This Contested Land with McKenzie Long
In the United States, we have over 120 national monuments. We’ve all heard about them in the news, and seen them designated and then undesignated over the past few presidencies.
But what even IS a national monument? And who manages land that is designated as a national monument? What does it mean for our outdoor pursuits?
Writer McKenzie Long was asking herself similar questions when President Obama designated the Bears Ears area a national monument at the end of 2016. Her curiosity about her beloved climbing area, Indian Creek, which was technically inside of the Bears Ears National monument, and what this designation meant for her future climbing there, led her on a journey to visit many national monuments and speak to the people who were impacted by these sorts of designations.
In this episode, Kris and McKenzie sit down to discuss her book, This Contested Land: The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America’s National Monuments, and how we should think about national monuments as stewards of outdoor recreation.
Music in this episode is from the album Kokura Station by Blue Dot Sessions
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
McKenzie Long 0:11
"Look behind you," my younger sister Veronica called from below. I stood up on the sandstone ledge where I've been crouching to examine ancient bricks balance on a cliff's edge. Behind me, a gold wall was spattered with faint ochre handprints from the base to well above my head. Large masculine hands imprinted next to tiny childlike hands. "I need to see that up close," Veronica said, and climbed up the angular boulders that guarded the ledge to join me. In silence, we stood shoulder to shoulder and contemplated the people who had left these marks. I imagined families dipping their hands into homemade paint, feeling cool wetness squished between their fingers, then pressing palms to grainy stone. I hovered my hand above one of the prints. The fingers ended where my fingers ended. The base of the palm curved were mine curved. Palm to palm the unique ridges of our hands reached across centuries. It was April 2017. And Veronica and I were in Bullet Canyon in the newly designated Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. For the past six years, I had spent almost every spring and fall rock climbing in Indian Creek, north of Bullet Canyon, and had fallen in love with Utah's desert. But when President Barack Obama designated the 1.3 million acre National Monument the December before, I recognize that I had only seen a tiny part of this enormous new protected area. I hoped to rectify that.
Kris Hampton 1:41
That's McKenzie Long reading from her book, This Contested Land, The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America's National Monuments. I met McKenzie years ago when she worked at a gym in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have followed her career ever since. As she interned at Alpinist Magazine, wrote for Outdoor Gear Labs, and eventually co-authored a couple of California climbing guidebooks. Her writing has won her several awards, which makes perfect sense because This Contested Land quickly became one of my favorite books of 2022. In it, she visits 13 national monuments, each with its own controversy, and examines through historical accounts and her own explorations of both people and place, our relationship with the land and its uncertain future in practical, political, and philosophical terms. It's a beautiful and eye opening piece of art. I got to sit down with McKenzie in Bishop, California this past Christmas, catch up on life and chat with her about the intersection of climbing, public lands, and her hopes for the future. And as a special bonus, I asked her to read a few sections for us, which you'll hear throughout this episode. We're jumping right into it here the same as she does in the book with a breakup that highlighted for her this connection she had developed with a small piece of Bears Ears National Monument, known as Indian Creek, a place climbers worldwide revere and pilgrimage to as a proving ground, but has been a holy place for indigenous peoples, since long before climbers arrived.
McKenzie Long 3:25
My partner at the time, him and I were both really obsessed with climbing at Indian Creek. And so we would go there every April and October and spend a whole month there. And right around 2016, we, we split up and I remember, it was in the spring, and he left and immediately went to Indian Creek. And I stayed back and was packing up our apartment and stuff. And I decided not to go that year. And I just felt like sort of a loss of the place. And I wouldn't blame him for that. It was like my own decision to not go but I did feel like oh, this place that I've come to love so much like I just miss it. And it was very, like visceral missing of it. And then that winter was when President Obama designated Bears Ears National Monument, which includes Indian Creek. And I remember one of my climbing friends saying, Oh, well, there's no way that this is going to be good for the climbing there. And I was like, Huh, I wonder if that's true or not, I actually have no idea what it means for the climbing there. I think for me the combination of having had this feeling of separation from a place that I'd really come to love. And also being curious about what this national monument meant for this place I loved inspired me to start looking into what a national monument was. And I wanted to talk to other people about what Bears Ears or the area around Bears Ears meant to them. And as I was realizing how much of a story there was around that place, it kind of expanded and made me curious about other places around the country. And so yeah, I went on a journey to visit and talk to a lot of people.
Kris Hampton 5:09
One of the things I really love about the book is that there are all these personal experiences of yours in there. And what you just mentioned this, you and your partner splitting up and there was the sense of loss for Indian Creek. And I think that sort of carries over through the whole book where some people feel a sense of loss when a monument is stripped of its status. Some people feel sense of loss when it's given its status, for whatever reason. So I think it's really brilliant. And makes for a compelling reading to add your own personal life into there. Let's dive a little bit into the book. And, well, I'll let you say what the book is. And then I'd love for you to sort of explain the difference between a national monument and a national park.
McKenzie Long 6:02
Okay. Well, in This Contested Land, I visit 13 different national monuments. And they're all newer ones, they were all designated 1996 and later. Sometimes I talk about the environmental challenges. Sometimes I talk about the modern, political, back and forth or challenges. And I talk about the history, some of the natural history, some of the human history, and I talked to a lot of different people that care about these places, whether they were advocates for the monuments becoming designated, or biologists that have studied some of the wildlife around there, or just people that have a long history with the place. And I try to find what some of the stories behind the places are. So the main difference between a national park and a national monument is that National Parks are created by Congress. So they're voted on. And I think throughout that process, there's probably lots of compromise that happens to get to the final vote that approves the park. And national monuments, with a few exceptions are created by presidential proclamation, which means that there's no vote. And I think in practice, presidents do require some broad public support before they will designate a monument. But the reality is they can just sign a piece of paper and create a monument with no one's say.
Kris Hampton 7:29
Yeah, which is kind of wild.
McKenzie Long 7:31
It is wild, I don't think there's a lot of things that the President can do that way. And so understandably, it makes some people angry every time a monument is designated because they feel like they didn't have a say, or it's not the right thing for that state or things like that.
Kris Hampton 7:48
It feels like this big government land grab.
McKenzie Long 7:50
Yeah, exactly.
And so I think technically, when a president creates a monument, it has to be on land that's already federally managed. So Forest Service, or BLM land is most common. And so it's not actually changing ownership or changing hands, I guess. But it is changing the management status and what's allowed to happen on that land.
Kris Hampton 8:12
It's not like an eminent domain situation where they're like, Oh, we want this to be a national monument. Now we're taking your property.
McKenzie Long 8:19
Yeah. I think there are sometimes private land holdings within the boundaries, and then they work on exchanges with that, but yes, not like eminent domain.
Kris Hampton 8:28
And there are quite a few other differences that that I think, are really important to the stories that you tell in your book, one of those is that if there are grazing and mining rights in an area, they generally speaking, stay the same. Is that right?
McKenzie Long 8:47
Yeah, usually, um, leases such as like water and grazing leases stay the same once the monument is created. I think even mining leases usually remain. And I think sometimes if a monument is created, and there are grazing or mining leases, they might work towards trying to purchase those and eventually work towards moving it out. But often they don't, they don't try to remove leases that are already in existence.
Kris Hampton 9:14
And then they don't really allow new ones.
McKenzie Long 9:17
Often they don't. And I think one thing that's like, maybe like a nitpicky thing about it is that whatever managing agency is in charge of that place. The monument is then administered based on their values, which is a little bit different. Like if it's the National Park Service, it's going to be a little bit more focused on preservation and tourism, if it's the BLM, there's a lot more stuff that's allowed on BLM land than is allowed in a national park and so then a BLM administered monument that would allow more things on the land.
Kris Hampton 9:54
Yeah, I think that part of it's fascinating that not all national monuments are overseen by one one entity, like the National Park Service is, there's BLM National Forest National Park. And it gets divvied up. Sometimes they're overseen by multiple agencies, right?
McKenzie Long 10:13
Yeah, because a monument could cross boundaries between national forests and BLM. And so rather than consolidate it, they just share the management of the monument.
Kris Hampton 10:23
But as someone who collaborates with other people a lot, just with another single person, I can't imagine trying to collaborate with a whole other agency on how we're going to keep this land organized in the way that we want it to.
McKenzie Long 10:39
Yeah, I don't know how they do it, it's probably really challenging. But I think that that's also sometimes like why some of these places are success, because they have to, they require so many people then to get invested in it and care about it that in some ways, I think that that's been a positive.
Kris Hampton 10:55
I think that's one of the things I really love about your book, too, is I come into everything with a cynical point of view. But you provide this other perspective quite often in the book. Was that what the plan was going in? Or did you have the idea that like, I want to push my own agenda?
McKenzie Long 11:16
No, I actually was trying really hard to give voice to multiple opinions. I didn't want to come out and make a really one sided book, I wanted it to show different perspectives. And I don't think I hide my opinion at all. I think I make it pretty clear what it is, I think. But in today's day and age, I feel like things can often be so polarized, and I don't feel like we need more of that. And I wanted to I wanted to show a more nuanced and more balanced view because national monuments are often very polarized issues. And especially when the more I got into it, and the more I talk to people that oppose monuments, and the people that are for monuments, for the most part, they often want very similar things. The reason why they're arguing is because they're so passionate about these places and they care about them so much. I was surprised at how much common ground there was, even for people that don't agree at all on the main issue.
We hiked out of Bullet Canyon and drove north to find a place to camp. Bears Ears Butte, the namesake for the monument rose in front of us tilting towards each other like the years of mischievious cub peeking over the horizon. The next morning, I rolled out of the fluffy warmth of my sleeping bag and lit the stove to brew coffee. As I waited for water to boil, I turned on my phone and received a flicker of signal. Trump orders a review of national monuments, vows to end abuses and return control to the people read The Washington Post. I felt a prickle along my neck. Red Sand hint between my toes tinged my hair with a hint of strawberry and darkened my skin to a false tan. I sat underneath the shadow of Bears Ears Buttes breathing in sage scented air, caressing the land with the soles of my feet. While miles away a politician made an abstract decision that would change this desert.
So suddenly, my interest in this place felt urgent and relevant. The intricacy of this landscape, of its history, the stories of the people who live here and love it, seemed much deeper and more layered than the politics controlling it. I had to know more.
Kris Hampton 13:43
One of the the incidents I guess that illustrates the back and forth that a national monument is maybe victim to is the Bears Ears situation. It went from Obama to Trump and now Biden and it's being changed constantly it becomes this, It's a ping pong game. I think you describe it as ping pong somewhere whether it was in another podcast or in the book. But I remember very clearly the like celebration of Bears Ears when Obama designated it, and then the fury among in the climbing community when Trump rolled those protections back. And at the time, I was like, What is everyone up in arms about? This thing's only been in existence a few years to begin with. And I think that's a really short sighted view of it.
McKenzie Long 14:41
Well, I think that one of the most important aspects of Bears Ears was that the whole concept for it was indigenous led so there was indigenous groups working on this monument. Its land that's important to them and their history and their communities now, and they really wanted it preserved and they wanted to have a say in what happens there. So they were the ones advocating for the monument and lobbying with the government to create the monument. And so when it was created Obama also in the proclamation that designate the monument instituted tribal co management so that they could have a say in how the monument was run. And that's the first time that's happened. And so it was a really huge success for all of those people that had been working really hard for it. And so then when Trump rolled it back, it was kind of a slap in the face to all of those people that had achieved this wonderful thing. Because not only did he shrink it by 85%, which is a huge difference. He got rid of the tribal co management and was just basically ruining what they had worked so hard for. And then also what was interesting about it is, so Obama was able to create the monument with a proclamation. But no president has eliminated a monument by proclamation before and he didn't eliminate it, but he shrank it. But I don't think there wasn't quite a precedent in the law, to know if that's allowed. the Antiquities Act, which is the law that allows presidents to make monuments only talks about creating them, not altering them or shrinking them or removing them. And so there were a lot of scholars that were like, wait a minute, I don't I don't know if he can do that. But before that question has ever been answered, they rushed through a management process, and then the administration's changed, and Biden reinstated it so. And the question still isn't really answered in terms of presidential power and what the President can and cannot do. So if that doesn't get answered, the next president could choose to make it smaller again, because there hasn't really been a firm ruling saying that they can or can't do that.
Kris Hampton 16:59
Do you get the sense? I certainly do. I'm, you've spent a lot more time in this. So I'm curious what your sense of this is. But is it more a sense that there isn't someone in government who actually cares about the environment? And it's more just used as a political pawn? Or is there someone in there who's actually looking at all sides and saying, I just don't see the logical reason to keep this monument at its size?
McKenzie Long 17:34
Well, this is where I'm going to be cynical, but I think you're right. It does seem like monuments are used more as a political pawn than it is an actual sincere desire to protect or care about these places. I mean, if you look at when presidents create monuments, you can also kind of tell like, they're most often made by Democratic presidents in their second term, like they they want to get reelected first and then they're like, Okay, now doesn't matter. I can make as many monuments as I want, but they're not really doing that at the beginning. Yeah, it seems like it's more more to please certain people.
My alarm buzzes in the early grave morning, condensation coats the inner walls of my 10 dampens the top of my sleeping bag. I rollover and feel around in the cold for my jacket when a coyote howl erupts nearby, I freeze. It begins like a whipping bark and ends with a high pitched whistling call. Rather than carrying one smooth note it breaks and cracks. A faraway howl echoes this one. I wait until the howls drift further away and then unzip the door to heat up water for coffee. I am camped in Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, the homeland of the Takelmans, Athapaskans, Shastans, and Klamath people. My intention is the backpack solo along the Pacific Crest Trail for a couple of days. My interest in national monuments has spurred me to take more trips alone. And the political background of this monument on the California Oregon border is interesting enough for me to set aside a weekend to explore. Cascade-Siskiyou was designated by President Clinton, expanded by President Obama, and put under review by President Trump. This seems like a lot of drama for a forest. The night before as I set up camp in the darkness, a car crunch just below me on the hillside. I hadn't realized road was so close to the trail. I was camping during the collision of summer and winter at the intersection of habitation and wilderness and at the overlap of public lands seemingly irreconcilable goals of preservation and tourism. Now the morning light is chilled like the air, the sky pales, easing into a faint blue. I can't see much of the sunrise over the hillside. So I've packed my damp sleeping bag and wet tent with cold hands and begin walking to warm up. After five minutes, or red and gray coyote leaps over the trail in front of me and trots through a meadow. I stand still and watch as it lopes between Manzanita and cinnamon bush.
On the flip side of all this,
Kris Hampton 20:34
see this what I love about the flip side,
McKenzie Long 20:37
I do think that recreation is what makes people care about places like if it wasn't for climbing and camping, I wouldn't have cared enough to write this book, which isn't really about climbing at all. And I think that for a lot of people, that's true that without outdoor recreation, and whatever their sport is, they wouldn't actually care about protecting places at all, because then it doesn't affect their life at all. And this is just one example. But if you look at some of the nonprofits, like conservation nonprofits like the Audubon Society, that's about protecting birds, mostly for birds sake, it's a little bit promoting bird watching, which is a type of recreation, but it's mostly just about protecting birds. And then if you look at Ducks Unlimited, which protects wetlands for ducks, but at its core, it's about shooting ducks. Ducks Unlimited makes about twice as much revenue a year as Audubon Society. And it's because the people that care about that type of recreation, then also care about protecting it, and so in like recreation does have some benefit, because it does allow people to then have the relationships with these places that are special.
Kris Hampton 21:51
You've got a great point. And in Lander, a lot of the people who go the hardest for conservation are the hunters. They're they're interested in keeping these, the, you know, the habitats for the species growing and thriving so that the species can grow and thrive so that they can hunt. So I think you're right. I don't say that very often. But I think you're right.
McKenzie Long 22:22
I do think that it's important for people to see the beautiful places of the world. And that access to places is important. But at the same time, it's sometimes it's tough to justify, especially with something like the Pacific Crest Trail that's getting more and more popular and having more and more people hike on it, that maybe it is threatening the life of this butterfly that lives in this one little tiny place. And I think that the balancing act of trying to allow people access the places and protect places, is something that a lot of parks and monuments are grappling with right now. And I don't pretend to know the answers to that, because I can see both sides for that. But I do think that, yes, some really popular outdoor places like you can see this at Zion and Yosemite and places like that. They're like trying to figure out how to manage swarms of people that come there, because the place is so special, but also trying not to overrun it and ruin it at the same time.
Kris Hampton 23:31
Yeah, I feel that way about ruins, even though they are a man made thing, knowing where they're at and promoting people going there seems strange to me for some reason, like, I want to know where they are, you know, I want to go look at them. But I don't feel like they should be these publicly known things that people can just go walkthrough. And I'm not sure why that is I can't, I can't grapple with that in my head enough for it to make sense.
McKenzie Long 24:06
I actually think that, um, I don't know if it's the BLM or the Park Service. But there's like a rating system for ruins like that, where there's like, the ones that are publicly known that are on maps. And that's one level. And then there's ones that are like, commonly known but not on maps or anything. And so if you ask a ranger, they can tell you about them. And then there's ones that are really secret that they won't tell you about at all. And I kind of liked that, because in some ways, it's like, well, there's these ones that everyone can go see, and that's fine. But we're also going to try and keep some things a little more special and protected.
Kris Hampton 24:48
But don't you want to know where those are?
McKenzie Long 24:49
Yes, of course I do. And I tried to find out but I think that there's always the desire to know but maybe it's good that they're not publicizing that
Perhaps that is one of the not quite tangible values of a place like c Cascade-Siskiyou. The almost religious experiences that people have in wildness, if religion brings joy to people's lives, draws them outside themselves to search for meaning, the natural world offers a similar shift in perception. I did not have an epic adventure on my journey to this monument. There was no teetering on the edge of life and death, no shivering trial of survival. My experience here was highlighted not by adrenaline but by my mind opening. Taking the time to identify trees, notice a butterfly and listen to birds left me with a peace and expanding love.
Even if we could not recreate on a plot of Earth, could not pull a profit from its boundaries, could not even visit, land still retains value. The survival of the marten skipper does matter. Even if I haven't seen one. Douglas fir can still grow for 1000 years even if no one counts its rains. Biodiversity loss can happen when no one is paying attention. And the way we choose to value and care for and interact with landscapes still has an effect on the world even if we are still searching for the right answer.
Kris Hampton 26:46
We'll be right back.
Emily Holland 27:08
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McKenzie Long 28:02
If you take I-15 east from Las Vegas and leave blinking lights and clinking casinos behind the scenery dissolves into middle of nowhere fast. This is how you get to Gold Butte National Monument. Exit the highway, turn onto a dirt road and you will pass the Bundy ranch. This ranch belongs to the same Bundy family who had an armed standoff with the federal government over 20 years of unpaid grazing fees in 2014. And who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon for 41 days just two years later. I've heard the Cliven Bundy grows delicious melons. I drove slowly past and rubbernecked at irrigation Greengrass fences in a squat house. After the ranch a 20 mile gravel road leads to Gold Butte, marked by a sign that warns high clearance for will drive vehicles required. For more than an hour, I crept down the deserted dirt road. Grateful that no boulders or deep holes blocked my way. There was no cell phone service. Creosote grew as far as I could see, ridgeline scalloped the skyline. The landscape was a creamy beige and tan with flecks of gold distinct from the electric grid of Utah, the deep pine green of Oregon, the silvery sage of Eastern Washington and the rainbow of Hawaii.
The Gold Butte region of Nevada, a rectangle sandwiched between the Lake Mead reservoir and the Arizona border, was proposed as a National Conservation Area in 2008 and 2015, but was never signed into law. Obama stepped in and declared it a 296,937 acre National Monument during the waning days of his presidency. The proclamation cites vital plant and wildlife habitat, significant geological formations, rare fossils and important sites from the history of Native Americans and remnants of our western mining and ranching heritage as the resources to be protected. Of course, this designation had critics.
Well, so I didn't actually get to talk to Cliven Bundy, which would have been really interesting.
Kris Hampton 30:13
And maybe a little scary.
McKenzie Long 30:15
Yeah, it probably would have been scary. I did talk to this man named Ken Watson, I don't really want to link him up with the Bundys. But he is anti monument. And one thing that I thought was really interesting about talking to him is that I actually agreed with him on a lot of things. And I didn't think I would going into the conversation, but he was like, he was like, well, when they make a monument, you don't even know what it's really going to be like until they make the management plan which can take 10 years. He's like, why would I trust the government to make management plan that I agree with? And I was like, he makes a good point. Because I feel like no matter who you are, you think the government has done some good things and some terrible things. And so why would we trust the government to protect this place that we have a relationship with, and that we care about very deeply? I don't actually know why I think the government can do a good job at that. But I guess I'm just optimistic. And so I understand where he's coming from and why he doesn't want a monument in his place. You know. And I think that that's, I mean, the Bundys are a little bit, perhaps more out there than that. They actually think of, of the land that's in Gold Butte national monument as their right their land, like their inherited land from their family, and they don't believe the government can even own land,
Kris Hampton 31:37
and they're willing to arm themselves to protect it, so.
McKenzie Long 31:39
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're like kind of the far, far extreme. And I don't know necessarily what the Bundys opinions are. I would like to think that they care for the land, but they could also just perceive it as a place that they can use for their own benefit. Because I know that they graze on land without paying for leases, and things like that. So. But I do think that there are plenty of people who oppose monuments that actually very deeply care about the place just as much as the monument supporter would.
Kris Hampton 32:15
Yeah. How much of this do you think is just the natural human resistance to change?
McKenzie Long 32:22
I think there's a lot of that for sure. Because, yeah, what Ken was saying is he's like, Well, if they make a monument here, it's going to bring more tourists and change this place even more. And I just wanted to stay the way it is. I don't think there's any reason to change it. But if you look at it, because he lives near Yellowstone National Park, up in Idaho, and if you look at where he lives, like there's already a lot of changes happening. There's already more tourists coming because people are getting more interested in going outdoors in general. And so, perhaps a monument would be better at keeping the area the same. Maybe not I don't know it's hard to say.
Cliven Bundy said that a national monument reduced his family's ability to make a living off the land, land that he considers his and not the federal government's. He claimed that since he is descended from Mormon settlers and his family has an ancestor right to the land. But others have ancestral rites that extend much further back. The land of Gold Butte is known as Maha Gadu, or land of many bushes, and is the homeland of the Paiute or Nuwu people. Before the Nuwu the nomadic Tudinu roamed this desert. Songs were one of the primary means through which ownership of land and resources were recognized, said Shenandoah Anderson, a Southern Paiute, and daughter of author lavande LaVan Martineau. The men who owned the song own the territory to which it was associated. When one approached a stranger in the land, they would ask, 'What song do you come from?' The stranger would then have to sing the song from which his bloodline came to show which land he belonged to. Songs were oral maps of the territory, if you knew the songs, you knew which area it was talking about. I navigated with maps and GPS and followed a dirt road built by others. I imagine navigating by songs that told of Joshua trees, golden boulders and hidden washes.
Kris Hampton 34:29
There's one part of the book I really want to talk about that I found really interesting. In fact, I told multiple people about it right after I read it, and that was this idea that the owner of of land which is this concept I think is really interesting as well, ownership of, of this land that's been here forever. They signified whose land it was through song. Like if you could sing about the land and its characteristics than it was your land, which means it was a lot of people's land. And all you needed was to know it intimately. I think that's beautiful and fascinating.
McKenzie Long 35:15
I did too. I like when the woman told me about that I was just like, whoa, what an amazing concept. Because I feel like in our modern society today, we we look at places and we fence them off, and we say, No trespassing, this is mine, you can't come here. And I just really liked the idea of like you said, if you know this place intimately, and you can talk about it and sing about the different intricacies of it, then, then you're part of that place, and that place is part of you. And that's all it takes.
Kris Hampton 35:49
Yeah, I remember, you know, celebrating, and the whole community celebrating the first land acquisitions by climbing groups, you know, the access fund, or the Red River Gorge, climbers coalition was one of the very first. And that left me wondering a little bit about that whole idea. And we are in like, we are playing the game. So we have to play the game, by its rules to some degree. So we couldn't just sing about the land, and it's ours to climb on freely, you know. But it doesn't make me question, the idea of just continuing to do things the way we always have, when I read something like that, that seems so simple and effective.
McKenzie Long 36:38
Like you're saying, we shouldn't be trying to own places?
Kris Hampton 36:42
In an ideal world that doesn't exist anymore. That would be amazing. Yeah, if you can sing about the Red River Gorge, then then you can climb there openly. Yeah. I love that idea. That you have to spend time with a place and you have to get to know it more intimately. In order to call it yours. Yeah, I like that idea a lot.
McKenzie Long 37:06
I do too. And that was kind of like, one of the main things I wanted to convey with this book was just how intimately people can come to know places and care about them. And that the places are important to people, and then people are also important to those places.
Kris Hampton 37:40
What are your hopes for the national monuments, the conservation? What are your hopes for This Contested Land for your son?
McKenzie Long 37:55
Well, I really do hope that there's plenty of wild places for him to explore as he grows up. And ideally, I would love for there to be more monuments and more protected places and more places that are going to be free from development. So there's still plenty of wildness to be found. And also, what I really hoped for him and maybe this is asking too much of humanity. But I hope that people can listen to each other more and perhaps find the nuance and complexity of situations a little more rather than the polarized thinking that's really common right now. I feel like that would make much better place for my son to grow up. But we'll see what happens with that.
Kris Hampton 38:40
You're starting to sound like a pessimist like I am. I'm rubbing off on you. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.
McKenzie Long 38:47
I could I could do a little more cynicism I think.
Through all of my visits to national monuments, it was achingly obvious that people need land. But perhaps the land also needs us. Just as people are incomplete without the places that make them whole. Maybe the land is incomplete without people. Western culture often views land in nature as separate from people. Language reveals this with phrases like natural world and the outdoors, which signifies something wholly apart from our daily experience. If society could adopt the Nuwuvi view, and understand humans and land as two parts of a working whole, perhaps both humans and Earth could be treated with more care. We have more responsibility to a place when we realize that it needs us as much as we need it. National Monuments reveal to me in a tangible way that the well being of the world and the well being of humans are intertwined. Monuments exemplify how we can't separate ourselves from what we love, what we need, what we use and who we are. When I spoke with Lucas St. Clair about Katahdin woods and waters, we discussed how land needs advocates for protection to happen, land needs people to love it. Sinclair said that a person needs to make their voice heard and to find ways to increase the volume of their voice. This is best achieved with more voices. Turn your single voice into a chorus.
A chorus, a ringing of voices about love for land, perhaps even a song.
Kris Hampton 40:38
You can find This Contested Land at the link in your show notes, as well as everywhere you get books, and you should. It's lovely. And it's educational. Win win. If you want to hear the entire conversation with McKenzie, you can do that everywhere you get podcasts at the Power Company Podcast. It's also up today, right this minute, so go listen. As always, please subscribe. Leave us a rating and a review and share this episode with your friends. It really helps. I'm Kris Hampton. You've been listening to Plug Tone Outdoors.
