: under three. I wrote them letters. Meld it to them. and they were put on their bookcase by their parents. And one day they'll read them. After I'm gone, I'm sure they'll read those letters.
Speaker: And... In those letters, I said, If you live as as long as I did, It'll be... 21.
Speaker: 26.
Speaker: You know, it'll be about 100 years from now. And... If you live... up to the thousand years. You won't live that long, but if civilization persists to a thousand years Uh...
Speaker: there will be Radical change. and challenges. And I sketched some of those out to them and I... Wish them.
Speaker: Success! I said, I hope. that I can count on you to help deal with those challenges. And...
Speaker: That's... um Kind of where I'm thinking right now is that We will see. a massive collapse of human population on this planet.
Speaker: In. a thousand years, maybe in a hundred years. A massive collapse. There's several ways. It sounds pretty gloomy. i ah you're I think there's a considerable...
Speaker: Um, reason to think. Things are gloomy. And... um even if population begins to curve down. in parts of the world. As you point out, it already is.
Speaker: There will be some other really big threats out there. That will. Allow. those people who Survive it too. sit down and sort of Think a little bit about how to restructure civilization.
Speaker: Do we want to just do the same thing we're doing now or do we want to think a little bit about... the concept of island civilization. And do we want to think a bit a little bit about the rights of nature. and about how many of these things we're doing. nuclear war being. One.
Speaker: is going to wipe out not only a lot of people but a lot of life on the planet. that don't deserve to be wiped out. What about their rights? ah So maybe we'll have we'll have a chance to start again.
Speaker: A new world. American history. I'm an American historian. Let me think a little bit about that. Coming in, the Anglo -American civilization coming in. to the new world.
Speaker: Um... New start. Garden of Eden. Again, we got kicked out of the first one. How about this one? Cataclysm as...
Speaker: opportunity. Do you think a cataclysm needs to happen. for us to kind of radically shift how we reside on this earth, or can it come from a slow and gradual...
Speaker: Evolution. and thought. Well, you're putting your finger on something important here to great motivations. Love. and fear. Those are the two love and fear.
Speaker: Um... Love. being associated with what you're talking a little about there at the end of your sentence. fear being. Hey. Response 2. some of these cataclysms that I've been talking about, some human cause cataclysms.
Speaker: and We need to... Harness. the power. in both those. um in one or the other we need to... harness the power.
Speaker: Fear is very powerful. Love is very powerful. Um, I for one at this point. betting on fear.
Speaker: Hmm. I'm betting on fear. I'm betting on a major cataclysm. And. Um... a rebuilding.
Speaker: possibly successful, maybe not successful. what are your What are your motivations with the boat? Is it... Is it to be? close to nature? Is it to have the solitude? How would you articulate it?
Speaker: I would articulate it the way Thoreau articulated it. where he talked about Living life. deliberately. where we talked, and you know these phrases.
Speaker: where he talked about sucking out the marrow. of life. And I sort of decided, you know, I'm 87 years old. Maybe i I ought to try to suck out the marrow of life.
Speaker: And maybe a cell phone isn't going to be essential to do that. Maybe I should be writing in a journal. Maybe I should be watching every sunset and watching every tide.
Speaker: and looking at rocks. and trying to measure visually when the high tide when the slack tide occurred when the high tide started to go down. again. ah You can look at that once.
Speaker: You can look at it 10 times. You can look at it 60 times. And maybe by the 60th time... You you develop some kind of Rachel Carson again, Sense of Wonder.
Speaker: Maybe you develop a sense of wonder. that you didn't have when you saw it the first time. Um,
Speaker: So I did try to travel much in Concord. I tried to travel much. in this in this one environment and I deliberately didn't. go from place to place.
Speaker: with all due respect, like you have done. A lot. you've traveled a lot. You have been... in different places every night. And I know you Spade maybe spent a lot of time in one base in Alaska.
Speaker: but a lot of your books concern roaming. and the concept of roaming is TRAVELING And maybe... what we need. To really get into the heart of things is kind of what the Buddhist monks who lived in there. high mountain caves.
Speaker: for 40 years. Dead. Maybe they found the lotus blossom. that those of us who roam, and I've done my share of roaming. Of course, when you travel down a whitewater river, you're traveling every day.
Speaker: So, just something to think about. ah Perhaps... Thoreau was right. We need to simplify. Right? Important word for him. We need to simplify. We need to slow down.
Speaker: We need to Observe. i tried wish i had I wish I had your island civilizations because then I could roam. As much as I wanted to across... ah North America. I'm curious, you've you've brought up your age.
Speaker: A few times. already you 87 Is there something about... Being in your 80s that Makes you... more reflective of of your life or...
Speaker: how you want to live. And I'm guessing, by the way, the people listening to this... They're like, there's no way he's 80. His voice sounds like ah a 50 -year -old. You've got a lot of vitality. in it but Yeah, you've mentioned it a few times. So...
Speaker: Well, let's see. how to how to approach that. um When you're in your late 80s, ah you you you immediately... have the realization that you know I'm not going to live forever.
Speaker: I may not live. Pass today. Every sunrise is special. Every sunset is special. When you... are 27. or you are perhaps about 37. 43. I'll take that as a compliment.
Speaker: uh you uh you know you You don't count those things very much. You say, oh, I... Somebody asks you, well, how many more sunsets do you think you'll see, Ken? you know, I mean it's like a non -question.
Speaker: But for me, it's it's a serious question. It's a real question. And do I want to see those sunsets? in a canyon. of streets in New York City? like where I came from.
Speaker: Or do I want to try to see those sunsets over the Grand Canyon? or maybe over the Pacific Ocean. So... You begin to... Hoard I use that word, kind of hoard. You've heard of hoarders. Maybe you begin to hoard.
Speaker: some of these special moments and try to seek them out because you realize that They're limited. And that... that realization is something that You would have a hard time understanding, not because...
Speaker: you you are. articulate. or unintelligent but because of your age. And you would be twice, I mean, I'm twice your age. So.
Speaker: you would be perhaps ah more responsive or every. people would tend to be more responsive. to the things I'm saying as they get older. Of course, there are a lot of things I can't do anymore. I can't go out and and climb the peaks.
Speaker: But... I can try to savor. some of the opportunities that I've had. You know, I've been down the Grand Canyon 70 times, seven of them.
Speaker: times. that's more than my share. Fair share. And... um I can go back and save her. some of those moments This next question I want to ask because it's it's relevant. To me.
Speaker: Um, And you've... lived a remarkably rich life around writing. teaching. you these river expeditions.
Speaker: I'm wondering if that's ever come into conflict with um being a family man. as well and i asked because i'm a a bit addicted to my to my work i love working. i love I love having a family, but there is a tension there. And I'm wondering if...
Speaker: um that tension existed for you. as well. Yeah, you're right about that. there you do If you're going to pursue... Um, a a career or Uh,
Speaker: A life of adventure travel you have to walk away from. a lot of family stuff. You know you and I You were a little older when I had my kids. I had my kids very young when I was like 21, 22. I had a six -year -old when I was...
Speaker: 27. I was teaching my daughter to drive when I was 36. Drive. Uh, had a lot of energy back then. Um, And I was able to.
Speaker: She. get a lot of Um. Outdoor adventure. At the same time, as I had the family.
Speaker: I'm not sure I could have been a better, I think I probably could have been a better father. Better husband. Had I... been able to walk away from. Things like the Grand Canyon.
Speaker: and all the other white water. In. the West. that I realized by 1978. I was the only person in the world that had had run. All those rivers. I wrote a book about it.
Speaker: cold. The Big. drops. 10 legendary rapids in the American West. 1978, published by the Sierra Club. Um...
Speaker: Yeah, I did that. um I actually took... my family on some of those trips. And... um That I...
Speaker: That was, to me, a good thing. Yeah. My daughter, who you just talked to earlier in this podcast, and help set it up. had no doubt by 12 years old run more white war than anybody in the world.
Speaker: And she ah went on to become a PhD and a dean. Dean it. in college. So things work out. Maybe they could have been better.
Speaker: Maybe I could have run more rivers. Maybe I could have been a better father house husband and father. But at a certain point you realize so that you play the hands that you're dealt. Play it as well as you can.
Speaker: Maybe it could be played better. but you played it as well as you can and if you If you feel kind of... Content with that idea, That's a good place to be.
Speaker: Mhm. Well, Roderick Nash, it's been... Um, An honor. to speak with you today. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ken. Very good luck with your...
Speaker: Um... Writing career. Your new book. What's the title of your new book going to be? The Future of the Wild? i'm I'm taking a more optimistic approach. to to the world. I hope we can enjoy this in this millennium and not have to wait to the next one. I'm calling it... the future the future wild.
Speaker: Um, So... We'll see. I hope I'm right. The future wild. That's great. I hope i hope you are, and but I'd be wary of those so robots.
Speaker: Uh, working. End. receding things. ah remember the idea of being a visitor who does not remain. And...
Speaker: Concept, very simple. of restraint. The one word. The one word. Remember the graduate film? One word. What's that one word?
Speaker: In his case it was plastics. That's right. Remember that film? it's been It's been a long time since I've seen it, um but yeah. Uh... The one word is restraint.
Speaker: Let it alone. Restrain. Restrain it. restraint. If you want to really respect other forms of life. Um... Take the dams out.
Speaker: There's a little movement toward that now. I've seen that. um and As long as we keep gardening.
Speaker: You see, gardening is not wilderness. gardening is almost the opposite of it as long as we keep start gardening and keep gardening Sounds like those robots are doing a form of gardening. Um,
Speaker: We think, oh, we can move species around. we can Create. New species, possibly. Um, all a form of gardening. There's something to be just respectful for the odyssey of evolution Let it go.
Speaker: doesn't need our help. Didn't need our help to get here.
Speaker: Can we be humble? Wilderness preservation is a gesture of planetary humility.
Speaker: My final word.
Speaker: This was the Out of the Wild Podcast. Original music. by Duncan Barrett. For more episodes, Subscribe to my sub stack.
