csenvs3000-2018-blog

[csenvs3000-2018-blog]

Hey Steph,

Great post, I love how you’ve added guiding questions throughout to get us thinking as we read. There’s one part in particular that really stood out to me,  and that’s when you talk about respect and how, in addition to respecting your participants, you also have to respect nature itself. It reminded me of a story from 2 years ago when I was in Australia. (Thinking now, I may have told you this one or a similar one at work one night).

One of my first major outings from the city of Perth was to a tiny island off the coast of Rockingham (Rocko, to the locals). It is named Penguin island for the population of Little Penguins that lives there, and one of my coworkers in the Department of Parks and Wildlife was conducting a long-term monitoring study on them. I was invited out to help with observations, which ultimately saw me hiding in a bush with an infrared scope counting penguins coming back to the island after dark. Given that this was an overnight trip, we ended up staying in a small cabin on the island, and in the morning, my coworker George asked me if I wanted to go for a morning run and a swim in the ocean. Important point of information, at this point in my life I was terrified of ANY ocean, not to mention the Indian Ocean with all of its crazy deadly sea creatures. Regardless I said yes and went out with him. As we got to the beach and started wading in, he could see I was scared and asked me what I was afraid of. I told him about my fear of the ocean and he said something that I doubt I’ll soon forget: “Calder, you don’t have the afraid of the ocean as long as you have a healthy respect for it”. (Okay, so what he actually said was a little more vulgar with a tad more name-calling, but the general idea remained).

After a bit more explaining, I really started to grasp what he was telling me. As long as I recognized that the ocean was dangerous, and actively worked to keep myself safe, I had no reason to be afraid. This was a really nice change of pace as, in my experience, Australians LOVE to freak out foreigners. Regardless, I took that lesson with me for the rest of the trip and ended up conquering that fear pretty well, eventually getting in the water with sharks, coming face-to-face with a wobbegong, having a near-miss with stonefish and stingray alike, and ultimately jumping in beyond the break to brush shoulders with a whale shark.

Long story short, I think that the lesson to respect nature is incredibly important, because it dually works to help people escape their comfort zone while also affording them a degree of safety, as there is safety in knowledge and safety in respect. 

Thank you for this thought-provoking post and for bringing back some pleasant memories to me.

-Calder

The Journey, and Why You Shouldn’t Stop Believing

What striked me this week was Personal ethic, this is a fairly big topic as I find ethics or personal beliefs are not always something that can truly be freely expressed. However, as a nature interpreter it is an important tool to help you show your appreciation for nature, but also to relate to the way others appreciate nature. The idea of having ethics or beliefs is something that everyone shares.

I would say my personal ethics which relate to nature and interpretation, is first and foremost respect! This is a major principle for me, because although I may sound like a second grade teacher, this concept has always directed how I aim to treat people. I always think how can anyone expect to be respected if you do not give it to others. The first area in which respect is key for me in nature interpretation is to those I am are interpreting to! It is not my goal to show off to those I meet and to make them feel as though I am so much smarter than them, because in fact even though I may know a lot about nature those I meet could have a vast amount of knowledge in other subjects. The best part of nature interpretation and meeting so many people is the many things you can gain from each of these people!

If you do not develop this trust and earn the respect of the people you are speaking to, they will in no way be as receptive to what you share. Respect for the nature around you is another way in which I use my ethics and beliefs as I interpret nature. 

(Rattlesnake Point, Milton. By gaining people’s trust and respect you can push them to escape their comfort zone)

One of the main reasons we bring people outside to learn more about our amazing world is to enhance their respect for it! When someone respects something they care for it, my goal as a nature interpreter is to not only teach the art of appreciation, but the art of appreciation through respect. More importantly, I must also show this respect as an example, not simply due to my position as a nature interpreter but simply as someone who loves nature and will work hard to preserve it. I am an example to those around be, and if I don’t practice what I preach, why would someone even bother to listen?

In light of this, if I were to ask you was respect a personal ethic of mine or a belief, what would you say?

I know I would be pretty confused because frankly they seem to be the same, respect could very well be a belief or an ethic!

How about if we now turn the tables towards you? In one sentence describe,

What do you believe?

What are your ethics?

For me personally, a belief is much stronger as it has a personal connection to you. Ethics on the other hand are usually shared by more than one person in a common way. So in terms of being asked what do I believe, and how has that developed. I can most simply say, 

(Me bravely holding a praying mantis in the University of Guelph Arboretum)

I believe in beauty, and in taking a moment to take it all in, I believe in nature as a healing tool to energize and lift your spirits! I believe that anyone who sets their minds and hearts to it can accomplish anything, and how you may ask will I use these beliefs as a nature interpreter? Well that is in the answer as to how they have developed.

I have come to learn that your beliefs, although they may not be shared by everyone can be a form of inspiration! When you believe in something long enough and allow your actions to mimic this belief, people begin to question. This is where you tell them your story, do not impose your beliefs on others, that’s not what they are for, rather use those beliefs to spark your excitement and your interest. Who knows that could also lead to you igniting a spark in someone else!

With this, as do many things, comes great responsibility. I have come to learn that as a nature interpreter it is your job, to ignite that spark and provide them with a way to keep that burning. You can easily be responsible for establishing that person’s passion, but what does it amount to if after they leave it becomes extinguished? 

Even more so, the responsibility of those who have joined you on your walk, or camp trip are now your responsibility, sure they may be older than you but you are the one who knows the environment in which they are in, therefore giving you the upper hand and the most responsibility. You need to be prepared for any situation, whether it be an injury or a question you don’t know how to answer. As a nature interpreter people are entrusting you to take them o an adventure and to bring them out of their comfort zone whilst bringing them back home safe as well.

The approaches I think are most suitable for me in relation to the Gifts of interpretation are the Gift of Story, or the Gift of Provocation. I love telling stories, because this is a way I can relate to people, through my experiences people can better understand what I am trying to inform them of. If the story reflects how I want them to see nature it gives them a real life example by also providing them with an open platform to share their stories as well!

The Gift of provocation is really close to me as well! I am the kind of person who loves to be provided with suggestions of what they can do next after they have learned so much. In this way, I try to always work to provide this to others as well. If you give people the tools to take action, they are more likely to do so, since you have taken some of work off of them. 

(Forks of Credit Provincial park )

These are the abilities I have learned work the best for me but this course has taught me to learn more about those abilities that I do not have, and to work to use those as well!

I want to know what are the best ways you interpret nature to your friends, family or even for work. Not only in terms of your gifts of interpretation but even a really amazing experience that made you realize that talent or ability!  

[csenvs3000-2018-blog]

Hi Julia,

Your post here was an interesting read. The way you discussed the ways that you’ve been exposed to nature interpretation prior to this class especially got me thinking about similar events in my own life. I find it really cool how anybody can be a nature interpreter in a casual setting. Like you said on the road trip, while the people you were with were knowledgeable about nature, they weren’t necessarily professional interpreters. That said, they still managed to get through to you in some way.

That brings forward an interesting question: as people with knowledge about nature, is it our duty to become interpreters in a casual setting? If we are travelling with someone who is totally oblivious to the working of the natural world, and we choose not to help them understand it, have we failed them in some way?

Completely aside from that, how cool is Cairns? I got the opportunity to travel there 2 years ago, and while I didn’t spend much time there, I definitely got a lot out of it. Australia is such a playground for nature people because its set of ecosystems are one of a kind. North Queensland is a prime example of this, with the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef both right there, I’m glad to hear that you got as much out of your time there as I got from mine.

Hello, and welcome to my last blog post!

I’m in my fourth year, and this June I will be graduating. A lot of you are in your fourth year as well, but I’m sure that even those of you in your third year are beginning to sense the incoming end of your undergraduate degree and what that means. I know for certain that I want to pursue a Master’s degree, and I have a general idea of which schools and programs I want to apply to, however I don’t know if I want to take a break between my degrees to work or travel. Obviously, having choices is much better than not having choices, but it can sometimes feel like I keep finding new things I get excited about, and the list keeps growing instead of getting shorter. The point of this ramble is: I didn’t think when taking this course that I would come out the other end considering Nature Interpretation as a job. I knew it sounded interesting, and it would be a good skill to hone, but throughout the semester I feel like I’ve been noticing how small events in my life have been nudging me towards it. 

The summer of grade 10, my mom, sister, and I joined my mom’s best friend from university, his wife, and his son on a road trip from Seattle to Chicago. Their whole family is huge on nature and camping, and they have a plethora of knowledge on plants, animals, and the natural world – the dad is a zoologist who now works for the state of Illinois on managing invasive species, the mom is a wildlife photographer amongst her many hobbies, and the son is a veterinarian and a scoutmaster at the camp my sister and I also went to in Poland. Over the years, they have all taught me so much on topics on the environment that my mom (who studied child psychology) and my dad (who studied civil engineering) don’t always know too much about. Anyways, one of our stops was Yellowstone National Park. After interacting with our first park ranger there, my sister made a comment along the lines of ‘I can totally imagine that being you in the future’. That was meant as a joke, especially since at that point in my life I thought I wanted to be a dentist.

In April of this year I was in northern Queensland with friends on my first ever white-water rafting trip. I had such a great time and discovered I may have a passion for this crazy activity. Our guide’s name was Malcolm and he is definitely qualified for the top 10 coolest people I have ever met. He’s from a town in Minnesota, and had done his master’s in marine biology. After that he spent almost a year kayaking around the United States with a friend, until the white water rafting company discovered him from his Instagram and contacted him about a job. Now he’s been living in Australia for over a year and plans to continue doing it for as long as he can. He had an easy going demeanour, but he knew when to stop joking around and get us to concentrate on paddling when things began getting dangerous. He knew a lot about the river, the animals (and crocodiles!) and rainforest around us, and casually integrated facts into our conversations. I didn’t realize how much I had learned until the end of the day! I don’t know if he had been trained as a nature interpreter as part of his job, or if he did this naturally without realizing it, but after the adventure was over I was left with the impression that I want to do exactly what he does and become a white water rafting guide. Check out his Instagram, he’s a pretty interesting person

In September, we all visited the arboretum, and Chris Earley began the walk with an introduction about himself. He had done his undergrad in zoology and thought he had his career all planned out, until he spent a summer working as a nature interpreter in Bruce Peninsular National park and fell in love with it. It made me think how sometimes we find ourselves doing something completely different from what was planned, but that’s exactly where we were meant to be.

My friends and I, making our way through the rapids in Cairns, Australia.

I can’t say if I’m reading into these events too much, or if the universe is hinting that Nature Interpretation is my calling, but even if I don’t make a career of it, this course has taught me ‘gifts’ that I can continue to use in daily life. There are three gifts that I think made an impact on me in this course:

The gift of provocation: If people can see how much you are passionate about something, it leads by example and they can get inspired as well. Not only as a nature interpreter, but as an environmentalist, I hope that my passion for things will generate a spark of interest in others to get them interested in the things I talk about

The gift of targeted programs: Interpreting for different groups (like different age groups) should change the approach you take with delivering information. Outside of nature interpretation, I will put more conscious of tailoring my conversations to the individual. Not that I think I didn’t do so before, but reading this gift brought me more awareness to it. This also ties into the concept of invisible backpacks, and acknowledging that the experiences I have are exclusive to me, and not everyone has the same privileges.

The gift of professionalism: Interpretation takes practice, and you need background knowledge before you can develop your own style. Some people are afraid of public speaking, and a public speaking ability comes with practice. Throughout the semester I have developed a better understanding of my interpretation style (as I had never done it before), and have learned some new skills for public speaking, something I am still terrible at.

I hope to continue learning about becoming a better nature interpreter, as I believe these skills are not exclusive to the career, but can be applied in day to day life. Thanks for making it this far, it’s been a helluva ride! Peace out!

[csenvs3000-2018-blog]

Interpretation: Not For the Weak-Hearted

When we went around the room on the first day of class, discussing our experience with interpretation, I didn’t have much of an answer. In fact, my answer was somewhere along the lines of “honestly, I don’t even know what nature interpretation is, and I’m here to find out”.

Over the course of the semester I’ve learned some solid foundations to help me figure out just what nature interpretation is. I’ve learned the basic principles of planning, running, and evaluating a walk. I’ve learned about how to balance risk to make sure that a program isn’t too boring or too scary. I’ve been able to, on multiple occasions, see professionals in the field interpreting nature and setting an example. The funny thing is, if you were to ask me today what nature interpretation is, I still don’t think I’d be able to answer. This isn’t however, because I’ve learned nothing. This is because I’ve learned one very important thing: nature interpretation can be done an infinite amount of ways. Interpretation is as much an art form as anything; the art of grabbing an audience’s attention and holding it through a presentation, ensuring each member walks away with something.

This leaves me to consider where I fit into the world of interpretation. I think that I bring a very specific view of the field with me, and as such have broken my ethic as an interpreter into three fundamental principles:

1)      Let people be free to discover on their own. In my opinion, the best way to learn is through experience.  Someone once told me that “experience is a bitch of teacher, but it’s a damn good one”, and as I consider this, I begin to realize how many of the lessons that I will never forget are ones that I learned from experience. Because of experience, I know that if a mountain bike trail is marked as “professionals only”, one should probably listen to it or risk some serious wipe-outs. Because of experience, I know that reef sharks are only going to chase you if you run from them: the best thing to do is stand your ground. Because of experience, I know that some of the best stories come from times when you had no plan, no idea, and no direction. This is something that I think everyone should experience, and as much as I can teach people facts and lessons about nature, few of them will truly grasp my point until they learn it from experience.

(What do you do with a single free day in Victoria? Follow vague directions to a local knowledge spot and climb out over a 200+ foot drop into a gorge of course. No plan, no idea, no direction - just four guys and a goal)

2)      Life begins outside of your comfort zone. Contrary to what we spoke about in class, I’m a firm believer that people should be constantly challenged, and that the best way to experience nature is to constantly put yourself in a state of discomfort. When I’m home for the holidays, I’ll often go for walks through the forest near my house. Its easy to get to and a good way to spend an afternoon. Last year, however, I decided I didn’t want to do that anymore because I’d grown up in that forest and it wasn’t new anymore. Instead of walking the same trail, I ended up bushwhacking and doing some off-trail exploring. I ended up in waist-deep snow. I found an abandoned hobo camp. I tracked a deer for 40 minutes, trespassed on in a farmer’s field, and still couldn’t find it. And best of all, I got hopelessly lost. I found myself in a very uncomfortable position: I had no idea where I was and was running out of daylight. Now, before I go any further its important to mention that this forest isn’t massive; I knew I could walk in any direction for under two hours and figure out where I am (I’ve been briefly but genuinely lost in an expansive forest before and its not something I’m eager to do again – see section 1). However, trudging through the snow trying to find something familiar afforded me two benefits. First, I began to notice little things in the environment that I hadn’t before in my desperate attempt to find something familiar. And second, I felt more alive than I had in a long time. All I had was myself and my skills to rely on. I trusted myself to find my way home, and I felt powerful when I eventually did. I do my best to do things that make me this kind of uncomfortable as often as I can - from illegally climbing through gorges in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia, to snorkeling with sharks and stonefish on the Ningaloo Reef, to boating into polar bear territory to collect firewood in the Cree Nation of Wemindji, to something as simple as walking through the Arboretum at night and trying not to jump at the shadows. The times in life when I am most exhilarated, and the times when I grow the most, are the times that I am deliberately uncomfortable. This is something that I think people need more than ever in a time when so much of our society and technology is focused on keeping us comfortable (read: numb).

(”What do you mean we’re going past the stop sign? Isn’t that illegal?” “Yes it is, Calder, but you won’t believe what’s down there!”)

3)      Give no quarter. There are obvious exceptions to this one, but as a general rule I believe that most people are capable of that which they think they are not. Last year, I underwent surgery to fix a foot that had been broken for two years. While this surgery fixed the break itself, it didn’t fix the chronic pain that accompanied it, and since March I’ve lived in near constant pain. Despite this, I continue to live my life the way I did before the surgery, and before the break. It takes some more teeth-gritting, some extra care, and a lot of Tylenol, but I have been able to meet (and exceed) my limitations despite this injury. I’m now a part of a gold-medal winning Quidditch team, I run 8 kilometres almost daily, and I’m in the best shape of my life. I have had the good fortune to realize that my injury can’t hold me back, and as an interpreter I think this is an important concept to pass on. Anyone and everyone can be outdoorsy, in most cases the only thing holding people back from going on a hiking trip, jumping into a lake, or climbing a mountain are their own perceived limitations that stop them from trying in the first place.

(A fracture of the 5th metatarsal - broken for over two years...)

(...and 8 months later, a regional gold medalist) 

If I had to sum up my ‘style’ as an interpreter in a single word, I’d choose “unforgiving”. My ideal program is one that promoted experiential learning that will make you uncomfortable and realize the only thing holding you back all along was yourself.

[csenvs3000-2018-blog]

I thought your post was very timely and as a good read. The first things I thought of while reading the first part was “In Flanders Fields”, specifically the first stanza:  In Flanders fields the poppies blow/ Between the crosses, row on row, /That mark our place; and in the sky/ The larks, still bravely singing, fly /Scarce heard amid the guns below.

When I was a kid and studied that in school, the bit about the larks really stuck with me, and after reading your post I was reminded of why. In a time of great struggle, when so many resources and attention was being given to the humans in the war, it hadn’t occurred to me that the animals in those places were still around. The thought of the larks, who have no idea what is going on or why, still flying and living their lives in a warzone is really strange. They don’t know that they can leave - for all they know the entire world is like this. 

I would have to disagree with one point you made (sort of), where you discuss that we don’t want to scare people away from learning about war by revealing the grizzly details of it. I’m of the opinion that you can’t really learn about war without those details - looking at everything through a framework of respect and remembrance is very important, but it shouldn’t be the only way we teach people about it. Just as you say only looking at statistics can make the impacts of the war less human, I think that omitting the gruesome aspects of it to keep people in the room would also teach a false idea of what the truth is. 

Combatting change through remembrance

One of the things I find the most challenging yet exciting about nature interpretation is the role of change. Nature is by definition one of the least static things in existence. This can be impacted by anything from seasons, to weather, to disaster, to life cycles. Nothing will be the same as it has been so one object can be interpreted in different ways to adapt to these shifts. It can definitely be a challenge but it can also sharpen the interpreter’s ability and understanding of their content.

This week I want to focus on the interpretation of history though, not nature. History itself may not change, it happened the way it happened. However, the people, places, and retellings of history can change. As most of you know, today marks the 100th anniversary of armistice, the end to the first global conflict that left millions of lives and lands in ruin. I want to place particular emphasis on the ruin of the landscape for a moment. From all known accounts, the first world war left the land it consumed scarred and barren, void of any visible life. The trees were burned or destroyed, the ground just mud and water with no grass. Endless fields pocked with craters carved by the constant bombardment of artillery. It sounds like a sight a lot less like the Earth than part of it, but it was a reality. Today, these scars can still be seen, but only as a shadow of what once remained. Grasses and trees have come back to slowly occupy the land they were extirpated from. Soil shifts and some craters fill. There are of course still visible trenches and blowouts left from the fighting, at that scale how could there not be? But as I mentioned before, nature will always change regardless of what happens to it.

(Outside of Ypres in West Flanders, Belgium following the battle of Passchendaele. Sourced from flandersfieldsmusic.com).

This means we have to be careful. As the land slowly heals itself, we as a society cannot afford to ever let the memory fade as the physical scars do. That is why days like today are so important. The idea of remembrance is to reflect on what sacrifices had to be made to live the way we are able to today. We have to be able to understand our ability to enjoy peace and never take that for granted. This is where the importance of historical interpretation is most evident. War is not a very palatable thing, it is the most savage thing that we are a species are a capable of. So how do those responsible for teaching about it convey the immense gravity of the truth, while still engaging recipients without scaring them away from learning?

(Forest regrowth around artillery craters near Vimy Ridge, France. Source: Timsimages / Shutterstock).

I think the answer lies in respect, evident in today’s traditions. One could just teach the hard facts behind war. The innumerable casualties, the monetary damages, the political ramifications, the pain. The danger is if we look too analytically at something as raw as war we run the risk of disconnecting ourselves from it, especially as time passes. Instead, we are taught respect through remembrance. From a young age we are taught to understand the sacrifices that people just like us made to protect what they believed in. We make the connection clear between the peace we live in and the contrasting horrors faced to achieve it. We look at it through a human lens, allowing us to understand the significance of the scale of the lives lost. We remember them not as numbers but as people, and that creates a connection that time is unable to erase. I believe that as long as we can continue to teach history in this way, we can combat change and time and keep the memory alive for hundreds more years to come.

[csenvs3000-2018-blog]

Druids, Rangers, and the Presence of Nature in Dungeons and Dragons

You crawl on your hands and knees through a cave, your quiver on your back scraping on the rocky ceiling above you. The gnome in front of you having no trouble in the cramped space clutches her spellbook to avoid ruining it in the moist environment. Your elven friend behind you, morphing into the form of a spider, begins to crawl along the ceiling. As the cave opens up and you find yourself in a cavern, you begin to hear clicking and scraping on the walls. It echoes around ominously, a clear indication of the presence of that which you’ve come to slay - a hook horror.

(Your contract - find and slay the Hook Horror living beneath the city!)

This week I’m going to be writing on the presence and interpretation of nature in one of my favourite pass times – Dungeons and Dragons. In D&D, nature is always present. Often times it acts as an antagonist to the players; a series of obstacles to overcome, a hostile land to explore, or an angry animal that wants to eat the party in their sleep. There are, however, a few instances where nature is an ally to the players.

(The dice you use to play the game - d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d100, and the almighty d20)

Specifically, there are two character classes that are based strongly in nature. The ranger is a physical fighter with some minor magical abilities. They are skilled trackers, hunters, and get stronger when they are in certain ecosystems that they favour. At later levels, rangers can tame wild creatures as companions and naturally sense things that are out of place in nature. Druids, on the other hand, are spellcasters who use nature to fuel their magic. Their spells can create massive walls of stone, boil someone in their armour, and conjure magical animals to fight with them. Additionally, druids can shapeshift into beasts to augment their combat abilities.

(An example of a ranger - green armour, bow and arrow, and an animal companion)

Because of its fantasy setting, D&D players often find themselves adventuring in nature. With a competent enough dungeon master, this can lead to an immersive experience where people can actually feel like they’re in nature. A great example of this is in this clip, where the party’s ranger experiences a vision of a massive creature threatening her town. If you watch the clip up until the dungeon master says: “the hunt is on”, you’ll get an idea of how immersive the experience can be. When I watched that part for the first time, I could see everything in my minds eye, and though the dungeon master was describing a creature that doesn’t exist, I could envision it perfectly. (By the way, if you’re wonder what he was talking about, it’s a monster called a Grey Render).

Personally, I think the coolest thing about the way nature is portrayed in D&D is that it allows us to have a view that we don’t otherwise get. Nature, while varied and incredible, is pretty stagnant on a short time scale, and can be very similar spatially. If I want to see a tropical ecosystem in real life, I need to travel very far. By incorporating different ecosystems (even ones that don’t exist in real life) in a weekly game of D&D, you can do your best to simulate the experience of being in that ecosystem, and being connected to nature in that way as it powers your magic or sends you monsters to fight.

[csenvs3000-2018-blog]

Hey Lilly! I really like how you’ve taken something so common and spoken about it with such passion! I definitely learned some new stuff reading through this, like the entire concept of those mosses that look like trees (number 4).

They way you talked about trees in the beginning especially connected with me, specifically about redwoods and baobabs. There’s just something about seeing something so tall that isn’t made by people. When I was living in Australia, I went to visit King’s Park in Perth, which is a big botanical garden that overlooks the city. There, they have a massive boab tree (which is in the same genus as the baobab). The story behind it was amazing. It was standing in an area that was set to be developed, so to save it, they ended up trucking it down from the Kimberly to Perth. It was a really delicate job that garnered a lot of media attention. According to the (interpretive) sign in the park, people were out lining the streets to watch this tree get moved, and a lot of people were invested in its success.

I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but its amazing to think that a bunch of people were so invested in the successful movement of some that, day to day, seems pretty average.

Trees, please!

Forests cover about 30% of our planet, and provide our planet with so many important things: our air that we breathe, a place to rest, and a home to our flora and fauna. There is so much diversity in forests, and we often forget how interesting the complexity of trees can be. Trees, although quiet and solitary, are buzzing with life and energy, and perform amazing feats for survival! The inability to move does not stop trees from getting crafty in order to survive and reproduce, and there is always so much to learn from them. From the massive redwoods and baobabs, to the slender but beautiful birch, there is much to love about trees, and the amazing things they do for us. 

Without further ado, here are 5 AMAZING things about trees you probably didn’t know about:

1. Trees communicate with eachother.

A boreal forest in Lake Clarke. Note the pattern of evergreen greens, scattered among the deciduous trees. Retrieved from the U.S National Park Service website. https://www.nps.gov/lacl/learn/nature/forests.htm

In The Hidden Life of Trees, German forester Peter Wohlleben describes a new and controversial concept that is growing substantially in the scientific community: that trees are constantly communicating with eachother. He looks at the interactions between tree species, and how they individually fight for survival in a forest stand. By identifying these interactions, he has created the idea that trees simultaneously work together with their own species, as well as cooperating with trees of other species! He relates this interaction to that of an insect colony: by emitting chemical signals to other trees through their roots and underground fungal networks, trees can communicate danger, can facilitate growth and can protect eachother in times of drought and disease. Check out this article by the Smithsonian, which looks at this amazing interaction and Wohlleben’s novel!

2. Trees can clone themselves.

A trembling aspen stand in Zion National Park. Are they all separate aspens, or just clones of one adult? Retrieved from Flickr - photo by Zion National Park. https://www.flickr.com/photos/zionnps/5205494244

Trembling aspen, the iconic tree that resembles “jazz hands” as the wind blows through its leaves, is actually a professional of colonizing land! The trembling aspen forms ‘root suckers’: root extensions off of the main root system of the adult tree, which shoot up from the earth to grow into new aspen trees. This way, they can create large populations in a new environment quickly and efficiently, as a form of asexual reproduction. Each separate shoot will have an identical genome to the plant that it grew from. So, when you see a large trembling aspen, look out for neighbouring aspens, who may actually be clones, a product of the adult! Aspens are not the only trees that can do this, as beech, birch and dogwood can also propagate themselves in this way. 

3. Growth rings are able to take us back to the past.

Looking at the cross-section of a bald cypress tree from Northern California allows us to see which years had plentiful nutrients and water for the tree, and which years may have had drought. Retrieved from Flickr. Photo by James St. John. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/38675652474

As kids, we all learned that to find out the age of a tree, we take a cross-section of its trunk, and count the rings. Then, I have no doubt, we all spend a considerable time trying to count the hundreds and hundreds of tiny rings on a stump, to no avail. Well, by looking at the growth rings of an old tree, we can not only tell how old the tree is, but also its history, and the history of the environment it lived in! By looking at the size of the growth rings, you can determine whether or not a tree had a ‘good year’ - one with plenty of rain, nutrients and sunlight or a ‘bad year’ - one likely with drought. A big ring indicates a good year (lots of growth), and a small ring indicates a bad year (little growth!). Not only that, but recent scientific research is looking at the chemical compounds within each ring to see what the environment was like during a particular year. For example, the Tipuana tree in Brazil is being used as a marker of atmospheric pollution, as its roots absorb heavy metals that are present in the atmosphere, transporting these compounds to the wood of its growth rings. By looking at growth rings of the past 50 years, you can rewrite the story of the surrounding pollution in those years!

4. Some trees are not that tall, and not trees at all.

A ground pine, hiding under the shade of a tall tree. Behind it, you see many other shoots of the same ground pine plant poking up from the undergrowth. Retrieved from Flickr. Photo by Dendroica cerulea. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dendroica/

Club mosses sure look like tiny trees, don’t they? Well, it’s because in an essence, they are. These plants have a similar function to vines; the plant creeps along the ground, shooting up small, tree-like leaves up towards the sky to reach sunlight. By doing this, the plant creates a mat, or mini-forest, along the forest floor. Even though they are not considered trees, early lycophytes (which were the descendants of clubmoss) formed the oldest group of forest-forming trees in the Carboniferous era. So, although club moss are not trees themselves, they evolved from early trees and have still kept similar function to forests, just on the forest floor!

5. Although trees may look small, they can be old, and strong. 

Foxtail pine growing in Sequoia National Park. This photo was taken before the treeline (which is where trees can no longer grow due to extreme weather and altitude). Note how dispersed the trees are, and so small! Received from the U.S National Park Service website. https://www.nps.gov/seki/learn/nature/subalpine-forests.htm

In a subalpine ecosystem, life grows differently. Once you reach altitudes where snow, rain and cold is prevalent, life is not able to grow the same as if you were lower in altitude. Trees in these biomes are adapted to these extreme weather conditions, and have evolved some amazing survival techniques! Krummholz trees, also known as dwarf trees, are trees that live above the treeline, which is the highest point at which trees can grow. These trees are smaller than most trees, and misshapen, but are the same species as the ones growing lower than the treeline. This shows how far a tree will go to survive, and will even risk death in adverse conditions to grow! Since northern, subalpine forest communities are often never disturbed, we can still see old-growth forests today. However, these forests are threatened by climate change, as the trees thrive in cold conditions, and are susceptible to change.

5 AMAZING things about trees just barely touches on all the incredible adaptations and functions trees have. The most amazing things in nature may not be the most spectacular views or the weirdest animals. They can be the things we see in our day-to-day lives, like our forests! 

If you are as passionate about trees as I am, please share some cool things that you may know about them! 

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A Natural Horror Story

This week, we were prompted to write about thing that we find most amazing about nature. When I initially read this, I had a lot of problems figuring out what to write about. I thought about how nature is constantly changing, yet always seems to stay the same. I thought about the mystery of the deep ocean, and how life can persist in a place where it was never thought to be able to. I thought about caves, and how the species in them have adapted to live in an area without sunlight or vegetation. But when I was thinking about all of these broad topics, it dawned on me that the most amazing thing I know about nature isn’t broad at all – its incredibly specific. And given the time of year, it seems appropriate to write about:

The shrike.

Colloquially known as the Butcher Bird, the shrike is a tiny bird of prey. Weighing in between 35 and 50 grams, the shrike is about the size of a robin. Unlike the robin, however, the shrike doesn’t prey primarily on worms and insects. While smaller prey do compose a portion of its diet, the shrike is also a hunter of much larger prey – like frogs, snakes, turtles, and even other birds. Because of this, the shrike faces a big challenge; its talons are much too small to hold its prey in place while it consumes them. To account for this, the shrike has evolved a macabre behavioural technique.

After making a kill, the shrike will take its prey to a plant with thorns, a particularly sharp twig, or even a barbed-wire fence, and impale its meal on the spike. With its prey immobilized, it is free to feast, or leave it there as a store for later.

This paints a very morbid, yet interesting picture in my mind. Imagine being a small mammal of some kind and wandering into a new area. All of a sudden you start to see skewered carcasses of other, similar creatures high up in trees, some partially eaten, others left drying up in the sun. Scared, you look around, but thankfully the giant beast that committed this atrocity isn’t anywhere in sight. In fact, the only other creature you see is a small bird, eyeing you from a branch. You aren’t sure if it knows the danger its in, so you try to warn it! You watch as it leaves its perch and flies in your direction, tiny talons out…

Now, this idea is both made up and perhaps a little fantasized, but the points still stands: for a small mammal in shrike territory, life can change into a horror story very quickly. The scariest part of this? Its not a concept that is alien to the human experience. Yes, the hunting techniques of the shrike  bear a striking resemblance to those of Vlad the Impaler, a killer who was famous for impaling his victims and using their corpses to decorate his property.

Others may not have the same macabre appreciation for the shrike as I do, but anyone would have to admit that such a solution to a complicated problem is, in its own terrifying way, amazing.

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I was intrigued by your identification of how human memories are closely linked to sounds. I was definitely surprised by your reaction to thunder, given that it scares the crap out me every time (still love it though).

My favourite sound of the wild came from an Outward Bound trip I did after grade 12. We were sitting at our campsite at the end of one of the last days. The fire had burned low and we were just winding down chatting. From across the lake we heard the howl of a wolf. The sound of its lone voice carrying over the water was haunting and beautiful. 

One issue that I have with the notion of music in nature is that music is so rhythmic. Yes, nature has rhythmic aspects to it, like steady rainfall, but the vast majority of ambient sounds you hear out in nature are more sporadic, with no beat to them. That’s not to say there can’t be musical things in nature, like a bird’s song or something, but the lack of a time signature or beat of some sort makes it somewhat difficult to really hear as music. This is a little off course though and isn’t really a commentary on your post as much it is a commentary on the concept itself.

That aside, your final thought of how music is a part of nature simply because of the feelings each one evokes makes a lot of sense. Maybe the relationship isn’t a technical one, but an emotional one.

Nature is my kind of music

Music is an interesting feature. The fact that a set of vibrations, or waves of pressure, set off from a medium can come together to make such beautiful sounds is just amazing to me. I have played piano for about 11 years now, and although I do not practise as much as I should, being able to make music brings me great comfort and ease. Having knowledge in rhythm, pitch and all the technical insight that comes with studying piano rudiments for those 11 years, gives me a sense of appreciation towards music and all its small parts that make it whole. You will often find me studying to classical music only because I love it so much (and because music with lyrics often makes me want to sing not study). Today, there are so many different genres of music to match so many sounds and new types of music is being discovered everyday. The reason that music is so popular is because it not only is lovely to listen to, but you also gain a sense of connection with the tune. The level of pitch humans hear is typically similar for everyone, however, since the human brain works in a number of ways, the way people perceive sound can be very different all around. To be quite frank I feel is the reason we have so many genres of music now.

Similar to a painting, music is also an art, and most art is left for the viewer, or listener, to interpret. Music specifically, I feel, is very good at expressing its way through emotion, like how a high pitched flute makes you feel dainty or how a low tuba makes you feel heavy and loud. If you look at nature, the sounds you hear can have a similar effect. Some examples include, the sound of a softly, flowing river makes me feel you feel a sense of continuous relaxation and completeness, a whistling sparrow can make you feel happy, the roar of a bear can make you feel scared and on edge. The list is endless, however, in reference to the point I made before, these feelings can differ for different people. For example, when I hear the sound of thunder and lightening I feel calm and protected while others can have a feeling of fear and alert. One very weird sound I enjoy is the buzzing of bees in a colony. It makes me feel at rest knowing that they are hard at work while I sit there looking at them (with enough distance of course).

Music can also be connected with memories, such as the lullaby sung at bedtime when you were a kid or the song playing during your first slow dance at middle school (mine was Collide by Howie Day). Since I was outside quite a lot when I was little, hearing the rustling trees, the pitter patter of the rain and the calls of the wild just bring me back to those family camping trips and cottage days out in the forest. I feel that because those memories are particularly good ones, my mood is usually tranquil and relaxed when I am outside. In contrast to good memories, the sound of a garage door usually scares me since I got my foot caught under one when I was younger.

Overall, music I believe is in nature just naturally because we perceive it as music through good memories or good feelings.

What are your favorite sounds of the wild! Comment down below!

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Nature in Music, Music in Nature

The relationship between music and nature is one that is both incredibly simple and deeply nuanced. As a fan of country music, I see nature in music all the time. When Luke Bryan says he spent his childhood “backing in boats/ fishing them lines/ running bird dogs through the Georgia pines” in What Makes You Country, I can visualize those in my mind. I can see a boat out on a calm lake with a line in the water, and a boy running through a pine forest with a dog. Even bands and genres that you wouldn’t expect to contain messages about nature can surprise you. For example, in Another Way to Die, Disturbed spends four minutes furiously scolding humanity for the way it has ravaged nature, citing that “species fall before our very eyes/ a world that they can not survive in/ left them with another way to die,/ are we dead inside?” I believe the consistent presence of nature in music stems from how closely linked the natural world is to the human condition – its something that almost everyone understands or has been exposed to in some way. Thus, it makes a great subject for songs, which need to be able to make a connection with a listener.

(”Backing in boats/ fishing them lines/ running bird dogs through the Georgia pines”)

(”Species fall before our very eyes/ a world that they can not survive in/ left them with another way to die,/ are we dead inside?”)

More difficult, however, is explaining the way that music is also very much a part of nature. It’s a strange concept, given that music is so man-made and nature is, well, natural. But you know what I’m talking about, don’t you? How when you walk through the woods, you can hear the rustling leaves, chirping birds, running stream, and maybe even the rhythmic pattering of rain on plants. And when you close your eyes and listen, it all sort of comes together in song.

One of the most interesting aspects of music in nature is one that may at first seem unexpected. When I was in middle school, my band teacher had one lesson that he made sure we all knew. He would say: “In music, you can play whatever notes you want, but the thing that makes music what it is, is silence”. This resonated with me. As a drummer, my notes were almost always instantaneous, and flanked by silence. I realized that, without that silence, music would just be noise. And that is something that you can find in nature that you can’t find anywhere else anymore – true, honest-to-god silence. Even as I write this I can take inventory of all the sounds I can hear in my environment – the whirring of the furnace, the person in the next room watching Netflix, and the clacking of my girlfriend’s keyboard next to me. There are so many sounds going on at once that silence is impossible. Outdoors, however, if you’re far enough from civilization (and, perhaps, running water), each note of nature’s song is flanked by deafening silence, punctuating the chirping of a bird or the rustle of a leaf. I consider that to be the crucial factor in finding music in nature – each note holds its own moment in time, the silence underneath it a far cry from the constant drone of the city that we’ve become so accustomed to.

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I think your discussion of the nameplates in the sculpture garden was an interesting viewpoint, and I see the merit in it when considered in the context of nature interpretation. The beautiful thing about considering nature and art side-by-side is you get to compare them through the interpretive lens of people, and it can help to show what aspects of nature people find beautiful. By seeing what aspects of nature  an artist choose to put in a work, you can get a better insight into the artists mind at the expense of having a limited view of the raw beauty of nature that the artist worked from. This same idea can be applied to the nameplates in the sculpture garden. By including something like that, it can be restrictive for the people observing in their process of interpreting the piece for themselves.

By the same token, however, not everyone (myself included) is well equipped to interpret art, and I personally would have appreciated having some extra information so that I knew what I was actually looking at for some of the pieces.

The Freedom of Multi-dimensional Beauty

I found the two questions posed in these weeks prompt deserving of significant and individual attention, Thus, my response has been split into two sections. This first section addresses the question who are you to interpret nature through art?

The capacity of art to be a form through which nature can be interpreted lies in a commonality shared between both art and nature: their procurement of beauty. Beck and Cable (2011) point out, beauty is personal and subjective, thus it follows that beauty is necessarily multidimensional and inclusive. Boeckel (2015) posits that arts-based environmental education does not rely on pre-established knowledge, but rather, involves a “groping forward.” This free and uninhibited process allows multiple meanings to be interpreted and accepted. The multiplicity of beauty, seen in both art and nature, permits a diversity of perspectives, and therefore anyone can appreciate nature through art because both nature and art procure beauty and there is no succinct definition, no right or wrong, to what beauty is. Given this, I believe everyone, including myself, has the right to interpret nature through art. We need not rely on pre-established rules or notions, rather we can simply give ourselves over to the experience of viewing nature, similarly to the way we can give ourselves over when viewing a painting in a gallery. As interpreters we can acknowledge that everyone has a different notion of what beauty is and rather than insisting to our audience that a given environment is beautiful, we can facilitate an atmosphere of acceptance, mindfulness, inclusion and focus. If we encourage our audience to slow down, to not only look at an environment but to be immersed in it, fully and completely, taking in its details through all the senses, the multi-faceted nature of this experience may allow them to sense at least a component of the environment as beautiful and meaningful. In this way the beauty of nature may actually be more accessible than that of conventional art – for it allows for all, not just one, of the senses to be activated. However, the concept of viewing a piece of human-made art is one that may be more familiar with the general public, thus by drawing the analogy between art and nature, we can illuminate audiences to the unlimited meaning and beauty of their natural environments.

Our visit to the sculpture garden was illustrative of this characteristically free process. None of the sculptures had signage indicating the title or offering any background information on the piece. While some audience members found this limited their ability to interpret the pieces, it also allowed for increased freedom in gleaning meaning and perceiving beauty. All we had was our own physicality and the opportunity to relate ourselves to the piece in front of us. Through conversation with my classmates it became apparent that many of us understood and related to the pieces very differently. However, one interpretation was not superior to the other, rather they both were personal and meaningful to their respective observer.

Retrieved from: https://upload.org/wikipedia/commons

The following is my response to the second question from this week’s prompt how do you interpret the gift of beauty?

As Beck and Cable (2011) urgently make clear, beauty evades a universal definition. It is a personal, subjective concept that necessarily requires freedom to embody all places and objects. As an interpreter it is our role to unveil the beauty in perhaps the more innocuous aspects of nature. Given beauty’s lack of definition and its elusiveness (resulting from its ubiquity), the task of interpreting beauty in nature presents a significant challenge. In order to interpret the beauty of nature myself, I think it essential to acknowledge the idea that beauty involves more than just looking but rather necessitates understanding and feeling. Ted and Beck (2011) suggest that an interpreter can reference their own journey of understanding the subtle beauties of nature to aid their audiences in perceiving and experiencing nature’s beauty.

I would like to share a journey of my own; I fear it may be a clichéd story, however it is one I have experienced and perhaps the cliché will be an advantage when it comes to interpreting for others.  When I was younger, I was terrified of spiders (likely the result of Aragog from Harry Potter). Not so conveniently, my childhood home appeared to be continuously plagued with spider infestations. These eight-legged buggers would scurry across my bedroom ceiling and when they did – well the rest of the house certainly knew! I would shriek and yes sometimes even dissolve in to tears, paralyzed in my spot and terrified no one would come and save me. Typically, it was Dad with his newspaper-sword-of-death. He would come in, calculate his angle and WHACK! A quick unceremonious end-of-life tribute followed with a flush down the toilet. I would be flooded with relief and gratitude and finally be freed from my paralysis. At that time, I saw no beauty in the critters creeping across my walls. Today, however, I adamantly refuse to kill spiders, and that is thanks to my friend Maddy.

Tan-jumping spider (Platycryptus undatus) , commonly found in southern Ontario (and in our office!) https://spiderid.com/locations/canada/ontario/

Maddy revealed the beauty of spiders to me while we were working together in the Rouge. Our “office” was a kind of tent/cabin structure that appeared to simultaneously operate as a popular lodge for spiders. By this time my fear of spiders had somewhat dissipated but I was far from finding them beautiful. Maddy, on the other hand, when seeing one, would lay out her arm, allow it to crawl up her palm and then cradle it between her two hands, peering between the cracks in her fingers to admire their various colours and patterns. At first, I was astonished by her behaviour, but as the summer progressed it became apparent that my new workspace was going to remain multipurposed (ie. office and spider lodge) and so I too began peering through the cracks in Maddy’s fingers. These “peering” sessions revealed to me the diversity of spiders, their character, their uniqueness and ultimately a connection to myself. Their physical characteristics varied (red, gray, brown, yellow, polka-dots, stripes, hairy), their behaviour in Maddy’s hand was diverse (frozen, zig-zagging, circling) and they too were having to share their space with others. Upon reflection, I found these spiders, in fact, were just like my co-workers and I – a diverse group of individuals coming together to interact, work and live. I was thus able to connect with these spiders and glean enjoyment from their company. (Although perhaps my boss would have preferred we spent less time studying spiders and more time completing data entry)! When it became apparent that our workspace was going to be decommissioned and re-located, my co-workers and I earnestly protested. I wanted to stay with the spiders, and the thought of their home being destroyed saddened me. I had not only overcome my fear of spiders, I now cared for them. Beck and Cable (2011) recognize this shift as the result and reward of effectively interpreting nature’s innocuous beauty. When one understands the beauty in a thing, they begin to care about it and care then harbour a sense of stewardship.

Golden-rod crab spider (Misumena vatia), commonly found in southern Ontario https://spiderid.com/locations/canada/ontario/

I believe the most effective way for me to interpret nature’s beauty will be through sharing stories such as these, that trace my progression from aversion to appreciation.

Yellow gardn spider (Agiope aurantia), commonly found in southern Ontario (saw many in the field but they were not common frequenters of our office/lodge) https://www.flickr.com/photos/49503114554@N01/1527631292

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Hopeless Romantics

Interpreting nature through art is a curious thing. When I think about art, I immediately think about artists – the people responsible for the creation of beauty. By putting oil to canvas, bow to string, or pencil to paper, they are able to take a subjective, abstract concept and give it life, sharing their idea of beauty with the world. While art can encompass all parts of the human condition, this discussion will consider art about nature.

Few captured the sublimity of nature as the Romantics. A subsequent reverence for and fear of nature worked its way into many Romantic pieces (link). These works often take the form of grand landscapes, impossible large, with tiny human forms (often the artists themselves) barely visible in the foreground. In this way, these works capture one of the greatest facets of natural beauty – the scale of it. The creations of nature are beautiful in part because they are endless. One can look put into a mountain range and see nothing but natural beauty until their vision fades into the distance. The Romantics understood this.

( The Oxbow, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm, 1836)

Even in works where nature is not the main focus, its sublime form permeates works of this era. A perfect example of this is Turner’s The Slave Ship (1840). The work depicts a ship in the distance dumping a cargo of slaves into the sea so that their owner may collect insurance on them. The foreground is filled with twisted, shackled bodies drowning and being eaten by sharks, and yet despite this grizzly scene, the work is still dominated by the beautiful seascape surrounding them. The dark, turbid waters are juxtaposed against a brilliant evening sky, and even in the face of such tragedy the sublime beauty of nature is apparent.

(The Slave Ship, 1840)

This creates an interesting conversation, however. In interpreting nature through art, I’ve already discussed the jump to consider the artists themselves, the creators of beauty. But who, I ask, is the creator of natural beauty? For someone raised religious, the answer may come easy – nature is a beauty painted directly by the hand of god. As an atheist, I find myself considering a different stance: nature is a product of no artist, and thus is the most objective form of beauty imaginable. The view from atop a mountain is a work of art unsullied by the bias or physical limitations of an artist, and I’d challenge anyone to see that view in person and not call it beautiful.

Assigning objectivity to something as subjective as beauty can be a controversial thing, but I truly believe there isn’t a soul on this planet that isn’t astounded by the sight of one of nature’s beautiful works of art, and I believe that a large portion of this is caused by the fact that nature has no artist. I believe that this is because nature as represented in art is twice interpreted – first by the artist, then by the observer, whereas the beauty of nature is interpreted only by the observer. This leaves the raw beauty of nature to be only viewed through a single interpretive filter, and the beautiful aspects of it to be decided upon by the observer.

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This is a very interesting post, especially your point on the potential failure of interpretation when it comes to Climate Change. It makes me think, maybe climate change is so difficult to interpret because its such an ominous topic? Thinking about all of the things we’ve learned in class, I’ve taken away one constant - the process of interpretation is almost always a positive conversation. As interpreters, we get to introduce people to the beauty of nature and the joy of experiencing it. The things we’ve discussed - like “the spark of nature” can be romanticized. But what about when the topic can’t be made positive? What if we are required to interpret what could feasibly be the end of the world? It seems like it can lead to people denying the effort of interpreters. I’m led to believe that this is because people gravitate more toward reassuring lies than uncomfortable lies. It strikes me as an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of scenario. I honestly don’t really have an answer, or even an attempt of an answer, to  the question of how to interpret something so negative. Perhaps its something that will be discussed later on in the course.

A bit of a rant, interpretation and citizen action

*Note that all underlined text is hyperlinked to supporting articles and content!

You may have noticed a bit of a spike in environmental news recently. More articles being shared on Facebook, between the plastic straw debate posts, about the last call to save our planet. If you chanced a click on one of those links you may have read about how the UN IPCC (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has recently released a special report how we are currently absolutely hooped. Instead of keeping on track to limit warming to 1.5°C, we’re going full steam ahead to 3°C.

The other day I was in my GEOG 3210 lecture, Management of the Biophysical Environment, listening to the instructor (Dr. Faisal Moola, an interesting prof who used to work with the David Suzuki Foundation - DSF) discuss the failures of British Columbia on following it’s commitments to protecting species at risk. One of my classmates, understandably a bit frustrated put up their hand and said (roughly) “what can you even do when your government blatantly doesn’t follow through on their commitments or do what they’re supposed to?” to which Dr. Moola simply replied, “oh well you can sue them”. We all had bit of a chuckle at how nonchalantly he had suggested suing the government, but he was serious. He talked about how he had done just that before with the DSF, and how we have the ability to hold our government responsible if we so choose.

The IPCC report and the news surrounding it gave me flashbacks of a post I read last year, and needed to search the internet in order to include in this post. It was circulated around the time of the solar eclipse last summer, in which millions of North Americans got to witness an incredible scientific event, feeling connected to nature whether they knew it or not.

So this leaves me with questions. Where is the disconnect?

Is this a failure on the part of interpretation? Is it just all political, about who’s cutting the biggest paycheck? The eclipse was a miracle of nature that was accessible to a huge portion of the population. What about other miracles of nature, every landscape you can find across our world, from the deserts to the mountains to the trees that expel oxygen to fill our lungs and keep our hearts beating? Are they not all worth the changing of our routines?

What do we need to do to get people to ask our policy makers to make decisions for the environment, and hold them accountable when they don’t?

If you feel overwhelmed, you can (as I have) spend endless time scrolling the internet, finding listicles of the top 10 ways you can reduce your ecological footprint. From that, I’ll share the two things that I am focussed on doing:

Changing my diet. As much as people do not want to hear it, animal agriculture has an absolutely insane impact on our environment. From limiting the amount you consume meat and eating local to becoming a full-on vegan, it is the direction we need to head in (I’m also *attempting* to eat less food with palm oil in it (because this), but that stuff is in freaking everything).

Voting and participating in the democratic process. This summer Ontario elected a majority government that has worked to remove policy that was moving us in the right direction, from the cancelling of rebates on electric vehicles (for which Tesla sued, and won), to removing Ontario’s carbon tax. It is a big commitment to stay on top of political news, write in to policy makers, and make sure that your voice is heard, but for myself as a privileged Canadian, it’s an obligation I need to keep.

Let’s chat! I’d love to hear your thoughts with the IPCC report, interpretation and climate change, plant-based diets, and voting/environmental policy.

Here are some more sources that support what I’ve included in this post/helpful links!

Palm oil’s affect on biodiversity

Animal husbandry and GHGs

Environmental Impacts of Plant Based Diets

The Case for Plant Based 

Videos by Vox on climate change (can’t recommend these enough, an interesting form of interpretation)

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A Thousand Types of Chickens - A Discussion of Casual Interpretation

Through this semester, we have heard from some informative and knowledgeable professional interpreters. We have learned some the tools used by these professionals to engage an audience. But what about the average person? How can they be an interpreter?

In the summer after second year, I spent the summer working in Australia. During this time, I had the opportunity to go on a week-long road trip through the outback – North to Karijini National Park in the heart of the Pilbara Region, then back down the coast to Perth. Ten days camping, hiking in gorges, and snorkelling on the Ningaloo reef. It was the trip of a lifetime, more so for a nature geek like me. There was one issue though – I knew very little about Australian wildlife.

(One of the beautiful gorges of Karijini National Park)

The guys I were travelling with were named Sid and Gautam. They have lived in Australia for a long time and knew as much about it as you would expect a local to. On this trip, they became my “interpreters” of the wilderness. Their form of interpretation was very casual, which is expected given that they were not trained in any way (both making a living as engineers). Regardless, they introduced me to some incredible wildlife.

One specific lesson they taught me was as much a bit of Aussie culture as it was about nature; they have nicknames for a lot of their birds. The funny part of these nicknames is that they all compare the birds to other, non-Australian bird species. For example, the white ibis is the Australian equivalent of a pigeon – they eat garbage, ruin picnics, and are generally hated by people. Sid and Gautam affectionately referred to them as “bin chickens” on our way out of the city. As we neared hour 16 of driving through the outback, we saw an emu walking against the sunset. Having never seen one before, I asked them – “what’s that out there?”, to which they replied, “a bush chicken”. Later, after setting camp and making dinner, I watched a small bird running around the campsite. Sid and Gautam were happy to tell me that it was, in fact, a “spinifex pigeon”.

(The majestic animal known as a spinifex pigeon)

These weird names, in their own way, were a form of casual nature interpretation. As they compared these strange endemic birds to ones that I was familiar with, it gave me a sense of how they interact with people and the environment. This casual form of interpretation helped me to appreciate what I was seeing and frame it in a way that I understood. The great part is that they didn’t even know they were being interpreters at the time – they were just being friends and introducing me to the local slang.

They ended up casually  interpreting a lot of nature on that trip. They helped me interpret sharks, dingoes, and kangaroos, all in a way that, at the time, none of us knew was a form of interpretation. 

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This is a really cool story... I reckon there are a lot of people out there who would love to have found a set of memoirs like that, myself included. It makes me think of my own family, and that I know almost nothing about half of my lineage. My mom’s side is pretty well documented, but I know almost nothing about my Dad’s side of the family.

There’s an interesting risk associated with digging into one’s own history though, right? Like, right now, I have an idea of what my family is like; I know that there’s a few Scotsmen, and probably someone from a German-speaking country (Schweitzer being the German word meaning “a person from Switzerland”). But I wonder if the reason that I’ve never learned more about that side of my family is because there’s something in that story to be ashamed of. It complicates that above quote a bit - yes we can’t know where we are without knowing where we’ve been, but how much can we let where we’ve been shape who we are? Is there a point at which we learn too much? I mean, genetically speaking, we have a bit of our ancestors in us, but we’re still our own people, right? 

Perfect example - I know some people who have lived in farming families for generations, and through school there was no question that they would also do that. What about the one kid in that line that doesn’t want to farm? Is it the family responsibility to take that on anyway and honour the legacy of their family, or is it okay to let that tradition die? I honestly don’t know about this, its just something that I thought of when you talked about how similar you are to the man in the portrait - what about the ones that aren’t similar at all?

A Story Untold

Why do we hold things dear to our heart? What is the difference between a tangible object, like a portrait on a wall, and a story told by many generations about the same portrait?

For as long as I can remember, a portrait of my great-grandfather Kiss Ernő had been hung up on the wall above my grandmother’s bed. It is an old World War II portrait, when he was only 23 years old. As a kid, I remember looking at this portrait, wondering who the man was, and asking my mom. She responded with a few words: “This is your great-grandfather, he died before you were born”. Looking back at the time, I wish I had asked my mom more questions when I was young - I had quickly come to realize that she was not a spontaneous storyteller, and only gave tidbits of information when probed – but I accepted it and moved on. I grew up not knowing much about the history of him, my great-grandmother, grandmother or mother.

That is, until my aunt sent us Ernő’s translated memoirs (I have linked it here for anyone who wants a glimpse at it… it is a lengthy read but a fascinating one! You could call my great-grandfather an interpreter after reading this). Finally, here it was! A way for me to learn about my past, where my family came from, and why the heck my mom was so hush-hush about it all!

Reading the memoirs, I realized why my mother didn’t talk about it like I thought she would: Ernő had written it after surviving both World Wars and experiencing just about every hardship known in that time: poverty, health-decline, and well, being on the frontlines. My family went through a tough period and are only just beginning to see prosperity in my mother’s generation.

As I read the memoirs, I can connect with my great-grandfather without even having met him. I am learning that he is quite the romantic, and used humour and charm to help those around him push through the hard times!

“There is no peculiar merit in ancient things, but there is merit in integrity, and integrity entails the keeping together of the parts of any whole, and if these parts are scattered throughout time, then the maintenance of integrity entails a knowledge, a memory, of ancient things. …. To think, feel or act as though the past is done with, is equivalent to believing that a railway station through which our train has just passed, only existed for as long as our train was in it.” (Edward Hyams, Chapter 7, The Gifts of Interpretation). 

This quote makes me think about my mother’s decisions on keeping the past in the past. It may not have been her intention, but I do think that without keeping the integrity of my great-grandfather alive, he would have been forgotten about. The portrait would just have been that, a portrait. However, now I see it as what it truly is: as a story about hardship, love and resilience, all written by a common Hungarian man.

The things we truly care about in life are not the tangibles, but the emotions and memories around those tangibles. That is the beauty and power of the past: we have so many ideas and concepts from all around the world, and no one person will experience reality the same way as another person does. This portrait and the emotions around it, although in the past, have paved a path for my family. To understand the present wholly, we cannot forget about the past, and especially not the meaning of it.

[csenvs3000-2018-blog]

The Chains of History

“There is no peculiar merit in ancient things, but there is merit in integrity, and integrity entails the keeping together of the parts of any whole, and if these parts are scattered throughout time, then the maintenance of integrity entails a knowledge, a memory, of ancient things. .... To think, feel or act as though the past is done with, is equivalent to believing that a railway station through which our train has just passed, only existed for as long as our train was in it.” (Edward Hyams, Chapter 7, The Gifts of Interpretation)

This quote boils down to a simple concept – you can’t know where you are unless you know where you’ve been. The author is arguing that to truly understand the state of a given thing, you must understand its historical context, and this is the only way to maintain a view that is based in integrity. This concept, while seeming to be heavily based in the state of human ‘things’, is actually well represented in nature as well.

The biological event of succession describes the process by which a group of species colonizes an area. Theories about succession are still being formed and discussed, but one concept that seems reasonably constant is that the species that are found in an area are, in some way, linked to those that were there before them. The likelihood of a species colonizing a freshly-disturbed area, for example, is theorized to be related to the presence of that species in other nearby areas. Some species, called facilitators, can actually improve the soil and make it easier for other species to grow, eventually dying themselves after the second species establishes itself (Connell and Slayter, 1977 - link).

(The facilitation model of succession, as proposed by Connell and Slayter in 1977)

Much like nature, the presence of everything we know depends on what was here before it. I am here today, typing out this blog post, because I enrolled in ENVS*3000. I can take ENVS*3000 because I decided to switch into Wildlife Biology in second year. I’m able to major in Wildlife Biology because someone decided it was an important concept to teach young people. This person decided it was important to teach young people because they had some reverence for, or concern about, nature. This person had these feelings about nature because of something in their life, which was prompted by something before it, and so on. A break anywhere in the chain of events leading up to this blog post would have led to it never happening. Thus, while this post may not be anything special, the fact that it is even possible is the result of a long chain events.

Now, the example of this post may not be very significant. Without it, the world would be largely the same. But consider something more substantial, like government, or science. These things are fabricated by people and came about because of a long chain of events. A single break in that chain could have changed the world as we know it, for better or for worse. By understanding the history that created these things, we can learn lessons about process, and, if given the chance to create something new ourselves, use these lessons to create something that is better than what we’ve previously had.

[csenvs3000-2018-blog]

Your comments on travel are spot-on. As someone who had a somewhat opposite experience, I’d like to post my thoughts on the topic.

When I was really young I didn’t travel at all. I’ve traveled to quite a few places now, but prior to high school I had barely left Ontario. When I was young it was just too logistically difficult for my parents to travel with 3 young kids to anywhere far away, not to mention the financial aspect of it. What we did do, however, was often go up to my grandparent’s property in Huntsville. This wasn’t a fancy place by any means - it wasn’t close to town or to the water, and we shared it with some tenants that lived upstairs. 

The great part about that property, however, is that it was very close to a decent patch of forest. My Grandpa went to the trouble of building a trail with wood chips through the property so that my cousins, siblings, and I could run through the woods without our parents worrying about us getting lost. We would literally spend entire days running around the forest playing games, discovering things, and experiencing nature.

I’m telling this story because, while I didn’t have the luxury of travel at a young age, I consider myself to be incredibly privileged because I spent so much time in my home province. Because I spent so much time in Huntsville, I fell in love with Ontario’s forests, the Canadian Shield region, and the entire concept of living close to nature. Had I been elsewhere in the world,  I may have learned a lot about different ecosystems and what nature looks like in other countries, but  I wouldn’t have he depth of appreciation for my home country through which I now see all my traveled experiences though.

Checking my Privilege

           To me, privilege means an advantage, usually one you have been given with birth. For example, some of my privileges are being born in a first world country, not having any physical disabilities, and having the opportunity for education.

            Growing up, my parents were able to afford for us to travel. My first time out of Canada was when my mother was 5 months pregnant, and my second was when I was only several months old. We would travel out of Canada about 4 times a year at least. But even though when teachers asked the class what they had done that summer I could have talked for hours, I would get jealous when a friend who had stayed indoors all summer had gotten a bunch of new video games. Fortunately, as I got older I realized how lucky I was to have seen so much of the world. I’m so so grateful that my parents spent money on experiences I will remember forever.

         (https://www.urbanoutfitters.com/en-gb/shop/deluxe-scratch-map) 

(To be honest, one of my favourite things after travelling is knowing I’ll be able to scratch it off my map!)

           Furthermore, not only do I have a high school education in a first world country, but I had the opportunity to continue learning more about something I love with my undergraduate degree in Environmental Sciences. I have learned about soil, water, plants, animals, agroforestry, meteorology, permaculture, environmental policies … the list goes on! As an avid hiker, I have gone on hikes with people who don’t know as much as I do about the natural world, and have gotten remarks along the line of “Wow, you know so many cool facts!” Often with the stress of university life, it can be easy for me to forget that what I’m learning is an amazing privilege I’ve been blessed with.

            Sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in what other have that you don’t. Even looking around our class, I feel at a disadvantage when I hear about the interesting jobs people have already had in a field I hope to pursue, or wishing I knew as much about a certain subject as someone else does. That’s why it’s important to take a few minutes for self-reflection to appreciate all the things I have and all the things I’ve done. Or as some would say, ‘check my privilege’.

[csenvs3000-2018-blog]

Interpreting Privilege

Privilege in nature interpretation is a multi-faceted concept. In a field that relies so heavily on making connections with people, the privilege that one brings can be a serious impediment. How can we as people connect with others who have vastly different outlooks and experiences? Making a connection deep enough to instill a reverence for nature in people in a small amount of time is a task difficult enough on its own; the presence of such a barrier can only make it harder.

Privilege can be defined as the societal and cultural advantages that a person has based on factors they cannot control. There are obvious privileges that people have in society – its almost impossible to look on the internet without seeing it these days – but I’m not going to talk about those. Not because I think they don’t exist, but because it’s a conversation that has been had enough times that I doubt I’d offer anything new.  No, I’m going to discuss privilege in nature interpretation with a specific lens in mind – upbringing.

(Fenelon Falls, as seen from above - link)

I was raised in Fenelon Falls Ontario, a cottage town with a permanent population of 1800 people. It’s a community that is very connected with nature. My parents were both raised in cities and are not very outdoorsy. Thankfully, they allowed me the space to explore nature, get into trouble, and learn from experience. This afforded me a level of privilege. I was raised close to nature and was granted the chance to develop a love for it myself; I was never taught the marvel of a pine tree. I went out into the woods, found one, and decided it was marvelous all on my own.

(The simple, yet complex marvel of a pine)

Contrasting this with someone of a different perspective, I can see how my privilege makes it hard to make connections. How am I, a total nerd not afraid to be floored by the smallest natural phenomenon, supposed to make a connection with someone who isn’t as enthusiastic? Would somebody who is Toronto born-and-bred make the same conclusions about a pine tree as I did as a small-town boy? If not, how do I convince them that it is one of the most beautiful things in the world? Its easy to imagine that can be done with facts, stories, or something else that traditionally builds interest in something. But I don’t want to just build interest. I want to build enthusiasm, excitement, a love for nature. I want other people to look at a pine tree and see that intangible something that I see. The more I talk to non-nature people, the more I think that may be impossible. That’s a big fear of mine, when it comes to interpretation. Am I doomed to only make that connection with people who had the privilege of discovering nature as a child? How can I connect with people who aren’t as enthusiastic without losing my own enthusiasm? I don’t know the answers to these questions because I haven’t spent enough time as an interpreter. Perhaps I’ll find what I’m looking for in this class.