Re: [Paddlewise] pfds...whoa, will this stir the waters

At 08:57 PM 9/10/00 -0700, you wrote:

>I bet you'll like this quote from JM Coetzee's Age of Iron. I keep thinking
>about it as this pfd - pretty frustrating debate - rages on. Makes me think
>of how differently we all define and value "life."

Gonna have to read that book. 

(An excellent and thoughtprovoking passage snipped.)

There are getting to be too many artificialities between ourselves and our
experiences. This may be a bit off topic -- it's part of a column I wrote
back when I was doing the magazine for the North Country Trail Association
-- but it immediately came to mind:

------------------------------

Over the years, I've tried to give my daughter some pleasant outdoor
experiences that, while it may not make her into an outdoors nut, will at
least leave her with some motivations and experiences in that direction.
Occasionally, however, this good intention backfires.

One summer a few years ago, when she was about eight, we happened to be in
Munising, Michigan. On the edge of Munising, there is a small volume but
rather pretty waterfall, named, naturally enough, Munising Falls. I
remember when there was nothing but a sign along the road, a small parking
area, and a dirt trail leading up to the falls -- not all that many years
ago, either. By the time I took my daughter there, the parking lot was
twenty times larger, paved, and had a visitor center. There was also a
paved trail up close to the falls, but you could still clamber up along a
narrow ledge under the rim of the valley, up under the falls, themselves.
It turned out to be a magical experience for a little kid, to walk under
the waterfall.

Two years ago, my daughter and I were passing through Munising, and she
told me about how much she'd enjoyed the experience and wanted to go back
and do it again. We hiked up the trail, to discover gates and guard rails
and signs preventing us from doing what thousands of people had enjoyed. A
risk of falling, it seems . . . although I didn't find guard rails along
the Grand Canyon while I was there last summer . . .

My daughter was hugely disappointed. "How could they do that?" she asked.

"Get used to it," I told her. "Experience your delightful times in the
outdoors when you can,  because before long the developers and the
interpreters and the insurance agents will be along to change a natural
wonder and joy into a sanitized, safe experience. The best we can hope for
is to let the developers have a few of the easy to reach ones, in hopes
that we can keep them from some of the wilder, harder to reach ones."

--------------------------

-- Wes


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