Louis Owens and Aldo Leopold have very different styles of writing in the two essays I’ve examined; however they also make strikingly similar and equally dissimilar assertions. I chose these two essays because they both offer the reader a guilt-inducing epiphany that challenges our very idea of “nature.” While both papers deal with humans and their relationship with nature and wilderness, Owens and Leopold make different assertions that question how humans interact with the world around them, but both of their assertions suggest the same thing. In the essays written by Louis Owens and Aldo Leopold, they both assert that humans need a better grasp on understanding of the world we live in.
Thinking Like a Mountain follows the thoughts of a modern hunter. As the story goes, Leopold is out with his hunter friends, when all of a sudden they come across a pack of wolves in the distance. His instinct at that moment seems all too clear. Aim to kill. Everyone knows that “fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter’s paradise” (Leopold, 89). After the kill, he realizes the repercussions in a domino effect. The almost personified mountain sits there in its grandeur and emits an overwhelming sense of permanence and wisdom. Those wolves were not intended to be removed from the mountain; they are all there to protect the mountain through hunting the deer. For when the deer population has no fear of predators, they roam free, dominating the vegetation and landscape of the mountain.
The American Indian Wilderness is about when Owens was a seasonal ranger for the United States Forest Service on a task to burn a log shelter in a place called White Pass. The shelter had existed for more than 80 years tucked away in a region of the North Cascades on a mountain called Dakobed, or the Great Mother, the place of emergence by the indigenous people. The burning was part of a Forest Service plan that would remove all human-made things from wilderness areas. The ranger spent five days in early fall taking apart and burning the logs of the shelter during a persistent snow storm until it was gone. On his hike back the ranger crossed paths with two old women who happened to be on their way to White Pass. Through a bit of conversation he learned the women were sisters on their way to the little house their father built long ago when he was part of the Forest Service. They explained their Indian heritage and how their land was shared and cared for by everyone long ago. The ranger reluctantly revealed to the women his reason for being there, and much to his surprise the sisters continued to smile before parting ways. On his hike back, the ranger re-evaluated his thoughts of what wilderness was. “Before the European invasion, there was no wilderness in North America; there was only the fertile continent where people lived in a hard-learned balance with the natural world” (Owens, 70).
Both authors used one of their experiences in the wild to get their point across. One point they both make is how their experience changed their views on nature. The point they are making is that humanity and wilderness are entwined in so many ways. Owens’ mission brought him great satisfaction at first. He was so willing to return the White Pass to its original state. Leopold, on the other hand, wanted to change the wilderness in a different way. He took control of the wild by hunting the hunter. It was almost as if he was playing God. There is a turning point for both authors when they think maybe they should not play around with the wilderness, maybe they are not meant to change things.
The epiphany that Leopold experienced questions how seemingly insignificant alterations to our environment can have dire and unforeseeable repercussions. It took years for the deer to devastate the mountain; but now unchecked, the deer have entirely changed Leopold’s landscape. He has “seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, (and) every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn” (Leopold, 89). This all too real consequence could have been avoided had all the wolves been left to fulfill their duty. Leopold leaves his readers thinking about how nature is already in harmony and how humans only seem to interfere with its intricate balance. As we have not lived as long as the mountain, we have no idea how our changes to our environment will affect the future of our wilderness.
Owens’ epiphany came to him over an 11-mile hike out of the mountains. He says: “I began to understand that what I called “wilderness” was an absurdity, nothing more than a figment of the European imagination. Before the European invasion, there was no wilderness in North America” (Owens, 70). This realization questioned his very idea of the word “wilderness.” Before this day he believed land unadulterated by the hand of man was the true meaning of wilderness; however, he discovered that North America has always been occupied by native peoples and that there is no wilderness. We have been chasing a false dream of untouched perfect land. The reality is that Native Americans used the land so well, they barely left a mark other than the occasional cabin. The white man has no concept of how to integrate themselves with nature; so our assumptions that wild unclaimed land existed here was just as false as our claim to it.
The closing of each piece was as important and impactful as the epiphany. Leopold ends with: “In wilderness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men” (Leopold, 89). The closing of this piece illustrates the complexity of nature, and how little humanity really notices of it. We are nor as old or wise as the mountain. This emphasizes the importance that each and every person can make a difference, whether it be good or bad.
Owens’ ending is more of an attack on urbanization. He ends with: “Unless Americans, and all human beings, can learn to imagine themselves as intimately and inextricably related to every aspect of the world they inhabit, with the extraordinary responsibilities such relationship entails—unless they can lean what the indigenous peoples of the Americas knew and often still know—the earth simply will not survive. A few square miles of something called wilderness will become the sign of failure everywhere” (Owens, 71). This really is a wake up call that everyone is at fault for our devastated planet. We all need to be more like the Native Americans and become one with nature, or end up in a world completely devoid of nature, where we maintain a few parks to remind ourselves how badly we have messed up.
While both essays enlightened the reader to think more closely about their relationship with nature, Owens applied his focus into explaining our idea of wilderness as non-existent and our actions should be modified to reduce our future damages, while Leopold dedicated his time to say that we should tread lightly because we don’t know the consequences of our actions until it’s too late. Both essays possessed a clear expression that we don’t know as much about nature as nature knows about itself. Both essays exhibited unmistakable epiphanies that lead the reader to see the authors’ realization and remorse. Both essays evoked self-reflection in its readers. But most importantly the underlying message in the essays written by Louis Owens and Aldo Leopold, is the assertion that humans need a better grasp on understanding of the world we live in.
Works Cited
Leopold, Aldo. "Thinking Like a Mountain." A Sand County Almanac. Saving Place: An Ecocomposition Reader. Comp. Sidney I. Dobrin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. 87-90. Print.
Owens, Louis. "The American Indian Wilderness." Saving Place: An Ecocomposition Reader. Comp. Sidney I. Dobrin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 68-71. Print.
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