HIKING ALONG THE GREAT DIVIDE

EXPLORING SOCIO-NATURES IN THE CANADIAN

ROCKIES

LAUREN HARDING

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••I Canada Abstract

This thesis explores the multiple discourses surrounding cultural conceptions of nature, wilderness, and place in the Canadian Rockies. Canada. I suggest that National

Parks of the Canadian Rockies are symbolically constructed as 'pure wilderness', and yet are a site of production for nature/culture hybrids which are intricately entangled with facets of Canadian identity, colonial/post-colonial concepts of modernity, and the territorialisation of space and place. In exploring this possibility, I focused on those who are participating in a both literal and figurative exploration of wilderness through the activity of hiking. I have conducted interviews with individual hikers on non-guided trips to discover how they construct their conceptions of wilderness and how the practice of backcountry hiking both refies and challenges dualisms of nature/culture, modern/pre- modern, and wild/civilized.

IV Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter One: Mountain Places ; 13

Chapter Two: Making and Re-making Wilderness: Studying People in a 'People- less' Place 44

Chapter Three: Why Backpack?...... 75

Chapter Four: What Good is A Bear to Society? 106

Conclusion 141

Bibliography 146

Table of Figures

Figures 1-10 68- Introduction

My project began on the picket line. Hours of marching back and forth in the cold, and

what I perceived as the hostile, climate of Toronto made me long (with rose-coloured glasses) for

the craggy peaks and crisp, clean air of home. Well, not home in the sense of the place I was born

and lived most of life in, but home as, to use a cliche, where my heart has always been: my

beloved Rocky Mountains. In the fall of 2008,1 uprooted my life in the Rockies and attempted to

transplant myself and my partner to Toronto, in order to undertake a Masters degree in

Anthropology at York University. I found it difficult to put down roots in a landscape that was not

only aesthetically unfamiliar, but politically tumultuous due to a teaching and graduate assistant

strike which postponed my studies for three months. As I attempted to 'keep my head in the game' despite the disruption of my studies, the homesickness 1 felt turned into an anthropological curiosity as to why I felt such attachment to the Rocky Mountains. What made this place

meaningful to me? Why did I find those cold rocks so inviting and the concrete of Toronto so

hostile?

Growing up in Edmonton, the national parks of Jasper and Banff were places of recreation and respite. My parents first took me camping in the Rockies when I was 3 months old, and I've been addicted since. As a child, I always felt a deep, profound love for those cold hunks of rock. I had a ritual where on the way back home to Edmonton I would stare out the back window, never glancing away, until the last limestone spire faded from site. When I had the opportunity to work in Yoho National Park for the summer during my undergraduate studies I leapt at the chance. I greeted the surrounding peaks each morning: Field, Burgess, Duscheny, and my favourite, the towering Stephen, whose glacial meltwater fed the Kicking Horse River which

1 separated my home from my workplace. Living in the tiny village of Field, in an old CP rail bunkhouse, I was in heaven.

Back on the picket line, and then later on (finally) in the classroom, I attempted to explain my passion for the mountains. And, in the attempted explanation, I began to see a project forming.

Was I enamoured with a place, or with an idea of a place? Why? How was that idea formed? Who

shares my view of that place and who doesn't and why? My academic orientation in anthropology on the study of the exotic and the foreign began to transform as I focused my critical gaze on my own backyard. What makes my mountains meaningful? How? And for whom? I began to become aware of the complexities landscapes that were familiar instead foreign.

I also became aware of the more troubling aspects of an idealization of a landscape, as the processes and practices behind that idealization became more apparent. The place I love is a

multifaceted place, troubled by a colonial past, political forces, the demands of the tourism industry and changing cultural attitudes towards nature.

Wilderness or Socio-Nature?

My project focuses on those who are participating in a both literal and figurative exploration of wilderness through the activity of hiking. From May- November of 2009 I residing in the town of Banff, in Banff National Park, one of the primary 'base-camps' for hikers and backpackers in the Canadian Rockies. From July to September of 2009 I hiked into the backcountry on nine different occasions, following trails both little-used and popular, for only one night and for up to five nights. Most of my steps were taken alone, but on one trip and for several day hikes I had a companion. This was my fourth consecutive summer spent living in the Rockies.

2 I had camped in the Rockies throughout my childhood, and later, spent my summer university

terms working for the provincial government and hiking in my spare time. However, unlike the

backpacking trips in previous years where I sought out unspoiled vistas and wilderness treasures,

in the summer of 2009 I was on the hunt for socio-natures. Bruce Braun defines social nature as

indicative of "the inevitable intertwining of society and nature in any and all social and ecological

projects (Braun 2002:10, see also Fitzsimmons 1989; Harvey 1996).

Although the idea of a social nature may undermine the strategic essentialization of

nature espoused by many environmentalists, I agree with Braun in stating that it is a concept of

"important analytic and political hope in the face of the radical social and ecological

displacements effected by postcolonial [and neo-colonial] capitalisms" (Braun 2002:10).

Furthermore, it is important to recognize the forces of power which also strategically essentialize

nature, specifically colonialism, which as Braun points out, in the Canadian context is highly

intertwined with the discursive rendering of nature. "Accepting nature as inevitably marked by

humans does not mean that any and all human environmental practices are the same or equally

desirable" (Braun 2002:14).

Banff National Park proved to be a useful site for exploring the way in which certain

practices maintain or challenge particular discourses of nature. I argue that backpacking, an

activity that physically and literally travels over and between areas categorized as nature and

culture, wild and civilized, and modern and pre-modern, both re-ifies and challenges these

dualism simultaneously. As I shall attempt to show, the activity itself is founded upon a modernist

(and colonial) separation between nature and culture, and backpackers continue to reify this

separation through their idealization of wilderness. However, through a direct engagement with the landscape, backpackers are often simultaneously confronted with places, moments, and

3 actions that do not fit clearly into this paradigm. Like Latour's (1993) argument that an

investment in the modern/pre-modern binary leads to a proliferation of hybrids which fail to fit

into either dualistic category, I found that the more backpackers invest in a search for pure

nature, the more the cultural and the natural are revealed to be deeply intertwined.

The idea of a bounded wilderness pervades many of the representations of, and discourses

surrounding, the Canadian National Parks of the Rocky Mountains: Banff, Jasper, Yoho,

Kootenay, and Waterton. These parks are the ideal site for an exploration of the discursive divide

between wild and civilized, as they are what Alexander Wilson terms an exemplary place that

reveals "both the cohesions and disruptions of the past, places redolent of the power of the land; places overlaid with another, cultural environment -that of advertising or tourism" (1991: 15-16).

An ideational separation between civilized mankind and wild nature took root in the

Canadian context, as a legacy of colonialism. Bruce Braun in The Intemperate Rainforest (2002) argues that the idea of wilderness creates the perception of an area as free of human presence and activity; untouched and vacant. As Braun makes clear, "if nature is to be successfully constructed as primal, First Nations must be either erased entirely or collapsed into it" (Braun 2002: x).

Although historically the presence of indigenous peoples along the spine of the Rockies, where the parks are located, was transitional, not settled, the land was certainly marked by a human presence. Aboriginal trade routes criss-crossed the Great Divide, and sporadic seasonal hunting and fishing camps were set up at various lakes. Braun argues that notions of 'pristine' or

'primeval' wilderness "posit nature as something that lies outside history, and thereby denies other histories of nature's occupation and use, specifically those of indigenous peoples" (2002:

12). Following Braun, I suggest that a similar idea is present in constructions of a notion of

'wilderness' in the Canadian Rockies national parks. Smith echoes this view in arguing that,

4 through representations of the wild frontier, "the indigenous world view, the land and the people

have been radically transformed in the spatial image of the West. In other words, indigenous

space has been colonized" (2002: 51). The strong arguments of post-colonial critics like Braun

and Smith of wilderness as a cultural category that subsumes, excludes, and/or forgets indigenous

peoples is crucial to my project.The wilderness paradigm works best when an area is

characterized as both pre-modern and people-less, and this cannot happen without the erasure

those who occupied the area before the 'moderns' (ie. Euro-Americans) came. In places such as

Banff national park, the term wilderness directly ignores a long and complex history of

indigenous land use.

Furthermore, the category of wilderness ignores the current and historical activity of

people in the area within the boundaries of the Rocky Mountain national parks. They are tattooed

with logging roads, fire roads, and decrepit cabins, many of which were built by prisoners at the

internment camps which were variously located in the parks during the first decades of the

twentieth century. Wardens have actively managed wildlife populations for the past hundred

years. Avalanches are controlled through bombings, mountain-sides are sculpted by ski resorts,

and many of the popular and most photogenic mountains have an Alpine Club of Canada hut

hidden somewhere on their backside for the more intrepid mountaineers. The history of fire

management alone in the park clearly displays how it is an environment whose natural history has

been shaped by its human history.

Despite the clear usage and marking of the mountain parks as human territory, the image

of the Rockies as wild is continuously reified through multiple discourses permeating the current conceptions of the area. These discourses include everything from tourism brochures, to explorers' accounts, to stories of bear encounters. According to Foucault, "discourse constructs

5 the topic. It defines and produces the objects of our knowledge. It governs the way that a topic can be meaningfully talked about and reasoned about" (1984:343). The Rocky Mountain parks are

shaped into an emblem of the frontier and the site of shifting transitions between civilization and nature by the discourses produced by everything from marketing campaigns to popular literature.

Following Bruce Braun (who in turn is following Foucault), I would like to take a genealogical approach in briefly exploring why and how people associate their Canadian identity with ideas of wilderness. Braun points out that genealogy "approaches things as effects of shifting configurations of discourse and practice, rather than innate properties founding the world," which allows us to recognize certain understandings as historically and politically situated (2002: 3).

Thus an examination of the shifting historical contexts in which conceptions of wilderness are

informed is essential to my research. Colonial ideas of primitive (wild) and modern (civilized), are especially important to my project and, I argue, are at the heart of modern tourism and outdoor recreation. Braun argues that "adventure travel and ecotourism are particularly modern forms of travel, deeply invested in, yet also seeking to transcend a great divide between civilization/nature and modernity/premodernity" (2002: 28). Also, modern tourism is intricately linked with a long history of colonial travel. I would suggest that tourism can, in some areas, manifest aspects of what Mary Louise Pratt (2008) calls anti-conquest. Pratt defines this as "strategies of representation whereby European bourgeois subjects seek to secure their innocence in the same moment as they assert European hegemony" (2008: 9). Tourism, especially when it is linked to processes such as conservation and environmental protection which are characterized as benevolent, provides a medium for such 'anti-conquest' activities, especially when a fundamentally colonialist hegemonic paradigm of civilization versus wilderness is reasserted.

6 For the pursuit of wilderness to be successful, nature must be demarcated as external to

society. It must be characterized as "a place where one goes—the site of resources, a stage for

recreation, a source for spiritual renewal, and a scene for aesthetic reflection" (Braun 2002: ix).

Wilson notes that "the idea of nature as an untrammelled refuge is more attractive to cultures

situated at some distance from the rural world, and whose values tend to rest on a rigid distinction

between the human and the non-human" (1991: 27). I suggest that, to a certain extent, Canadian culture fits this description and thus faces the problematic task of maintaining a rigid category of

wild nature versus civilized culture that is ultimately illusory.

Backcountry tourism was the primary focus of my fieldwork as places beyond the town

sites and highways are perceived as one of the wildest (and therefore most external to civilized

society) areas in North American mythology, full of hidden dangers or treasures, depending on one's perspective. Following Wilson, I suggest that it is the focus of backcountry tourism to preserve and/or recreate the ecologic scene as viewed by the first European visitors (1991: 234).

This suggests that narratives of backcountry travel are entangled with colonialism. As well, hikers engage in a much more tangible and direct way with the landscape than most tourists. By traversing the landscape, the sensory experience of the backcountry, the wilderness, has far more depth than the panoramas of a typical tourist photograph. Blood, sweat and tears are often shed on these trips, and encounters with snow, hail, rockslides, and wildlife. This is why I chose to study backpacking, as the engagement with wilderness, as a cultural construction situated in the places hikers traverse, is far more direct, and thereby far more complex and meaningful.

Who is engaging in backcountry tourism, and why, is important to my research. How do ethnicity, gender, and class shape narratives of wilderness travel? Who has access to wilderness tourism, and who is excluded? And, finally why bother? Why trudge through the 'wilderness' for

7 days on end with a heavy pack, mosquitoes, the threat of bears, and no 'modern' comforts? It is

this question which was key to understanding the guiding narratives behind backcountry travel.

In answering, my informants drew on narratives of adventure (with clear links to colonialism),

self-discovery, nature-loving, and escape from the troubles of civilization. I will discuss these

fully in the last chapter, with the first few chapters pointing towards the links between these

personal narratives and larger narratives of colonialism and wilderness.

How to Do Anthropology in the Woods

Charmaz emphasizes that "we are part of the world we study and the data we collect" and

"'we construct our grounded theories though our past and present involvements and interactions

with people, perspectives and research practices" (2006: 10). Reflexivity is essential to my

research as I am part of the community which I am studying. As a native Albertan 1 spent much of

my childhood camping and hiking through the Rockies. I also have worked in the tourism

industry of the Rockies in both Yoho National Park and in Banff. These experiences have imbued the landscape with memories and association which makes my view of the area highly personal and far from the objectivity aspired to by empirical models of science. I recognize this, and attempt to incorporate critiques of my own positionality into my analysis. In trying to understand the processes and discourses that structure conceptions of the Canadian Rockies National Parks, I am trying to explain and understand a place I love, both to an academic audience and myself. This does introduce a large degree of bias in my project, which I shall of course attempt to reduce, but which I also recognize as impossible to fully eradicate. However, through research and through the voices of my informants I have tried to balance out the dominance of my own perspective.

However, my discussion does contain many elements of autoethnography, as I am a part of the group of people whom I interview. The results of my investigation yield insight not only into the

8 cultural construction of wilderness amongst Western Canadians, but also an understanding of how

I personally engage and embrace differential understandings of the Rocky Mountain landscapes.

I also, somewhat in defiance of the current climate of the anthropology as an academic

discipline, unabashedly sought adventure. As David Stoll surmises, "even in the supposedly

rugged outpost of anthropology, the anthropologist in his tent has been displaced by the theorist in

the armchair. Sanctimony reigns. Bug bites, dysentery, and blisters have been replaced by the

stress of 'writing' -laboriously reworking one's narrative through fingers on a keyboard" (Stoll

2006:277). With full acknowledgement of the troubling overlap between colonial adventurers and

old-time anthropologists, and while casting my own gaze inwards in order to (attempt to) keep

my romanticism somewhat in check, I sought out adventure. Definitely not the same sort of

'journey of discovery into wild lands' or adrenaline-pumping trek that still characterizes our popular (and anthropological) narratives of adventure, but with parallels to the old-timey anthropologist-writing-notes-in-a-tent-while-swatting-mosquitos scenario nonetheless. My

informants sought adventure, so I did too. If one classifies an adventure as a moment where something goes wrong (when the snowstorm hits, the bear appears etc.), then it is often in these unexpected moments that new insights are brought to light. Adventure causes one to look more deeply into questions such as: What did I do wrong? Why I am a doing this? How do my actions influence situations?

The question then becomes, who has the privilege to undertake a search for adventure as form of recreation (or research)? I conceive my research as 'reversing the gaze', as studying both the colonizers imprinting themselves on the land and the tourist's 'gaze' on 'wilderness.' This is a reversal of the traditional focus of anthropology on non-western peoples in that I have interviewed mostly North Americans of European descent. It is also a reversal of 'the tourist's

9 gaze' on a nature that is conceived as 'Other' by examining how and why people 'gaze' on

wilderness I have conducted interviews with individual hikers on non-guided trips to discover

how they construct, through narratives and discourse, their conceptions of wilderness. Throughout the summer I literally and figuratively ascended (and descended) the geographical barrier to

westward colonial expansion, the Continental (or Great) Divide, while simultaneously deconstructing the imaginary Great Divide (Latour: 1993) between nature and culture, civilization and wilderness. The trails that weave back and forth across the spine of the Rockies became a

metaphor for how the hikers I spoke with wove links between nature and culture, leaving hybrid constructions in their wake.

I selected the trails based on their proximity to my base in Banff, their historical significance, and their popularity.. The backpacking season is quite short in the Canadian

Rockies, from July to September when most mountain passes are free of snow, and so I conducted most of my interviews during those three months of 2009. The people 1 spoke with were, for the most part, difficult to fit neatly into the category of 'tourist.' Although I did encounter people from the United States, from Germany, from Korea, and from Israel (amongst other places), the majority of my informants were from Alberta and British Columbia who did not consider themselves to be tourists. Their views of the space they were travelling across differed from that of the tourist/adventure traveller, in that they were to some extent exploring a space which they felt, as Canadians, was 'theirs.' They also would often return again and again to the same places, infusing them with personal significance. Although most backpackers do not consider the Rockies

'home,' for many it is not really 'away' either. For Canadians especially, the national parks are more of a 'national backyard,' part of a national mythology of Canada as a nation rife with wild spaces (McGregor 1985). Furthermore, unlike the adventure travellers/eco-tourists described by

Braun (2002), these 'wilderness explorers' did not embark on packaged or guided trips.

10 Independence from the machinations of the tourist industry and other vehicles of modernity is part

of the motivation for 'escaping' on a backpacking trip. I am not stating that my informants were not tourists, but rather that they did not view themselves as such. This denial was not based on the form of their visitation to the area (they were in search of 'wild and authentic nature' just as other

visitors were), but due to the frequency of their familiarity with landscape, which for them, was

imbued with a distinct history of their own social memories. Yet despite the fact that in their view, many of my informants did not fall clearly into either category of tourist or local, they followed many of precepts of the tourism industry in searching for an 'authentic' nature experience.

As 1 carried out my research I hiked the trails, sometimes alone, sometimes tagging onto groups of other backpackers. I took photos, looked for bear sign, ate dehydrated meals, shuddered in a tent pelted with snow, and undertook all the activities common to backcountry travel. The majority of my interviews took place at Parks Canada designated backcountry campgrounds, which is how I have chosen to reference my informants. I do not give the exact date of interview, as Parks Canada keeps a record of who is camped where and on which days in the backcountry, and my informants were promised anonymity. Rather, informants are referenced by their place of interview, the order in which I interviewed them at the noted location, and the month and year the interview took place. Formal interviews usually took place in the cooking area of the campgrounds, which is usually the social gathering-place in the backcountry (sleeping areas and cooking areas are separated by at least 200m to reduce the proximity of food smells to tents, which reduces bear encounters). I also informally chatted with many hikers over the course of the summer, on the trail, during rest stops, at campgrounds and backcountry huts, and out in the front country at information centres, trailheads, and outdoor gear stores. I followed up my summer fieldwork with several fall interviews, which, although not directly quoted, were very useful to

11 my project, including one with photographer and guide Paul Zitka, and park warden/conservation activist/author Karsten Heur. These, amongst other discussions, helped shape this thesis. In the first chapter I investigate matters of place, how the Canadian Rockies are situated in the physical and mental landscapes of Canadians, backpackers, and myself. The second chapter is an investigation into the term wilderness, its myths and meanings in the context of the National Parks of the Rockies. The third chapter asks the question of who backpacks and why, and with the answer being voiced through the words of my informants. The fourth chapter brings together the who, where, why and how through an investigation into the symbolism of the being most emblematic of the Rockies, the bear. Through these studies I am trying to live the words of my final informant, Paul Zitka a Banff-based mountain guide and photographer : vsTo love the Parks you have to understand the Parks" (October 16 2009).

12 Chapter One: Mountain Places

A mistake that we make as hikers, at least sometimes, is really evaluating just on distance; you don't evaluate on terrain and elevation and all kinds of stuff. Andy'know we usually do the 4km/hour thing. And sometimes you get in some terrain and you 're lucky to do 2km/hour. When you 're at home, having a scotch, looking at the map, everything looks possible (Informant 1, Burstall Pass , July 2009 ).

Maps are a ubiquitous part of mountain life. When I worked at the tourist

information centre, nearly every visitor departed with a map of some sort in hand: road

maps, hiking maps, ski hill guides, town directories. Even with the advent of GPS, maps

are ubiquitous." For backpackers, maps are considered to be an essential. However, this

essentialness does not arise completely from necessity. Trails in the Rockies are, for the

most part, well-defined and sign-posted. As long as you don't go off the beaten path,

literally, it would be difficult to get lost. The truth is, like most travellers, hikers love

maps. We spend hours mulling over them, planning future trips, until they are almost

memorized. They are pulled out at every stop on the trail, to answer questions about how

much further? Which mountain is that? When's the next water source? Most citizens of

our 'print culture' possess an almost unwavering faith in maps. Many times while trying to correct a lost tourist I have heard them argue "but the map says....". As well as being a tool, maps are an essential practice of modernity; of the ways in which Western culture

describes and designates spaces and place. Places which are known, which have been

'civilized' through a process of surveying, naming, and settling, are supposed to be (so it

11 would like to identify my informants by the place (backcountry campground) which I interviewed them. The place and the month interviewed will allow them to identify themselves more easily in the text, as place serves as better mnemonic device than date, for reasons which I hope will become clearer as my thesis unfolds. 2 In Banff, with its rugged geography, GPS's are notoriously often wrong, and we don't usually advise that tourists use them without a map to consult as well, lest their rental car end up in the Bow River, instead of at the Bow View Lodge.

13 is thought) easy to travel through with the aid of a modern map. Obstacles such as mountains, gorges, and lakes are translated into harmless blotches and lines, easily overcome with the aid of modern technological ingenuity.3 In a First World modern nation like Canada, how could the case be otherwise? The ability to travel from A to B rapidly and efficiently is central to the ideal of civilization. Yet as most people who travel in the more remote areas of the Canadian domain, maps (like most other modern inventions) are not as omniscient as we are led to believe. The accuracy of one map versus another is a common trail-side debate, whether the federal government survey map or the Gem trek one has the proper distance to that lake, or whether the BC map or the

Alberta map correctly identifies how the border lies across that ridge . It is often soon apparent when traversing the more remote and thus hastily surveyed regions of the

Rockies that, echoing the statement of one former park warden, a map "is only as good as the guy who drew it" (Marty 1999: 85).

Maps, at least in the modern incarnation which relies heavily on numerical calculations of distance, elevation, latitude, longitude etc, are a relatively new invention.

This is quite apparent in the early maps of western Canada, used in the fur trade. Before the advent of surveyors such as David Thompson, distances were calculated through an

3 The fallacy of these thoughts were soon discovered during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Hubris and an ignorance of local topography resulted in the building of the railway through Roger's Pass, which is one of the highest frequency avalanche corridors in the world. The story is longer and more complex than there is time to tell, but is a classic case of Canadian colonial surveyors and engineers underestimating mountain terrain. 4 Before I go any further, it should be noted that planning a backcountry trip using a map to evaluate distance and terrain is very important for safety reasons. Knowing distances and elevation gain ahead of time reduces risk of over-exertion, which consequently reduces the risk of accidents. Most backpackers are fully aware of this, and despite feeling a romantic nostalgia for exploring the unknown, will try to learn as much as possible about a trail before embarking on it, not just because of an urge to 'know, and thus have power over' a la Foucault, but also due to very legitimate safety concerns.

14 approximation of how many days travel it took to reach a given destination. This

calculation depended more on the stamina of a particular individual and the weather than

on actual number of miles (Jennish 2004). This way of explaining territory is not foreign

to even those of us who are fully ensconced in the modern lifestyle. When I worked at a

visitor information centre, it was a struggle to explain how the highly variable mountain

weather, the winding roads, and the movement of wildlife could affect journey time. If it

was sunny, the next town was a one hour drive, if it the weather was unfavourable, more

like two. In some areas the actual landscape matters far more than the calculable distance.

The older maps of the fur trade recognize this, and I would have to say, from

experiencing the road rage of tourists delayed by poor weather, modem maps do not.

However, as time went on and the fur trade expanded beyond a few hardy

individuals (usually Metis) to include more thoroughly western individuals educated in cartography as a science, the maps of western and northern Canada began to change into a form far more recognizable to the modern-map reader. As colonial expansion grew, so

did a need to create boundaries and borders around key resources, which created the need for the calculated surveys. The current spatial conception of Canada reflected in the national map, with the dots for the significant cities, the borders of provinces as political boundaries, the green shading for parks and the red shading for reserves is a result, to no small extent, of a colonial push for resource control. As colonial control was consolidated, so was the supremacy of the scientific, cartographic, 'modern' way of knowing the land. However, other ways of knowing the land survived, sometimes conflicting with, sometimes contradicting, and sometimes interbreeding with the

15 'modern', colonial, map-as-law, way of constructing territory. I argue that backpacking is one of these hybrid ways of knowing and constructing place and space, as backpackers both use (often love) modern space-making tools such as maps, and abide by the categorizations of space that arise out of such tools. And yet those who physically traverse the land, labour on it, have experiences that mark certain places as personally significant, and pass on this signification through stories, jokes, and photos (e.g.. This is the place where Bill fell in the creek and almost drowned, I'll tell you the story....). In an attempt to understand this hybrid way of signifying place and space in the context of

Banff, the thought that gave rise to this categorical way of thinking about land shall be discussed, as well as the history of the construction of Banff as a (colonized) space.

Mapping Space and Place

The history of mapping clearly indicates that landscapes are shaped into spaces and places by historical and cultural factors. As Dirlik states, "places are not given, but produced by human activity, which implies that how we imagine and conceive places is a historical problem" (2001: 15). This point is reiterated by Gupta and Ferguson:

The ability of people to confound the established spatial orders, either through physical movement or through their own conceptual and political acts of reimagination means that space and place can never be 'given' and that the process of their socio-political construction must always be considered(1997: 47).

Place and space are geographical categories produced through human activity such as travel, political configuration, and resource manipulation. The question then is, "with meaning-making understood as a practice, how are spatial meanings established? Who has the power to make places of spaces?" (Gupta and Ferguson 1997: 40). Why are some

16 landscapes characterized as space, as a void-like wilderness, from one perspective, while the same landscape may be riddled with significant locations from an alternative perspective? Which perspective dominates and which is suppressed? Who can transform space into place, and vice versa? How is this action performed? In attempting to answer these questions, it becomes clear that, as cultural categories, space and place are highly complex, often contestable, and many locations and areas fluctuate between the two categories.

It would be simple to place the two categories in binary opposition, with one defining a location of cultural significance (place) and the other indicating a lack of such signification (space). However, this would mask the complex and dynamic interactions between the two concepts which often take place on the ground. Dirlik suggests that we view these terms as signifiers for processes rather than as locations conceived in narrow geographical terms (2001: 15). Philosopher Edward Casey provides definitions of space and place that hold the potential to address space and place as complex categories, in that his definition hinges on human action (i.e. travel). Cruikshank sums up his argument as follows:

Western modernity, Casey suggests, treats space -mappable, measurable, and easy to fix using Cartesian coordinates -as a universal category, and he identifies place as the more restricted notion. Casey challenges this hierarchy. Drawing on historical evidence from ancient Greece, he argues that place is actually the more universal concept. Space, he insists, is landscape one navigates in the course of travel; place-making occurs at locations where one chooses to stay or return (Cruikshank 2005: 67,Casey 2009 [1993]).

Several key points can be drawn from these statements. First, space is linked to modernity, scientific empiricism and exploration. Second, space has been privileged in

17 the modernist hierarchy of power5 as universal, when in fact, historically, and, as I argue,

even now, place is the more universal concept. Space implies movement across, while

place implies an attachment, and a groundedness, which space overshadows in its

empiricism. Spaces are the blank places on the map, bordered and colour-coded and

named, yet still blank and empty. Although, just as much a human construction as any

other concept, space appears neutral, disguised by its affinity for scientific empiricism.

Place, on the other hand, is space made meaningful. And, as Dirlik has pointed out, if it is

impossible to imagine a world without places, then strategies which make places and

spaces meaningful must be prevalent in spite of the privileging of space as the preeminent

geographic concept.

Modem political maps fix in a relatively static way the relationship between place

and identity in a way that often reflects contemporary power hierarchies rather than the

experience of place of the people living in that territory. Escobar notes that "maps,

whether drawn by experts or communities, may reveal or hide important aspects...who

counts, draws, and narrates and how is of decisive importance" (Escobar 2008:56). As

Rodman points out, "places have multiple meanings that are constructed spatially. The

physical, emotional, and experiential realities places hold for their inhabitants at

particular times need to be understood apart from their creation as the locales of

ethnography" (Rodman 1992: 641). The mapping of peoples by ethnography and the

mapping of territory by politics do not necessarily reflect the multiple ways in which people actually create and experience place. There are many different ways of signifying

5 That is, space, and the process of surveying and mapping which creates it, exemplify one of the discursive systems of knowledge highlighted by Foucault which are foundational to power and domination.

18 places, many of which adhere more to forms of local knowledge than governmental politics or ethnographic culture mapping. As Escobar makes clear, "Place is, of course, constituted by sedimented social structures and cultural practices" (Escobar 2001:143).

Escobar argues for the recognition "that place, body, and environment integrate with each other; that places gather things, thought, and memories in particular configurations; and that place, more an event than a thing, is characterized by openness rather than a unitary self-identity" (Escobar 2001: 143).

The open-ended process of place-making that both Escobar and Rodman describe directly opposes the structured boundedness of scientific and political mapping and implies that place-making is a hybrid process where the physical, sensorial, and social interact to create multiple conceptions of place. It also defies the dualism between nature and culture, empty 'wild' spaces and civilized places that colonial map-making tends to reinforce. Dualistic equations mask the complexities of place and space as cultural categories. Dirlik argues that "space is product, the geographical equivalent of the commodity, place, on the other hand, is product and work, with the uniqueness of the work of art or the craft of the artisan" (Dirlik 2001: 18). This does not mean, as Dirlik extrapolates from David Harvey's ideas, that space should be assigned into the realm of capital and place into the realm of the labourer (Dirlik 2001:19). The imposition of a set class dynamic onto space and place reinforces a false dualism between the two. Dirlik attempts to reinforce the idea that place must be acted upon in order to become significant. Space, on the other hand, implies the absence of such action, which can

19 include the erasure of actions of others to create the illusion of space. 6An attachment between land and labour must be created, with labour being defined more loosely than in the utilitarian sense, including actions such as traveling, remembering, experiencing, and contemplating, as well as more traditional forms of labour. I suggest that backcountry travel is one such activity. Through these actions place is made meaningful. This does not mean that what action, and who is initiating the action do not matter. Hierarchies of power influence the place-making process. Backpacking is certainly an activity of a privileged class, rather than a subsistence activity. Who is doing what, and due to what cultural proscriptions and which power dynamics, matters. What it does mean is that modem cartographic conceptions of place are no accident, but rather the result of complex processes in which society, politics, and history place a role as well as natural topography. Furthermore, it also suggests that that places are layered with meanings, layers which go much deeper than the borders and boundaries drawn on maps.

The designation of an area as space rather than place, as a bounded blank area, is a technique of quantifying the unknown. The 'in-between places on the map that lack designation as a particular destination, are likely untraveled by the mapmaker and will remain unknown, by way of their 'blankness' and seeming difficulties of navigation to the map reader. Through maps, and their ability to encase and categorize unfamiliar territory, the unknown is made known, and the foreign is entrapped in geographical equations that make sense to the modern map reader. It is important to recognize that the

'blankness' of spaces depends on who is making the map, and who is reading it. As

6 For example, the colonial idea of terra nullius or the contemporary concept of wilderness, both of which ignore and erase the connections of indigenous people to the land.

20 Escobar points out, "space is not culturally neutral, as it is often assumed" (Escobar 2001:

165). The significance of designating certain areas as empty of destinations is evident in

the proliferation of wilderness as a category for 'wild space.' As Raffles points out,

wilderness's very indistinguishability, and place-less-ness, signifies its backwardness and

pre-modernity (2000: 26). And who is designating a place as wilderness, and thus pre-

modern, and why, become important questions, especially in the case of Banff which is

spatially designated as a National Park, a wilderness preserve, at the same time as it is

home to over 8000 people and an international tourist destination. The contradictions thus

implied point towards the inadequacy of nature/culture dualisms in describing landscapes.

Banff's mystique relies on its characterization as a space empty of society, as a pristine

wilderness, and yet it is also layered with social signification as a place, as a home, a

recreation ground, and a destination.

Spatial Incarceration and Indigenous Peoples

Space-making is the process of designating a culturally ambiguous territory

through borders and mapping. The problematic nature of this becomes clear, when the

ambiguity of a space is a matter of perspective, and becomes a point of contention. In the

process of mapping Canada as a political territory of the British Empire, colonial areas of

traversable waterways were included in the written topography of the landscape, in other

words, designated as significant destinations. At the same time, indigenous places

experienced erasure through transformation of their territory into supposedly blank space, ready for the taking (and naming). First Nations 'places' were transformed into blank

spaces, with the titles of 'wilderness' or 'Indian territory' or 'reserve,' or re-signified as 21 colonial through the imposition of English names. As Foucault states, the "organisation of

domains meant the throwing into relief of processes of power" (Foucault 1980:70).The

demarcation and enforcement of imagined and sometimes arbitrary boundaries through

the technique of mapping can restrict, confine, and control the movement of subject

populations. Appadurai refers to this as the incarceration of place (1988). If a subject

population is not associated with a fixed locale, if they lead nomadic lifestyles, they are

seen as an uncontrolled and dangerous category of Other. First Nations peoples in western

Canada, and specifically in the ranges and foothills of the Rocky Mountains, have had

their presence and their meanings erased to a large extent from the landscape.

Furthermore, as a nomadic people, the reserve system not only interfered with their

traditional lifestyle, but spatially incarcerated them for the purpose of control and

colonization.7

A compendium of place names in the Rockies area tells the story, with countless

examples, of the land being renamed, and thus 'rebranded' with the signs of colonial

power. Naming topographic features became a way of assembling and organizing the

landscape in a way that was not only fathomable to the European eye, but also worked to

consolidate power over the landscape by replacing indigenous markers of meaning with

those of significance to the colonial enterprise. Place names, as noted by Mary Louise

7 It is important to note that just after the creation of Banff National Park in 1885 a pass system was enforced on the Stoney people of the Morley reserve. "Any Indian person found off the reserve without a pass was treated as a vagrant and summoned to court" (Snow 2005:73). They were legally confined to a small patch of land, when only ten years before the Stoney people were fully engaged in a semi-nomadic lifestyle that took them all over what was soon to be the parks and preserves of the Rocky Mountains. 8 It is not an unlikely supposition to assume that the Stoney and other indigenous peoples were and are aware of the connection between place names and power, and were wary about 'giving away' the names of places as that could very easily lead to 'giving up' those places. The authors of Canadian Mountain Place

22 Pratt, are one of the ways in which "empire makes its world meaningful to its subjects, how it weaves itself into the everyday" (2008: 3). With each wave of colonial exploration and expansion came a fresh tide of toponymists. First, the fur traders and explorers (e.g.

Mt. Robson, Howse Pass), then the missionaries and surveyors (Mt. Rundle, Kicking

Horse Pass, Castle Mountain), then the national enterprise which really consolidated control of the area, and laid an abundance of names upon the surrounding peaks to prove it, the Canadian Pacific Railway (Mt. Sir Donald, Mt. Field). The more remote and lofty peaks were quickly crowned with names to reflect the exploits of the daring climbers that flooded the mountains after the railway was built (Mt. Louis, Abbot Pass). Finally, politicians joined the ranks of toponymists, labelling peaks after themselves, their superiors, their monarchs (the Premier Group, Eisenhower Peak ). The last landmarks which lacked a known (ie. non-indigenous) title were named after the First World War for fallen national heroes (Mt. Edith Cavell, Mt. Ffaig).9 Some of the names are rather arbitrary, others have fascinating stories behind them10. However, each name not only

Names note that "Native people were reticent regarding names, as noted by as diverse authorities as Anglican bishop William Bompas and anthropologist Sir James Frazer" (Boles et. Al. 2006:10). The authors of that text appear more annoyed at the lack of indigenous place names for their encyclopaedic project, rather than sympathetic to the fact that the erasure of indigenous markers were often erased, written over, reworked or forgotten due to the forces of colonialism, not indigenous peoples reticence. 9 See Place Names of the Canadian Rockies Boles et al. 2006: 10-12 10 One of my favourite examples of a place name with a good story is that of the Kicking Horse Pass and River. The Kicking Horse was named after an incident where Sir James Hector, head of one party in the Palliser Expedition, was kicked by his horse when crossing a river. He was knocked out cold, and he awoke to the sight of the others in his party digging a grave for him. Thus the name, and his accident were rewarded with the glory of finding the route over the Rockies that the railway would follow. Another name, which, while arbitrarily given, is quite telling of the politics of naming at the time, is that of Field, name of both the railway town and mountain that looks over it. The name was chosen for Cyrus West Field, a potential investor in the CPR. Despite thoroughly courting him and even naming a town and mountain in his honour, Field eventually declined investing in the CPR, but the name stuck. Another odd and arbitrary set of names are the Egyptian-inspired names in the Egypt Lakes area which were assigned by the topographic survey. Some romantic soul indulging in the Victorian obsession with the Middle-East

23 marks who was here, but who has held the privileged position of being able to mark the landscape with a sign of their choosing. Whether explorer, climber, or politician, this position of privilege often resulted in an ignorance, if not outright erasure, of those who came before and were felt to have a lesser claim on the land11.

The symbolic removal of the meaningfulness the landscape of the Rockies held

(and holds) for First Nations peoples through nomenclature is evident in an even more direct manner in the reorganisation of space that occurred around the turn of the century.

The region encompassed by the parks and protected areas of the Rocky Mountains including Banff, Jasper, Yoho, and Kootenay National Parks, is almost entirely the traditional territory of the Stoney Assiniboine peoples. " Various archaeological finds have thus far dated aboriginal occupation of the Bow Valley as constant for the last 10

000 years. As Chief John Snow poignantly states:

We knew every trail and mountain pass in this area. We had special ceremonial and religious areas in the mountains. In the olden days some of the neighbouring tribes called us the "People of the Shining Mountains." These mountains are our temples, our sanctuaries, and our resting places. They are a place of hope, a place of vision, a place of refuge, a very special and holy place where the Great Spirit speaks with us. Therefore, these mountains are our sacred places [sic]" (Snow 2005:19). bequeathed these high mountain lakes with such incongruous names as Scarab, Mummy, Pharaoh and Haiduk. '' In reading early various travellers' accounts of the Rockies, the way in which topographical features are constantly named really is surprising to the twenty first century reader. It does seem to bespeak a colonial arrogance, as every waterfall, lake, stream, peak, and pass is named without a thought to those who may have been that way before. The journals of Mary Schaffer are a late and prime example, as on nearly every page she seems to christen a new feature after her horse, the weather, a British monarch, or anything she fancies (Schaffer [1919] 2006). David Thompson seems to be one exception, as a pre-Victorian fur trader with a Cree wife, who was primarily concerned with getting from A to B, he seemed to realize the superfluous nature of names. I tend to side with him, as when I hike, rarely do I know or care what the names of the surrounding peaks, lakes, or glaciers are...it seems beside the point. 12The Cree and the Kootenai also used the area; however, most of the area I traveled through this past summer, around Banff, was Stoney territory.

24 During the 1870s, before the signing of treaties 6,7, 8, and 913 that would consolidate

control of the land that is now Alberta by the Canadian government, tensions were

mounting amongst the Stoney and the neighbouring Cree peoples due to the presence of

railway surveyors, geographical surveyors, and the construction of a telegraph line (Snow

2005:45). The act of the survey was viewed by local indigenous populations with unease,

and these worries were later to become fully justified. According to Chief John Snow,

the concept of land title was difficult for his people to understand "because we had no

concept of individual land 'ownership' in the European sense. In those days, we did not

'own' the land by receiving title or patent from a tribal authority. My people had always

believed that the land was created for its indigenous inhabitants -animal, bird and man"

(Snow 2005: 33).

In 1877 the Stoney Assiniboine signed Treaty 7, what they at the time viewed as a

peace treaty with the government of the Dominion of Canada. Only eight years later, in

1885, Rocky Mountain National Park, later to become Banff National Park, was created.

When a survey was commissioned of Stoney land for the creation of a reserve, only a

small portion of their land at Morley, surrounding the Methodist mission, was considered.

Furthermore, part of the basis of the selection of the lands at Morleyville, other than their being outside of areas that had other claims (such as that of CP rail on what was to

13 The Stoneys were included in Treaty 7, since the mission at Morley at the time run by Reverend John McDougall, their translator and intermediary, was within the land specified under Treaty 7. However, the Stoneys also occupied land specified under Treaties 6 and 8, which has resulted in much confusion regarding the location of reserves and land claims. Treaty commissioners made the false assumption that all the Stoney people lived at Morleyville, an assumption which Chief John Snow implies that Rev. John McDougall found very convenient in regards to his own endeavours in setting up an agriculture-based mission there (Snow 2005).

25 become Banff National Park), was that Reverend John McDougall, in accordance with a

colonial policy of 'civilizing the natives', stated the land would be suitable for

agriculture. However, "attempts made by the Indian Affairs Branch during the 1880s and

1890s to establish an agricultural community at Morley proved to be a fiasco" (Snow

2005:46). The soil was rocky and entirely unsuitable for agriculture. Despite decades of

attempts at cultivation, to this day the only agricultural enterprise that has any success in

the Morley area is cattle ranching. The primary hunting grounds far to the north on the

Kootenay Plains near the Saskatchewan and Red Deer rivers, and to the south, were

ignored by government surveyors. Historically, Stoney territory also stretched far west in

the Rocky Mountains past the Great Divide into British Columbia and south along the

Rockies into Montana. But if the surveyors had acknowledged this, conflict over borders

and boundaries as defined by colonial bodies would be sure to ensue. To acknowledge

that Stoney people had rights to land that extended far beyond the boundaries specified in

Treaty 7, across international, provincial, and treaty borders, as well as into areas set aside

as parks and land ceded to the railway, would open up a whole can of worms for the

Canadian government. In the words of Stoney Chief John Snow: "The survey was a ploy

used by the government to confine the Indian to a small plot of land and to take the vast estate away from him." (Snow 2005:37). It is also important to note that aboriginal people were not banned from the parks due to any idealization of the area as an uninhabited wilderness preserve (which will be discussed further in the following chapter), Rather they were barred from the parks by the government to further resource appropriation and expand the tourism industry, as well as to 'settle' the nomadic Stoney in order to civilize

26 them (Binnema 2006). George Stewart, Banff's first superintendent remarked in his first

annual report in 1887 that "it is of great importance that if possible the Indians should be

excluded from the Park. Their destruction of the game and depredations among the

ornamental trees make their too frequent visits of the Park a matter of great concern"

(quoted in Binnema 2006: 729).

Gupta and Ferguson note that an important additional question is not just how

place-making is undertaken, but who has the power to make places of spaces? (2006: 40)

And who does not? Kundera notes that "the struggle for place in the concrete is a

struggle against power and the hegemony of abstractions" (Kundera, cited in Dirlik 2001:

23). The success of this struggle is highly dependent on one's place in the current power

hierarchy. Indigenous peoples are often trapped in spatial designations that do not reflect

their interests, but rather the interests of governments, corporations, and modernist

scientific enterprise. This is due in part to "the long-standing tradition in modern learning

to privilege off-ground, abstract, knowledge against 'referential' knowledge" (Dirlik

2001: 33). Thus the experiential knowledge of place that is manifest in connections with

land and territory through labour, memory, and narrative are trumped by the surveys,

maps, and science of those in power. In Canada, indigenous peoples are spatially

incarcerated both geographically in reserves, but also symbolically in their association

with remote and wild spaces, spaces not necessarily of their choosing. Colonial

authorities were often more concerned with mapping the unfamiliar and unknown in order to bound and border territory which could be titled and controlled as 'Canada' then recognizing the complex relationship that indigenous peoples had with that same territory.

27 As Gupta and Ferguson argue, colonialism did not bring autonomous primeval

communities into a larger global network of interconnection, colonialism rather

"represents the displacement of one form of interconnection by another" (1997: 36). The

creation of parks and reserves in places like the Rocky Mountain Parks, which have a

long history of aboriginal occupation, spatially separate landscapes into bounded entities

of wilderness and indigenous territory, with borders and boundaries being drawn and

designated by the Canadian government, not the people who inhabit that territory.

Cruikshank clearly shows in her research that significant places for indigenous peoples

interconnect across the government designated boundaries of reserve and park, yet

indigenous people lack the political power to redraw these boundaries from their point of

view. Instead, they are restricted to a territory which to the mapmaker and the colonial

authority is merely an arbitrary space, a small piece of the resource pie, not a culturally

significant place.

Parks Canada does acknowledge that the Rockies were occupied and used by

indigenous peoples, but does so in a way that firmly relegates such uses and the

associated meanings these had for indigenous occupants in the realm of the past. In most

interpretative literature available to the public, indigenous peoples are discussed in the past tense, often in the context of archaeological digs by Parks sanctioned researchers. As

Pratt points out, "to revive indigenous history and culture as archaeology is to revive them as dead" (2008:132). Pratt goes on to state that the archaeological perspective is complementary to other colonial forces in that "it, too, obliterates conquered inhabitants of the contact zones as historical agents who have living continuities with pre-European

28 pasts and historical based aspirations and claims on the present" (Pratt 2008:132). No

information is readily available to the public regarding how and why First Nations people

no longer occupy the Park or have access to its resources. The exclusion of the Stoney

people from an area which provided them with access to the resources on which their

economy was based is glossed over in most accounts of Banff Park's founding. That First

Nations peoples lived in the area in the past is commonly known and discussed, but how

and why they came to no longer occupy the area, and what ramification that has for contemporary indigenous people is not addressed.

The Stoney people continue to push for greater access, use-rights, and land grants

in their historical territories in the section of the Canadian Rockies along the Alberta and

BC border. The Stoney people now "realize that the treaties were the vehicle through

which the government achieved its objective of opening the North West Territories to

settlement and commercial exploitation1 " (Snow 2005:33). For the most part the

Canadian government is unresponsive. Although it is not the subject of my research, the

Stoney people's strong attachment to the area I discuss cannot go unacknowledged. I am not in a position to fully describe their connection to the land, or their feelings as a people on its colonization by the Canadian government. However, it is important to bear in mind that the places I discuss, the trails that I traverse, and the mountains which I and my

14 Chief John Snow suggests that much of the conflict arose out of differences between the oral promises made at the treaty signing (which may also have been warped by linguistic barriers between the Stoneys, the Cree, and the Canadian government), and what was actually written in the treaty. The Treaty 7, as understood in Stoney oral culture, promised that the treaty would not interfere with the Stoney traditional way of life including their freedom to hunt where they pleased on their traditional territory. This did not translate into the written, and according to the Canadian government, legally binding, incarnation of the treaty, resulting in the increasing restrictions of the Stoneys to settlement on a small portion of a land, compromising both their freedom of movement and their hunting way of life (Snow 2005).

29 informants love, hold a significance to aboriginal peoples that is, most often, woefully

unacknowledged. Although the limits of this research project do not permit me to fully

delve into the process of indigenous meaning making in the Rockies, I bear in mind that "

if one studies only what the Europeans saw and said, one reproduces the monopoly on

knowledge and interpretation that the imperial enterprise sought" (Pratt 2008:7).

Furthermore, the place-making practices of the Stoney reveal further the cracks in a

dualistic framework for constructing landscape. Their sacred mountains, their version of

the Rockies, are cultural landscapes as well as natural ones. The colonial structuring of

place into wilderness spaces and civilized places not only goes against their worldview,

but also worked as an effective tool of displacement against the Stoney. The significance

of how we categorize and construct landscapes is clearly evident in the colonial forced de-peopling (well, at least aboriginal people) of the Rocky Mountains Parks.

Busting Trails: Turning Space into Place

"When we go hiking or driving through the mountain parks, the routes we travel were not created strictly to facilitate modern pleasure and tourism, but represent a significant part of the history and heritage of this part of the world. On road or foot, we are frequently following in the tracks of people for whom the trails were an integral part of daily life, for travel and trade, hunting and communication . .nearly every trail in the Rockies has some story behind it. " (Nicky Brink in Forgotten Highways 2007:3).

Escobar points out that "the enduring connectedness of people with the land results from an active engagement with it; rather than a reflection of 'tradition'" (Escobar

2001:146). It is erroneous, and entails an entrance into the dangerous and murky waters of essentialist thought, to assume that connections to place and land are formed only by those people categorized as indigenous (a categorization that, for all its strategic value as

30 a potential vehicle for empowerment for marginalized peoples, is socially constructed and

therefore far from absolute). Place-making is a shifting process, and who engages in it

and to what extent, changes hands from colonizer to colonized, from indigenous person to

settler, for varying reasons and in diverse contexts. As Critchlow (Rodman) has pointed

out "places, like voices are local and multiple and a single physical landscape can be

multilocal in the sense that it shapes and expresses polysemic meanings for different

users" (Rodman 1992: 647). The context which my current research concerns is that of

Western Canadians signifying and re-signifying ideas of place through physically

traversing the territory designated as Banff National Park. In doing so, I do not discount

the significance of indigenous people's connection to that same territory, far from it. But my own research, in this current project, speaks to a different place-making. I've found that hikers and backpackers form deep connections to the landscape, in tandem with, not in spite of, the colonial genealogy of both the people and the ideas involved. I will discuss the idea of wilderness in more detail in the following chapter.

Alongside the physical and discursive changes in space and place, another interesting transformation that backpacking and other forms of physical labour on the land propagate is a change in the mental landscapes of space and place. Spaces transform and take on new shapes as new mental connections are fostered through the physical act of travel.

Walking gives a very different perspective than driving the same distance. At a hundred kilometres per hour, I see a mountain and then quickly move on to the next one, constantly bombarded by new sights and vistas. During the three days it took us to trudge up to the height of the land, we observed the same set of mountains, sometimes in early morning light, sometimes in the setting sun, always 31 from a slowly changing perspective or angle. By the time we reached the pass, and were treated to a new vista, I felt like I knew those mountains intimately" (Nicky Brink in Forgotten Highways 2007:35).

What before may have appeared as a blank, green space on a map, an area designated as a

bounded bubble of 'wilderness,' changes into landscape dotted with significance as one

labours across it. This may seem an obvious point, that is, that traveling to an area

transforms it from the unfamiliar and the 'blank' space to a significant, personally

experienced place. However, consider the context of most modem travel. Solnit points

out that: "Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors -home, car gym, office,

shops - disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected, for while

walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies

those interiors. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it"

(Solnit 2000: 9) Motoring through an area at 100 km an hour, the landscape takes on a

monotony which perpetuates the idea of it as a 'wilderness' or 'a jungle' or a 'plain.'

Peaks, waterfalls, lakes, rivers, fly by, over and over, with little individuation between. In

contrast, when one walks through the same area, each landmark becomes significant.

"Walking is a mode of making the world as well as being in it...Walking shares with making and working that crucial element off engagement of the body and the mind with the world, of knowing the world through the body and the body through the world"

(Solnit 2000: 29).

One aspect of Parks Canada regulation which has the support of most hikers is that of restricted access to the backcountry for those who do not travel on foot. The terrain available to horseback riders and mountain bikers is negligible, and ATVs and

32 other motorized vehicles are banned outright (Private helicopter access is also outlawed).

The backcountry in the Rocky Mountain Parks is, for the most part, the domain of the walker, an attribute enforced by law rather than topography as in the past. In a society dominated by the automobile and a landscape divided up via motor vehicle access routes, the Banff backcountry is a definite anomaly in Western Canada.

As I will explore further in the following chapter, Canada, in many ways, is constructed as a large northern wilderness dotted by outposts of civilization. According to

Gail McGregor "Canada, as the archetypal incarnation of the northern nation, is like nothing so much as a collection of beads loosely and tenuously strung out along the fragile, essential threads of river, railroad, and highway" (1985: 61). To some extent, the trail network in the Rockies does mirror the highways and railways which criss-cross the landscape, sectioning off certain areas as impassable and therefore a somewhat impenetrable void. As one of my informants commented: "I like trails. I like to know where I'm going" (July, Informant 1, Shadow Lake Lodge). However, contrasting and yet coexisting with such sentiments is that in the reduction of scale that comes with traveling on foot through a landscape (i.e. 20km a day rather than 200km), an intimate association with the land is produced that challenges the characterization of certain areas as impenetrable, monotonous, and 'wild' space. As Nicky Brink puts it:

Like most people, knowing where I am and how to get to where I want to go is something I take for granted. In the backcountry, even with detailed maps and a global positioning system, I never know exactly where I am. More precisely, despite having a fairly good idea of where I am according to the map, I never know what lies between me and my destination. The trail might deteriorate, the river might be flooded, a bear might block the path" (Nicky Brink in Forgotten Highways 2007: 35).

33 Hiking is a form of travel in which often one must adapt oneself to a landscape and its

challenges, and give up a certain degree of control. The uncertainty is part of the 'risk

factor' which is, for many hikers, part of the activity's appeal (which I will discuss further

in chapter 3).

An important aspect of the concept of place is its groundedness in topography

(Dirlik 2001: 22). This does not indicate a return to geographical determinism, but rather

recognition that "different places have different things to offer humans to work with and

live in, and this has everything to do with how humans construct places. Places are thus

co-productions between people and the environment" (Escobar 2008: 42). As Raffles

notes in his study of the Igarape Guariba, "in many rural places, much of the locational

identity is tied up with the immediate environmental context. There are stories people tell

over and over again that reinforce a personal connection to critical moments of group

action involving the landscape" (Raffles 2000:12). The type of labour enacted on a place,

and the narratives that arise from this, are significantly influenced by the physical

geography and ecology of the environment. It is often knowledge of the specific

challenges of a certain environment, and the ways to overcome those challenges, that are

recounted in place-making narratives.

One young man151 interviewed spoke of his enduring attachment to Three Isle

Lake, a backcountry destination south of Banff in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. It was the location of his first backpacking trip, undertaken with his father and his best friend.

Terrible weather, inexperience, and poor equipment made that trip difficult and rather

15 Informant 3, Little Yoho, August 2010.

34 miserable, he confessed. But it also helped him realize both his own strength and the

strength of his bond with his father. He goes back to Three Isle Lake every summer,

because it reminds him of his Dad and both the good times and the bad they experienced

together. He does not travel to this place to get away from society, but rather to re-enforce

an important social bond through the memory of a shared experience which is directly

associated with a specific place. For my informant the topography of the Three Isle Lake

trail is now infused with social signification, and is far from an empty space, but rather a

place that has become highlighted in his imaginative geography. For him, Three Isle Lake

is not a dot on a map of wilderness (ridden with warnings of 'bear territory' like medieval

maps with 'here be monsters'), but rather a hybrid place where the trail to the mountain

lake has merged with his own social memories.

According to Basso, it is a "fact that familiar places are experienced as inherently meaningful, their significance and value being found to reside in (and, it may seem, to emanate from) the form and arrangement of their observable characteristics" (Basso

1996: 108). For my informant Three Isle Lake was made significant through both his increased familiarity of the area by traversing it many times, but also by his association of it with social experiences. This point by Basso was enlightening as to why the Rockies and certain locations within them were so beloved by me. Places act, in Basso's terms, as natural 'reflectors', and they "provide points from which to look out on life, to grasp one's position in the order of things, to contemplate events from somewhere in particular"

(Basso 1996:109). The Rockies are imbued with meanings which I, and my informants, infuse into them, with different limestone spires acting as beacons, guiding us toward

35 certain social memories, reminding us of associated personal and social values, and

stirring up emotions that resonate deeply within us.

Walking transforms the body into matter in place. The physical work of traveling

across a landscape connects a place through the feet to the mind. There is a bodily

sensory engagement where one feels the movement of wind, the warmth of the sun, the

damp smell of the boggy fen and the cold trickle of wet as water seeps into your boot

from the creek that babbles in laughter at your attempts to try to cross it while staying dry.

The awareness of both place and one's physical connection to it is strengthened, which in

turn creates a mental connection to place. A hiker is forced to engage with the landscape

in a way that forces the physicality of the fact that they are in a specific place to come to

the forefront of their lived experience:

When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for you when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities. Exploring the world is one of the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains. (Solnit 2000: 13).

Schama observes that "landscape is a work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock...Landscapes are culture before they are nature"" (Schama 1995:7)). As one walks off the highway into the 'bush,' a sense of history, of walking in someone else's footsteps, becomes present. Whether one knows the history of that particular trail or not, a sense that someone built this, for reasons unknown or known, because a place was significant enough to them for trees to be cut and stones to be moved to create a trail to it. "Part of what makes roads, trails, and paths so unique as

36 built structures is that they cannot be perceived as a whole all at once by a sedentary.

They unfold in time as one travels along them, just as a story does as one listens or reads"

(Solnit 2000: 72) Many backpacking trails follow older routes. Unlike the new trails, which have as their goal a scenic 'payday' (in the words of one hiker) or alpine view at the end of long forest trudges, these trails often follow the valleys and the lowest passes through the Rockies. This was brought up in a discussion I had with a group of female backpackers while on the Rockwall Trail. The Rockwall Trail through Kootenay National

Park is considered to be one of the most difficult trails in the Canadian Rockies, due to its rollercoaster nature. It ascends and descends 3 alpine passes, making for a gruelling 3-5 day backpack. While staying at Tumbling Pass campground, the half-way point on the trail, I discussed the seeming illogic of a trail that purposefully seems to take the route with the most elevation gain and loss. We asked: "Who picks a trail that goes over these super high passes?" And one of my fellow hikers immediately answered: "white men, aboriginals follow the valleys" (Informant 5, Tumbling Creek, August 2009). It was immediately recognizable to this experienced hiker and her companions that this was a

'new' trail, built for scenic appeal, not an 'old' trail, a route chosen for its relatively easy access across the limestone spine of the Great Divide.

Brink and Bowen argue that "traversing these trails today is done in much the same manner as it was centuries ago -primarily on foot with heavy packs, with little better defence against mosquitoes or the elements" (2007:4). I'm not sure I fully agree.

Lightweight equipment, food dehydrators, Gore-tex, gangs of trail crew armed with chainsaws and trail signs, GPS technology and helicopter surveillance have reduced some

37 of the risks and travails of mountain travel. However, the actual means of transportation,

that is, one's own two feet, has not changed, and thus I think to a certain extent Brink and

Bown have a good point. They also point out that "many of the backcountry campsites are

situated on the same patches of land that hosted native hunters and explorers for

thousands of years - a good camping spot then is still a good camping spot now, and for

the same reasons" (Brink & Bown 2007:4)16. Furthermore, the trail system itself,

although almost fully mapped and monitored by Parks Canada, does to a large extent

follow the same routes which have been used for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Each step one takes through the Rocky Mountains is thus not one of discovery, but of re-

enactment.

Although most of the more popular trails are easy to follow, some of the less well-

used ones can be difficult to discern at times, especially in areas where they intersect with

deer or goat trails. Animals, from bears to moose, also use the trails as the most efficient

way of travelling through the bush. This is why it is never wise to camp right beside the

trail, as non-human travellers will like to pass by in the night. In the Lower Spray Valley,

the most remote area in which I travelled this past summer, I knew for a fact there were

only three other people in the entire valley, all of whom were behind me, and we were the

first for many weeks to enter the area. On the trail I ahead of me I saw many tracks, from

16 A good camping spot must be relatively flat and dry. It must neither be on the trail or too far from the trail (wildlife use the trail at night and it's never a good idea to camp along a grizzly or a cougar's nightly patrol route). It must be near a water source, but again, not right on it, due to wildlife concerns. It must be near a tree or trees with high enough branches to hang food at least seven feet off the ground. Although choosing your own campsite ('random camping') is permitted in some of the more remote areas of the Rockies, Parks Canada usually restricts backcountry travellers on more popular trails to official campsites, both to control numbers and to prevent those without the 'know-how' from choosing poorly (and thus often dangerously) where to camp.

38 that of a baby moose to an ominously large grizzly (whose paw print was far larger than

my hand, not counting the claws), but not a single boot print beyond my own. I was very

thankful that from time to time a hoof print of a shod horse was visible amongst the other

1 7

animal tracks, left from the warden patrol a few weeks earlier. As I was walking along a

trail in leading from a pass named for a famous survey expedition in the Rockies

(Palliser), I was walking along a route marked with signs of human history, parks

management, and wildlife. My footsteps overlaid those of countless people and animals,

with different purposes and destinations, but who all contributed to the formation of this

way through the tangle of the forest. The trail itself is a hybrid entity, constructed and

used by both humans and animals, and serving as a way into (and out again) places

differentially characterized as natural and cultural, connecting both.

Hiking etiquette suggests that one stick to the trail, especially in the high alpine, in

order to avoid stomping on delicate florae which are especially vulnerable due to the short

alpine growing season. Avid hikers, more specifically those who are 'local' to the

Rockies (and thus often extremely protective of its treasures), express consternation at

those who step off the designated waypaths. And I can attest to feeling not a little guilty

when forced to step off the path, although sometimes the urge to explore is too strong,

often with a few crushed glacier lilies at the cost. Furthermore, if a few people wander off

the main trail in the sensitive terrain of the alpine, a path will form, and others will likely

follow. This results in an expansion of the trail network that not only has a negative impact on the delicate alpine environment, but also increases the likelihood of getting

17 The warden turned out to be Karsten Heur, local author, activist, and trekker, whom I interviewed later in the fall.

39 lost. Well-trodden and clear trails marked with signs prevent hikers who are unfamiliar with the local topography and unskilled in woodcraft from getting lost. On the trail up to

Gibbon Pass this summer I encountered a muddy junction at the upper Twin Lakes. The muck was full of prints, both boot and hoof, and two paths seemed to lead away from the mire. I took the lakeside one, which, after following a series of cairns above a rocky ridge, abruptly ended. I quickly realized that, even though I had gone this way before and considered myself knowledgeable of the terrain, I was lost. Although I knew the direction

I was supposed to be going, and had a good idea of which way I should I head, I was nearly overwhelmed with anxiety at having lost the trail. I suddenly realized that the trail was my safety net, and how important a clear way out of the woods was. Somewhat foolishly, as I felt the day was getting late and I did not want to lose all the elevation I had gained by backtracking down the mountain, I pressed on without a trail. I reasoned with myself that I had everything I needed to survive on my back, and although I had never random camped before, as it is not permitted in the National Park except in the most remote areas, I knew how to do it and possessed everything necessary. I also remembered that at the top of Gibbon Pass there was a large cairn at the end of meadow, near a copse of larches. It shouldn't be too difficult to spot from a high place, I figured. With some anxiety and a pounding heart, after an hour or so I found the cairn, and the trail, and continued on my way. However, it certainly struck me that without my previous knowledge of this particular trail, familiarity with mountain terrain, the favourably sunny weather, and my confidence that I had everything I needed with me to survive a night in

40 1 Q

the woods, the situation could have turned out quite differently. I will always remember

that trail now, and every time someone mentions it, I remember what it was to feel lost. It is not only social histories that connect people to landscapes, but also individual

his(or hers) stories. Although some backpackers get a kick out of the fact that they are

traversing a path once taken by early fur traders, for most this is not what makes this

social memory is not enough to establish a connection to a landscape (we can't all be

history geeks). Rather, personal moments are connected with landscapes, so that certain

features act as a mnemonic device for individual histories. These include both the

anecdote around Gibbon Pass which I described above, as well as the young man's

attachment to Three Isle Lake I also discussed. Nearly all hikers whom I spoke to who

were 'local' (from Western Canada) had their favourite spots, for varying reasons, and

most had a story to go along with it. These 'local' backpackers return again and again to

the same trails. One woman laughed that non-hikers didn't understand and said "well,

you've been there." But for her, the trail, like a person, was slightly different each time

they met, with changes in weather or mood, season or age. In the words of one local

author and hiker, "the trail was like an old friend" (Lea 2002:62).

Relevant to later discussions is what exactly IS needed to backpack in the Rockies. Here is a brief list of what I carry, which, as I travel solo, is close to the bare minimum necessary: Pack (obviously), hiking poles, Tent (or some other kind of shelter), Sleeping bag, Sleeping pad, First-aid/emergency survival kit, water filter, stove and fuel, matches or lighter, collapsible water container, food (always bring extra food that doesn't need cooking in case of stove problems), rope (to make a bear hang), garbage bags (one informant waxed quite eloquently about the many uses of the humble garbage bag), duct tape, bear spray, swiss army knife, headlamp or flashlight, sunscreen, bug spray, hat or bandanna, toque, fleece jacket, rain jacket, extra socks, T-shirt, pants and light-weight sweater (in case one gets wet), a pot, a water-bottle, and a spork. This list is the same (including only 2 sets of clothing, with one on your back), for a one night or a week-long trip, the only thing that changes is the amount of food or fuel. Other things commonly brought include books, maps, sandals (for river crossings), gaiters, and a flask of a little 'liquid painkiller'.

41 However, trails are also friends with restricted visitation rights. Parks Canada

controls which trails are accessible and when. Trails may be closed due to wildlife

concerns or restricted due to worries of overcrowding a sensitive environment. One

classic example of this is the Lake O'Hara area, which can only be accessed by a gravel

road traversed by a Parks-run shuttle bus. Reservations for the bus must be made three

months in advance. This restricts the numbers of people wandering around what is one of

the most spectacular, but also one of the most sensitive, alpine environments. Although

this frustrates many tourists, most locals support the effort, as it has kept the area a

paradise for hikers, rather than a tourist zoo like Lake Louise. The exact words of one of

my informants were: "I like that they (Parks Canada) keep it smaller. I mean you don't

want it to be a zoo out here" (Informant 3, Little Yoho, August 2009). Also, backcountry

campgrounds must be booked before setting out on the trail, primarily for safety

reasons.iy This can sometimes mean that popular spots must be booked far in advance, as

explained by one of my fellow campers at the Little Yoho campground on August long

weekend: "I wanted to come here last year and I tried booking a month in advance which

was just fallacy. This year I actually got there May 1, 9am, in person, when the Field

station opened and made my reservation. We were going through on our way to BC so we

stopped there and I made my reservation in person 3 months in advance to the day before the trip, which is the earliest book. Damn it, I was going to be here this year." This means

Having people camp in designated areas means that Parks knows where people are in case of a safety concern like a forest fire or marauding grizzly, in which case the campgrounds will be evacuated by helicopter. Also, it concentrates human smells in one area, which reduces the impact on wildlife.

42 that 'taking a hike' cannot be a fully spontaneous activity, especially on a long weekend mid-summer.

However, many hikers accept Parks Canada control in return for the well-kept trails and campgrounds: "I like that some of the money is going to improving the backcountry stuff. Like we used to always just cook on logs, or the edge of the tent pads and it kind of sucks when there's nowhere you can actually sit down. I'm all for that.

Which is why I'm not too begrudging paying $40 for a park pass for a few days. It takes a lot of money to keep this in a hike-able state." Parks Canada control of the backcountry keeps up the image of park as 'accessible wilderness,' which, although rather oxymoronic

(as 1 will discuss in the following chapter), is what many hikers are seeking.

43 Chapter Two: Making and Re-making Wilderness : Studying People in a "People- less" Place

These mountains and hills have a long history of human occupation -from early native travellers and traders to the explorers of the fur trade, railway surveyors, mineral prospectors, loggers and finally tourists. This landscape is not, as people sometimes believe, a pristine wilderness untouched by humans that has been preserved for eternity in its original state, primeval and free. I began to appreciate the human presence in the mountain parks, to see how it influenced the development of railroads, highways, and town sites, and how geography had a profound impact on the commercial and political development of the west (Brink in Forgotten Highways 2007:3).

Living in Banff in the summer of 2009,1 was repeatedly asked vvwhat do you do?vs As a young twenty-something, it was expected that I was there to work at a seasonal job in the tourist industry, out to see the Rockies and drink my way through the town's pubs. When I replied that I was a researcher conducting fieldwork in Banff s backcountry, the assumption that I was a biologist was immediate. The backcountry, the wilderness, the big out there, where the animals roamed and the forest grew rampant was no place for a social scientist. And yet, that was what I was there to do, to be a social scientist, to look for the culture in the nature, and talk to those who chose to trek through the empty green spaces on our maps, the national parks.

My fieldwork in Banff National Park is both metaphorically and geographically along the Great Divide, traversing backcountry areas in the mountains that divide the eastern and western watersheds. My dilemma then becomes how does one conduct cultural fieldwork along the divide? How does one 'do' anthropology in a site that is popularly perceived as wilderness, and therefore lacking in culture? How can I do anthropological fieldwork in a landscape that is commonly represented as un-peopled?

How can I retrain myself to 'see' the culture in the nature? How are our gazes shaped and

44 influenced so that we see only one dimension of a landscape and how can we open our eyes to others?

Wilderness is emblematic of Canada as a nation, both at home and abroad. Images of Canada as the Great White North, of vast forests, wild animals and plentiful natural resources abound in both the international and local media. A quick search for Canada on the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) website results in a country profile, which, despite its brevity, states that "Nearly 90% of Canadians live within 200km of the border with the United States which means that Canada contains vast expanses of wilderness to the north" (Country Profile: Canada, www.bbc.co.uk). The first part of this statement is demographically correct, but the assumption of wilderness due to a lack of urban space implied is arguably much more problematic. It hinges on certain assumptions of divergence between cultural and natural spaces which have historical roots related to the colonization of Canada which are integral to the Canadian imagination. This idea of non- urban space as wilderness is especially interesting in light of Canada's economic reliance on natural resources. One young American college student I interviewed this past summer voiced the opinion that "Canada is cool because there is a lot of land that is not protected but it's not really being used right now" (Informant 1, Lake Magog, August 2009). The assumption that land which is non-urbanized, even if unprotected as a national park, is not being vusedv is striking, but not wholly unexpected, for reasons which I will explore further.

Wilderness, according to the Oxford dictionary, is "a large area of land that has never been developed or used for growing crops because it is difficult to live there"

45 (http://oxforddictionaries.com). The definition, from a British dictionary, is a good place

to start exploring changing attitudes towards wilderness, because, to a large extent,

Canada has inherited the concept from colonial Britain (Braun 2002, Pratt 2008).

Wilderness originally meant land that was not developed or maintained for agriculture,

which, under British law, also meant land that was not settled or occupied and was

therefore ripe for colonization. The concept of pristine and therefore culturally blank

nature mirrors colonial ideas of a terra nullius, ripe for conquest and resource extraction. I

argue that just as colonial travel narratives were key in creating the 'domestic subject' of

the British Empire (Pratt 2008), ideas and ideals of wilderness and wilderness travel are

key to the formation of Canadian identity. Wilderness is not inherent to Canada, but

rather is a cultural construct which has been positioned over much of the imagined

geography of Canada due to changing social and economic forces. Historically, "few

people in Canada before World War II assumed that 'wilderness' was, by definition,

uninhabited. The usage of the word in Department of Interior Affairs annual reports

before 1920, on the rare occasions that it was used, shows that officials thought of

wilderness simply as forested land" (Binnema 2006: 739). How and why the image of

wilderness has been constructed, and how it applies in the context of the Canadian

Rockies, is the subject of this chapter.

20 As influenced by English political philosopher John Locke, under British law, land had to be occupied and maintained in order to be property. Under this view, this freed most of the land up in North American for British colonization, as First Nations people were viewed as people without agriculture, and therefore people who did not own land. This is, of course, a simplification of a complex history. However, it does generally summarize the British colonial ideal of developed/non-developed land and occupied/wilderness spaces.

46 Several scholars have noted the discursive transition that certain places in Canada

have made from empty space to pristine landscape (see Cruikshank 2005, Braun 2002).

Early travel narratives of the Canadian West characterize its remote peaks and vast forests

as more terrifying than beautiful (Jennish 2004). McGregor, reviewing reports of several

early visitors to Western Canada, including George Vancouver, John Meares, George

Dixon, Simon Fraser, and David Thompson, states that they were "almost universally

repelled by their encounters with the land" (McGregor 1985: 26). A shift in the way

nature was viewed was necessary to set the stage for the formation of the national parks in

the Rockies. They had to undergo a discursive change from the daunting pinnacles that

barricaded one coast from the other, to the stunning peaks which attract the admiration of

tourists world over. Although multiple factors contributed to this transformation, a key

one was certainly the growing British Romantic Movement in the nineteenth century. In

the nineteenth century a shift in aesthetic taste occurred, arguably spurred by the growing

control man appeared to have over nature via the industrial revolution. Green argues that

changes in transportation with the onset of the industrial revolution allowed one, for the

first time, to experience the city and the country as distinct domains, as reduced travel

times prevented the experiencing of the transition from one to the other (Green 1990).

Green also suggests that increases in the safety of travel through the countryside during the Industrial Revolution (i.e. Highway robberies and other travel-related crimes

becoming less frequent), shifted perceptions of danger and crime from the country (i.e. A medieval fortress safety in numbers mentality) to an urban landscape of crowds, pickpockets, prostitution, and pollution (Green 1990). The woods and mountains

47 transformed from a place of danger to a place of respite. Poets like Wordsworth and

Byron re-inscribed natural landscapes as picturesque, rather than terrifying and

dangerous, and this shift in aesthetic preference penetrated multiple aspects of English

culture, from art to leisure (Solnit 2002). This change was so widespread that nature-

loving, by the mid-nineteenth century, had become an established religion for the middle

classes, and, in England, for the working classes as well (Solnit 2002). While the upper

classes climbed the peaks of the Alps, the middle classes toured the Lake District and the

working classes formed recreational walking clubs as escapes from factory life (Solnit

2002).

In the early twentieth century, legislation restricting the hunting of wild game for

sale as meat seems to suggest "that Canada had reached a stage in its development where

it was no longer necessary to consumer wild meat; to do so signalled one's primitiveness

and geographic and social marginality" (Loo 2007: 26). According to Loo's analysis of

the sportsman's creed, it was asserted that "wildlife was simply too important to be eaten'

(Loo 2007: 27). This obviously conflicted with the needs of Aboriginal people, other ethnic minorities, and lower income rural people who depended on game for subsistence purposes. National parks were necessary to protect game populations from the massacre these groups were accused of perpetrating (Binnema 2006). The demonization of subsistence hunters deflected attention quite effectively away from the real causes of wildlife depletion at the turn of the century: forest fires caused by sparks from the railway and overhunting by non-subsistence hunters. A sign of the Canadian population's turn to towards civilization, was the transformation of wild game from animals as food to animals as the focus of leisure activities.

As technological advancements reframed nature as non-threatening (it no longer dominated; now humanity dominated it), and urban life distanced people from direct interaction with spaces not wholly dominated by human culture, a nostalgia for nature became possible. This new fetish-like adoration for the non-human functions along the lines of what Rosaldo (1989) terms imperial nostalgia. It operates as an apologetics for domination, because the act of eulogizing that which has been destroyed erases personal and collective accountability (Rosaldo 1989). "Engaging with the wild was meant to allow people to go back to the city renewed and ready to do battle in jungles of a different kind" (Loo 2007: 35), and the endorsement of such pursuits were not intended as a critique of the socio-economic system or culture. Rather, "it was a way to treat the symptoms of modernity without getting at their root causes" (Loo 2007: 35). As Cronon notes, for the nature-lover, "wilderness is the natural unfallen antitithesis of an unnatural civilization that has lost its soul. It is a place of freedom in which we can recover the true selves we have lost to the corrupting influence of our artificial lives" (Cronon 1995: 80).

For this to be successful, it must be framed as external to urban life, industry, culture, and modernity, which has important consequences which will be discussed in the next section.

The romantic perspective on nature quickly crossed the Atlantic, both to America and the

British Dominion of Canada during the 1800s, and had permeated into social views on nature enough to make the creation of Canada's National Park system politically viable by the late 1800s (Banff National Park was created in 1885). The figures of Thoreau,

49 Muir, Seton, and Grey Owl joined Wordsworth as icons of the cult of nature. The

American cult of nature has definite differences from the British Romantic movement

(Solnit 2002), which I will not explore at this time. However, it is important to note that in the formation of Canada's perspective on wilderness and nature-loving a process which

Pratt (2008) terms "rearticulation" took place. The cult of nature which Canada inherited from colonial Britain reflects but does not completely reproduce the perspective on wilderness of the English. This is also true in the case of America, which has arguably in the realm of culture colonized Canada just as thoroughly as Britain ever did.

Circumstances of differing histories and geographies of place have given the Canadian perspective on wilderness turns that are distinct from both its American and British counterparts.

What is interesting about the Canadian situation is that the idea of empty space, of a wilderness where one can re-connect with a more primeval self, has become just as culturally significant as familiar, known places such as Niagara Falls and Montreal. The idea of vast, untamed wilderness, the barren tundra, unspoiled lakes, and primeval forests, in other words landscapes untouched by humans, and thus untransformed into culturally specific places, are foundational to Canadian subjectivities. Tina Loo points out that:

Canada's cultural producers literally 'naturalized the nation' by rendering certain landscapes iconic. The Canadian Shield of the Group of Seven, Emily Carr's rainforests, and William Kurelek's sky and grass are celebrated for capturing both the essence of the place and people's relationship to it. Canadians, for all their differences, are said to be products of their environment: a 'northern' people whose character was forged by a particular encounter with nature, and whose history and political culture are defined by the country's geography and the serial exploitation of natural resources -cod, beaver, trees, wheat, minerals (Loo 2007: 1). 50 This celebration of natural landscapes, resources, and 'wild' places is even more significant in Western Canada and northern Canada. Although the Canadian history of western settlement differs significantly from that of our neighbours to the south, mythologies of the wild western frontier pervade representations of western Canada with arguably even greater tenacity than their American counterparts (due to western Canada's significantly lower population, and thus somewhat of a reduction of declared urban spaces on common maps). However Canadians do not mirror exactly either the American or the British reverence for wilderness. Elements of imperial nostalgia certainly do pervade what is arguably still a highly colonial/colonized national culture. However, I would argue that Canadians, in a sort of stubborn self-righteousness, do not grieve for a lost nature, but rather take pride in the idea that, unlike most of the world, we still supposedly have islands of pure wilderness left (this sort of'wilderness nationalism" pervades the discourse on national parks). For example, several backpackers I spoke with said that the presence of places like those in the Banff backcountry made them feel "lucky to be Canadian." I also argue that in order to see to see these spaces as wilderness, the gaze must be directed a certain way, and certain actors overlooked which could potentially blemish an area's image as wilderness.

The Great Divide Even though Banff national Park and the surrounding parks were undoubtedly crowded on a hot summer long weekend, the roads plugged with RVs, the town of Banff bursting with tourists, every hotel filled to capacity, every tee time booked on every golf course, and every front country campground and the popular backcountry sites booked, we didn't have to travel that far to avoid crowds completely. A vast amount of space in the parks remains wild, as it should, even during crowded holidays. You just have to be willing to walk for twenty kilometres or so to get there (Brink & Bown 2007:37).

51 The national parks are, quite definitively, not the pristine wilderness spaces that

they are advertised as. This is a rather obvious conclusion when one arrives in the town of

Banff, with its Starbucks and shopping malls. However, the town of Banff itself is,

especially those for those of us caught up in the mystique of national parks, somewhat of

an island of 'civilization' in an area which is viewed as still pristine. For backcountry

travellers, Banff is only a way station, a place to fuel up or gather supplies before the real journey begins. Even for those visitors to Banff who do not wander far from the environs

of the townsite, the idea that they are on an island amidst a sea of wilderness is a large

part of the town's appeal. From your hotel room you can see the peaks where, although

unseen, there are possibly mountain goats clambering amongst the shale. Driving along

the narrow belt of highway you may see signs warning of winter avalanche danger, and

shiver a little. You can take the gondola from the upper hot springs to the top of Sulphur

Mountain and look down upon the Sundance valley and know that area is a wildlife

corridor for large predators like the grizzly bear. Perhaps, the brown blob down the slope

isn't a rock after all, but a resting bruin, a possibility which is certainly appealing from

the safety of an observation deck. The majority of millions of visitors to Banff National

Park each year do not wander off from the relative safety of the island of the town or the

thin corridors of the highway. However, the knowledge that just beyond the view from

their car or their hotel room is a larger 'out there' is certainly part of the appeal.

The continued maintenance of the parks is fully reliant on what Bruno Latour has termed the 'Great Divide,' a perceived dualism between nature and culture. The origins of the Great Divide, according to Latour, lie in Western modernity's urge to classify the

52 world into tight categories, thus both gaining a perceived control over the world by

dividing it into pure subjects, and studiously ignoring those subjects that clearly float between categories: the hybrids, the monsters, the Creoles, the cyborgs. In a nutshell,

Latour proposes that modernity subsists on two divergent processes: purification, which categorizes the entire world into culture/nature, modern/pre-modern, primitive/civilized,

science/religion etc, and the translation that must occur when trying to fit everything in the entire universe into these dualisms, resulting inevitably in hybrid entities which

9 I Latour (and Hardaway) call hybrids, monsters, and cyborgs." According to Latour:

Modernity comes is as many versions as there are thinkers of journalists, yet all its definitions point, on one way or another, to the passage of time. The adjective 'modern' designates a new regime, an acceleration, a rupture, a revolution in time. When the word 'modern,' 'modernization,' or 'modernity' appears, we are defining, by contrast, an archaic and stable past" (Latour 1996:10).

Nature and culture, modem and premodem, wild and civilized are categories brought into being by a Western urge, as Foucault has also pointed out, to classify, categorize, purify, and dominate. In realizing that pure nature, wilderness, is a socially constructed category prefigured on an illusory dualism between nature and culture, the idealization of spaces seen as exemplary 'wildernesses' is called into question. Furthermore, the idea of wilderness advocated by John Muir and Henry Thoreau, founders of the North American nature-loving movement was touted as universal (Braun 2003 :195). Other conceptions of wilderness, and of nature, were collapsed into Euro-American ideas and ideals.

And what Deleuze and Guatteri allude to in their concept of 'assemblages' (1987).

53 Braun argues that "notions of pristine or primeval nature - quite apart from their

sexualized tropology — posit nature as something that lies outside history" (Braun 2002:

12), thus denying both the social construction of various natures, and other social

histories of nature which lie outside the sphere of the modern (e.g. indigenous natural

histories). Wilderness is thus fundamentally viewed as ahistorical, and by investigating

the genealogy of the term, and the histories of spaces deemed wilderness, not only

nature/culture dualisms, but the ideology of modernity from which such dualisms spring,

is called into question.

As Braun points out, the environmental movement, industry and tourism often

draw on the Great Divide and its binary logic through a discourse of pristine

nature/destructive humanity, which not only simplifies complex and often hybrid socio-

natures, but also authorizes certain actors (environmentalists, transnational capital and the

state) to speak for nature, while marginalizing others (First Nations, local communities,

forest workers) (Braun 2002: 2). Braun suggests that "the natures we may seek to save,

exploit, witness, or experience do not lie external to culture and history, but are themselves artifactual: objects made, materially and semiotically, by multiple actors (not

all of them human) and through many different historical and spatial practices (ranging from landscape painting to the science of ecology). (Braun 2002:3). Drawing on Derrida,

"there is no place outside cultural practices through which nature can be objectively known, it's always shaped by narratives, knowledges and technologies" (Braun 2002:15).

One woman I spoke with this past summer, a retired French Professor, when asked why she had joined the guided backpacking trip in the Canadian Rockies, gave a reply 54 that readily depicts the way these dualisms permeate Euro-American culture. She

explained that she had lived all her life in cities, often in Europe, and had seen art and

culture. Now that she was getting older, she wanted to see wilderness. In her mind, the art

and culture of the Old World and the wilderness of the New were distinct ontological

domains, and, although equally appealing, represented opposite realms of existence. One

place had culture, the other nature, even though the trails we had traversed that day were

built by Austrian ex-pat mountaineers from the Alps, and we sat in the shadow of a

mountain named for the local First Nations people.

Following Latour and Braun, 1 argue that wilderness is a cultural construct, and

that most so-called wild spaces are rife with evidence of human cultural practices, both

historically and in the present. By engaging in one of the most common tourism practices,

photography, I explore the hybridity of managed wilderness and of backcountry 'culture'

in Canadian national parks. To do so, I have to re-examine both the landscape, and how I

have been culturally trained to look at it, and try to, often with the lens of camera,

deconstruct my vision of the landscape.

Manufacturing Wilderness in Canada's First National Parks "When people want to know what the past was like, they go to museums or books. I want Canadians of future generations to be able to get in their cars and drive into wilderness preserves where animals and men live as they lived in earlier times " - Grey Owl, otherwise known as Archie Belaney (as quoted in Loo 2007:117).22 "Why did Canada, a country dependent on natural resources, decide that some of those resources should not be exploited for profit, but preserved in national parks?" asks political scientist Leslie Bella in her book Parks for Profit (1987: xi). The answer is quite

Loo goes on to note that in Grey Owl's diatribes "nothing was said about changing people's behaviour, nor was there any awareness that cars and driving were a part of culture that had destroyed the nature he wanted to preserve" (Loo 117).

55 simply, she finds, in that "most of Canada's national parks were created as another form of natural resource exploitation. Canada's scenery is itself a resource, but not one that cannot be exported. If scenery cannot be exported, then the resource can only be profitably exploited if tourists are imported" (Bella 1987 :xi).

Canada's first national park was not created in order to conserve or preserve a

'wilderness', but rather to promote tourism to the Rockies area to help cover the expenses

of building the Canadian Pacific railway through the mountains. The creation of Banff

National Park was not about preventing resource exploitation, but rather securing it. The

CPR supported it in order to maintain its monopoly on tourist accommodation and travel,

and other resource based industries such as mining and logging were still allowed in the

park until the 1930s, at which point they were no longer profitable (Bella 1987).

Furthermore, when the National Park Act of 1930 was instated and disallowed further

claims on the parks by the resource extraction industry21, the park boundaries of Banff,

Yoho, and Jasper were redrawn so that the few valuable resources were now outside the

park. Mining in Canmore and Exshaw24 could now continue unencumbered by the Parks

mandate and the Spray Lakes Valley was able to be dammed, as it was now on the outside

of the park boundary.

Claims already made in the parks were allowed to continue until they expired, and thus mining continued in some areas of the parks until the 1960s. 24 There is still a cement plant in Exshaw, an eyesore which greets every visitor entering Banff national park from the east on Highway 1. Although there is no longer mining in Canmore, the exclusion of it from the Park has proven profitable in other ways. Currently, no one is allowed to reside in the national parks unless they work in the park. This prevents the development of holiday homes in Banff, Jasper, Lake Louise and Field. The same right to reside rules do not, obviously, apply to Canmore. Canmore has grown astronomically in the last twenty years, with real estate development crawling up the mountain sides (the cause of some major wildlife conflicts). Anyone with the right amount of money can purchase their home in the Rockies (even Russell Crowe!). Environmentalists are outraged, but this is Alberta, and by the looks of it soon there will be bustling metropolis on the boundary of Banff National Park.

56 Evidence that contravenes the myth of Banff National Park as a conservation

endeavour abounds if one knows where to look. The entrances to old mines are obvious

holes in the mountain side above Kicking Horse campground in Yoho National Park. The

concrete foundations of coal mining shacks riddle the hillside on Cascade Mountain, the

post-card peak that looms over Banff Avenue. In a field near Lake Minnewanka lie the

remains of the frontier mining town of Bankhead (I say frontier because it supposedly had

all the trappings of the Wild West: saloon, brothel, gambling, and an abundance of

liquor). Old photos of the park from the turn of the century show the valleys as fire-swept.

The proliferation of wildfires that railway camps and mining prospectors brought down

on the park forced the CPR to doctor their Rocky Mountain Postcards and paint in the

green over the blackened stumps (Bella 1987:9).

The Cave and Basin Hot Springs are a National Historic Site on the outskirts of

Banff townsite. It is here, according to Parks mythology, that the Canadian National Parks

system was born. Discovered in 1883 by the three prospectors (William and Thomas

McCardell and Frank McCabe), the value of the warm mineral springs were immediately

recognized by both their European founders (the Stoney People had known about the hot

springs for centuries) and the general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, William

Van Home. With the encouragement of Van Home, government officials visited the Cave

and Basin and recommended it be turned into a reserve (Bella 1987:14). The hot springs were sold to the government by the McCardells and McCabe for $1000 and Canada's first national park was bom, with the full intention to turn the attraction of the mineral pools into a tourist mecca. It obviously worked, as visitors still flock to the hot springs today. It

57 an interesting reminder that Canada's National Park system was not founded in order to

conserve the beauty and wilderness of the Rockies, but rather as a state-sponsored

capitalist endeavour luring the rich with promises of healing mineral springs.

The origin of Canadian mountain parks is much more thoroughly linked to

commercial enterprise (railway tourism) than the American system rooted in the

conservation activism of John Muir and others. Since it is the American model which

seems to persist in popular mythology surrounding national parks it is widely accepted

that the parks mandate is primarily based on ideals of preservation (Bain 2008). Rooted in

the idealism of the American model, the ongoing conservation myth persists that national

parks are supposed to act as a sort of wilderness 'bubble', protecting a designated area

from resource development and other 'evils of civilization'. Yet the Canadian national

parks, established to help fund and facilitate the civilizing force of the railway, clearly

diverge greatly from that ideal. The existence of the towns of Banff, Jasper and Waterton

and the villages of Lake Louise and Field point towards this by their very presence within

the boundaries of the Parks. Many foreign visitors are unaware, until they arrive and pay

the park fee, that the town of Banff with its hotels and ski resorts is even in a national

park. And many visitors are quite irritated that they have to "buy a pass to visit a town!"

The founding of the American National Parks system is steeped in a mythology of

heroic champions of nature. As one American backpacker I spoke to stated "you got

Teddy Roosevelt, our President, up in the early 1920s, he established national parks for us because he loved like, coming out here and hunting and wanted to make sure this stuff was preserved for people to come out and hunt" (Informant 1, Tumbling Creek, August 58 2009). The legendary figures of American conservation, Thoreau and his Walden; Teddy

Roosevelt, the big game hunter who refused to kill a bear cub, and John Muir, with his

mission to speak for the nature he loved and which could not speak for itself, loom large

over not only the American conservation movement, but also the global environmental

movement. All three are quoted by various organizations associated with the Parks, from

one of the local Banff wedding photographers to the Canmore chapter of the Canadian

Parks and Wilderness Association (CPAWS) literature. I will not go in depth into

American conservation mythology, but it is important to note that the legends and myths

surrounding America's National Parks pervade the discourse surrounding Canadian

Parks, often obscuring the more mundane and entrepreneurial origins of our own National

Park system.

Furthermore, the American conservation movement is not the purely moral

endeavour that it is popularly characterized as. Muir's activism was an activism with class

oriented commercial possibilities, which was integral to the success of his conservation

endeavours. His activism was, in his own words "activism for preservation, with leisure

in mind" (Bella 1987), and this leisure, like Roosevelt's big game hunting, was only

accessible to the upper classes. As Solnit notes:

John Muir took a stand against anthropocentrism, against the idea that trees, animals, minerals, soil, water are there for humans to use, let alone to destroy, but by positioning wilderness as a place apart from society and the economy he avoided addressing the wider politics of land and money" (Solnit 2000).

25 This is the legend from which Teddy Bears get their name. According to popular mythology, Teddy Roosevelt was on a hunting expedition and refused to kill a black bear cub he happened upon. Roosevelt was a big game hunter who traveled all over the world shooting large and dangerous creatures, and the idea of the President showing mercy to a little black bear quickly stirred the public imagination.

59 This critique can certainly extend to the Canadian Parks system as well, which, when

destinations were only accessible through CP rail and its trains and hotels, were clearly

designed as a pleasure-ground for only those who could afford the very finest. In a

critique of the American Parks system, Cosgrove states:

The great surge of wilderness preservation in the first decade of the new century (so often attributed to the individual charisma of men such as John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt) should perhaps be reassessed. The open spaces of the West were as far removed geographically, culturally, and experientially from the crowded immigrant cities of New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or Chicago as they could be. Patrons of the wild came overwhelmingly from 'old stock' and the middle classes; many had been as strongly committed to the introduction of urban parks modeled after the English picturesque tradition (a style often opposed by new immigrants, who favoured playgrounds and baseball diamonds to lakes, trees, and flower bed)...National parks represented...the kind of environment in which earlier -and racially purer—immigrants were believed to have forged American national identity (Cosgrove 1995: 35).

Although the advent of the personal automobile opened up travel in the Canadian

Rockies to the middle and sometimes the working classes (Bella 1987), new immigrants

and the lower classes have historically been excluded from these 'national treasures', just

as they are generally excluded from the tourism industry. The myth that the National

Parks, both in Canada and the United States, were founded to preserve wilderness for all persists, as does the reality that the Parks are inaccessible for those without the economic means to explore them (a reality which will be explored further in the next chapter in a

section on race and class).

Guiding the Gaze: Tourism, Photography, and Re-Presenting Wilderness I had no reason to suspect a clear dawn, however, it was our last morning at the lake. I unwillingly exited [my?] warm cocoon and sleepily peered about. A crystal clear mountain dawn was unfolding before my very eyes! I dived back inside for my Canon camera. Then I was off, down to the lake to be the first to see the incredible dawn. It

60 appeared that I was the only one moving about and I scampered around, like some demented, bow-legged leprechaun, chortling and cackling away to myself; the treasure was mine, all mine! (Lea 2002:122).

Photography waits for no one, so I bounded forth with camera and tripod, raced hither and yon in the frosty air and returned breathless, successful, and half-frozen to be asked if I had lost my senses. No, it was only a case of intoxication where the cold and beauty had gone to the brain (Schaffer [1919] 2006:64)26

Two things connect the two above quotes, despite the decades separating their mention: an admiration for the visual beauty of land, and the need to capture that beauty.

Every single hiker I spoke with in the summer of 2009 carried a camera. One backpacker

I spoke with had dragged a 30 pound SLR camera over 20km on foot because, in his

words, "it's the stuff that most people don't see, right?" (Informant 3, Little Yoho,

August 2009). He had to show people what he could see on his adventures, so that they could both share in, but also admire his experience. One camper I spoke to jokingly said after a hard day of climbing: "I wouldn't say that I enjoy backpacking per se, but I realized that if you want to go somewhere that you can really see something different....it's what's required if you want to come back and see some really neat stuff you wouldn't see otherwise" (Informant 1, Twin Falls, August 2009). One informant I spoke with who had become a professional photographer noted that developing an interest in photography sprung naturally from backpacking. Why are the two activities so intertwined?

Mary Schaffer, a turn of the century tourist/explorer from Philadelphia is largely credited with the 'discovery' of Maligne Lake, and she used her photographs of it to aid in her campaign for the founding of Jasper National Park. She heard of the lake from the Stoney Assiniboine, who called it Chaba Imne or Beaver Lake and who she notes were reluctant to reveal its location for fear of "the white man trespassing upon their hunting grounds" (Schaffer [1919] 2006: 67). Their fears, as they were no longer permitted to hunt in the area after the park was established, were justified.

61 "Photographs have always given shape to modern travel and tourism. They

appropriate, transcribe, aestheticize, miniaturize, semioticize, and democratize" (Mathers

& Hubbard 2006:206). Furthermore, tourists are often seeking images which they have

already seen (Crawshaw & Urry 1997). According to tourism studies scholar studies John

Urry, before engaging in tourism, "people learn how, where, when and why to gaze"

(Urry 10). We are trained to look at the landscape in a certain fashion and attempt to unify

diverse perceptions of the landscape, masking the multilocal make-up of a place. Ken

Little, in his study of the Kenyan safari, has noted that

What the tourist industry sells to tourists on safari are spectacles and performances they already know and recognize... images of the wild are framed as pre-packaged 'already mades,' enframed performances that provide a perspective, mould interpretations, and encourage particular experiences. These professional, Western image productions, the one that most likely stimulate tourists' interests in Africa in the first place, the ones found in the form of postcards, tourist brochures, slick coffee table photo-journals, films, television shows, paintings, etchings, and the print media -industrial strength images -serve as the models for 'capturing' and 'authentic nature' that tourists use in 'capturing' their images of the wild. (Little 1991:155)

The hegemonic power of this particular way of looking at the landscape is evident in the

fact that these observations of Ken Little in Kenya twenty years ago still ring true for a

site as geographically removed from Africa as the Canadian Rockies. What these two

sites have in common, is that both, are categorized as pure nature by the Euro-American

oriented tourism industry.

Tourists are primed, before even setting foot in the area, to look at the landscape of the Canadian Rockies in a certain way:

62 Banff National Park is a vast untamed territory that begs to be explored. Wild animals roam the valleys, eagles soar over the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and pure water streams into rivers from a thousand glaciers. Hundreds of years ago aboriginal natives first discovered its beauty, quickly followed by explorers, map makers, and mountain climbers. Even the odd celebrity or royal type has popped by. And now you. Climb the same mountains, paddle the rivers, and inhale the air. That's pure alpine. The sheer number of adventures is as hard to count as the peaks stretching into the distance" (Banff Lake Louise Tourism website, "Experience the Park" )

The images of the Canadian Rockies in tourism advertisements, environmental conservation propaganda, state symbolism (from money to drivers licenses), travel magazines, postcards, and countless others shape the gaze of the traveler in the Rockies before they have even actually set eyes on the mountains and continue to do so even for those familiar with area. Again, quoting Ken Little: "The primary target of the tourist industry is the imagination and the struggle over cultural representations. My point is that mass tourism colonizes the imagination through the construction of the tourist perspective and that the consequences of tourist colonialism are no less deep-seated or penetrating than the more familiar economic and political expression of colonialism" ( 1991: 149).

Photography is a primary tool of this process, as a practice it "renders the world as object, as a framed picture or spectacle, and the means of producing a certainty about and control over the representations of the 'other'" (Little 1991: 157). As Mary Louise Pratt notes in her discussion of the colonial gaze, the photographer, "the landscanning, self-effacing producer of information, is associated with panoptic apparatuses of the bureaucratic state"

(2008:77). The photographer and his camera is merely an instrument, capturing visual truths, often in support of certain ways of 'seeing' a landscape. Accordingly, in a situation of power differentials, certain ways of seeing overcome others, and the authority of one

63 gaze trumps that of another. In the Euro-North American culture of empiricism, the eye is privileged due to its "apparent transparency - the eye is thought to merely passively record what has been seen, rather than actively constitute it" (Braun 2002:73). This oculocentrism translates easily into the context of outdoor recreation, where photography, if not the primary objective for an expedition into wilderness, is key to any recreational practice as a means of recording ones exploits. Furthermore, even if an individual's perception is called into question, the camera, due to its stature as a mechanical instrument, is continually viewed as unbiased (Braun 2002, McQuire 1998). "Given the authority attached to visual evidence in Western society, photographs... represent events as authoritative and natural" (Gordon 2006:18).

For some, the sighting and photographing of an idealized image of the wildest possible other, for example a bear, is the primary goal of an excursion. The author of a study of polar bear tourism in Churchill Manitoba remarks of his informants that 'they want to say they have seen a bear' and have physical evidence of this accomplishment, this adventure into the wild. This attitude "converts the world into a department store or museum-without walls in which every subject is depreciated into an article of consumption, promoted into an item for aesthetic appreciation " (Russell & Ankerman

1996:75). Complaints about the expense of travel within the parks without the reward of a bear sighting, or complaints about rainy weather where 'you can't get a good picture' were commonplace during my time working at a Parks Canada information centre. I overheard one man ask for a refund on his park pass because due to the low clouds over the peaks he hadn't seen anything. Tourism is "all about purchasing experiences rather

64 than 'things,' and increasingly these experiences include natural spaces and wild animals

(Lemelin 2006: 530). Lemelin notes that "photographic collectables can become

addictive and fuel in some tourists a need to pursue bigger and better trophies providing

further evidence of one's accomplishments" (2006: 517). The trophy recreationist must

"possess, invade or appropriate in order to enjoy" and "these photographic quests can be

especially aggravating for exotic or threatened species that inhabit more remote and

sensitive environments" (Lemelin 2006: 518). Haraway notes that "hunting, first with

guns and then with cameras, is perceived as an encounter with nature, constructed as a

purifying antidote to the ills of civilization" (Haraway 1989:26). The capturing on film of

places, to quote one of my informants, "few other men have seen," and then to have

evidence of this accomplishment, is a primary goal of wilderness travel and tourism.

Nearly every single person I encountered, however far into the backcountry and removed

from so-called civilization, carried a camera to provide a visual record of their

achievements. The trek into the woods for that National Geographic shot was the

principal goal of hours of trudging for many of my informants. Without that prize, the trip

was deemed a failure. Furthermore, as previously stated, the subjects chosen to be

photographed followed a clear pattern set by media previously encountered: waterfalls,

glaciers, wildlife, wildflowers, panoramic views simple, clean, crisp shots of nature.

No one took pictures of the picnic tables or outhouses brought in by helicopter, or the

bridges constructed by trail crews, or the survey markers dividing the land into one political domain or another. The garbage, the fire marks, the logged out areas, the remains

of an old mine were routinely ignored or edited out of the photographs of my informants.

65 Haraway calls the camera "ultimately so superior to the gun for the possession,

production, preservation, consumption, surveillance, appreciation, and control of nature"

(Haraway 1989: 175). Photography is a mode of conquest and possession. Tina Loo, in

discussing American hunters at the turn of the century, notes their emphasis on conquest,

not kill:

American sharpshooter Annie Oakley told Rod and Gun, hunting was not about killing. "It is not a desire to kill that makes this [hunting] pleasure, but something totally different. I suppose it might be called the pleasure of conspicuous superiority over that which is shot at"...For Franklin Hawley, the joy of hunting was "following the deer, and gaining a vantage point from which you MIGHT SLAY but DO NOT. The Real sport lies in the conquest, not the killing" (quoted in Loo 2007: 33).

People take pictures to commemorate their achievements: at summits, campgrounds, and

signs. These photos act as visual evidence of their conquest.

Photography "erases the technological and institutional framework of adventure,

allowing the site and the experience of adventure to appear as if they were somehow

separate from their enabling conditions"(Braun 2002 129), thus reinforcing the Great

Divide. Photos objectify and separate visually an environment into what is seen, and who is seeing it, with one being acknowledged and the other silent. Furthermore, photography often fetishizes the vision it is constructing, which is especially true in the case of wilderness photography, which, as Braun (2002) has noted, visually signifies what wilderness is and separates it from what it is not, i.e. the modern. "By situating the viewing subject behind the (absent) camera, looking out into the wilds, the image firmly situates the viewer in modern society and asks him or her to ponder the yawning gap between culture and nature, city and country, modernity and its premodern

66 antecedents...this gap is merely an effect of the photograph itself (Braun 2002: 129).

"When we are afraid, we shoot. But when we are nostalgic, we take pictures" (Sontag

1977:15 cited in Haraway 1989: 171). The nostalgia for a lost, pre-modern, primitive wild

is expressed through photography. At the same time, if the camera, the photographer, or

other indicators of modernity enter the frame, the experience "comes into view as an

extension of modernity, not an escape from it" (Braun 2002: 129).

Hybrid Spaces

My travels throughout the backcountry have taken me along old logging roads,

through nineteenth century mining camps, past archaeological First-Nation's sites, and

over trails covered in gravel flown in by helicopter. The various mountains are named for

the conquests of European explorers, for Hudson Bay Company magnates, and for British

royalty. The passes and trails used now are remnants of the millennia-old cross-mountain

First Nations trade network. The parks are anything but free from a human presence, and

evidence of human resource appropriation may be seen throughout the region, if one

knows where to look. But it did take somewhat of a concentrated effort, as well as

increased familiarity with the landscape, to teach me to look differently, to start to see the

signs across the landscape of culture in nature, which, to someone growing up as a

western Canadian of European descent and working in the tourism industry, were easy to

overlook. Throughout my backcountry trips in the summer of 2009,1 took pictures of

things I saw that showed the human presence in areas of wilderness. Rather than capture the mountain vistas and wildlife which are usual photographic subjects, I tried to re-orient my gaze and my camera towards visual evidence of people's recreation and labour in a 67 supposedly wild landscape. Ironically, in trying to 'see' the culture in the nature, a problem I posed at the beginning of this chapter, I found a camera very useful.

Figure 1A bridge built from materials helicoptered in, as it was at least 30km - V «»t; -iw sir *Z_JL*:!:^'.J I,"~*~~~~ ——IL.c •» from the nearest vehicle access point.

> y

:V^ift'

'"V"'"'-

*- -i 4 " *.-

_ * r it* ' £ ^ s

Figure 2 The cairn on Gibbon Pass which helped me find my way when I lost the trail

j^u tt^r J «4 ^-<.* vV ^-\ y

68 Figure 3 Cairn with a left- behind hiking boot marking the trail down from the top of the pass.

Figure 4 "YOU ARE ENTERING BANFF NATIONAL PARK, National Park Regulations apply, if*; | Permits are Required, No IJ//L tittup i. motorized vehicles allowed". • f*-tf . How would one ever get a motorized vehicle over the steep rocky passes that lead I*' to this location?!

69 Figure 5 About 40km from the nearest road, pay phone, or cell phone service.

Figure 6 Sign at Lake Magog wilderness campground. Too many campers walking on the delicate alpine vegetation had left the area rather barren.

^ *&><\*&*-Ji 'y,

70 • - - A - -^

Figure 7 Fire pit in a backcountry .

Figure 8 Boardwalk built on little used trail falling into disrepair. Parks Canada often builds boardwalks over muddy areas, even in remote areas like M this (Surprise Creek).

*??*. **iMi?* :•»."-> '• ...» w «i

71 F/gure 3 Survey marker of concrete and metal at the border between Banff National Park in

,/'•*• Alberta and the Height of the Rockies Provincial Park in British Columbia (also on 'Palliser Pass', named for the famous survey expedition of the area). At approximately 40km from the nearest road (gravel at that), it must have been flown in by helicopter.

m

&$$& -4— f i. "V. * t •W

f

r«^' » V 4 / •» < ?;

Figure 10 Mt. Assinobline Lodge/BC Parks info -public/private convergence in the 'wilderness."

72 Signs revealing regulations and political boundaries at work became evidence of governmentality in the wilds. Money found in the grass 25km from the nearest vehicle access point and 40 km from the nearest consumer outlet. Plaques marking the passage of

European explorers and trailbuilders. Cairns built to show the way, or simply to say, to all who may pass in the future, I was here. Mountains became familiar friends and the distant roar of sun-sparked summer avalanches became as recognizable as the rumble of the freight trains through the mountain passes. The more time I spend in the Rockies, the more it becomes home and the idea of wilderness, as perpetuated by the tourist industry I work for, becomes laughable. The more I notice the signs pointing out the views, rather than the views alone, and the more I realize my gaze is being directed and begin to resist it.

What is the backcountry? It is generally agreed upon that places with no motor vehicle access qualify for this definition, but there are grey areas. What about places accessible via a shuttle bus on a fire road, like Lake CTHara? Or Mt. Assiniboine

Provincial Park, where a large number of visitors are flown in by helicopter? Or the Skoki area, accessible by pack train, where no personal effort is required beyond sitting on a horse and directing it? One thing is certain, there is no pure wilderness, no backcountry that has not been penetrated by human cultural forces. Some areas may be more isolated than others, but the idea that you may cross a clear boundary from one side of the Great

Divide into another, from culture into nature, and leave the other behind, is clearly false.

What is wilderness? An imagined place, an idea positioned on an area of natural beauty, often for socio-economic reasons, which if one looks closely, does not quite fit.

73 Although I am using myself as a major referent in these conclusions, I am not alone in my suppositions. Most experienced backpackers I interviewed clearly saw through the illusions (or delusions) of wilderness travel as constructed by the tourism industry. Although some admitted, like myself, to being seduced initially by tales of wild places untouched by man, after several trips, most came to the realization that they brought their cultural baggage on their wilderness travels, engaging with these at least as much, if not more, than with some imagined version of raw nature, which I will fully discuss in the following chapter.

74 Chapter Three Why Backpack?

"Literally, without backcountry hiking I would go insane, I would easily turn into a psychopath" (Informant I, Shadow Lake, July 2009).

"I need the quiet. I need to be away from cars. It's an absolute need for me. For me there's no question I feel much, much happier being out in these kinds of places. It means a lot to me " (Informant 3, Little Yoho, August 2009).

"I think a lot of people are running away from civilization" (Informant 4, Tumbling Creek, August 2009).

"The further away you can get from the city the more it sets your mind free. I can't even explain it really, it's like further away from the rest of the world, the more you feel you don't need the rest of the world" (Informant 2, Tumbling Creek, August 2009).

"Had to get out of Calgary to some place where there's more trees than people " (Informant 1, Bur stall Pass, August 2009).

"I mean carrying a backpack is different, right? It's not like dayhiking, it's not like tenting out of the back of your car, it's sort of a beast all unto its own. " (Informant 4, Little Yoho, August 2009).

"I find when I go backpacking I have a new appreciation for all the stuff at home. "(Informant 2, Shadow Lake, July 2009).

"I have to admit one of the reasons that we do this is because if you're going to take a week off to do something fun for a vacation it's one of the cheaper things you can do. And that's important. We can't afford to take expensive trips all the time" (Informant 1, Egypt Lake, July 2009).

"I've always enjoyed the outdoors. Unfortunately I didn't join the military which I should have done and this is kind of the closest I'll get. I just like being out here...the challenge too, that's a big thing, the challenge, especially when you got to climb 2,000feet a day" (Informant 3, Tumbling Creek, August 2010).

"I think the planning is what I like. You basically challenge yourself to say how can I do this on as little as possible while being as smart about it as possible. Whereas if you pull into a campground with a car, you just throw everything in there and there's no worries...but here you really have to plan out your meals, you have to understand mileage, you know all these things go into it to make sure that when you leave the car you're on your own. The survival aspect is definitely part of the appeal" (Informant 2, Tumbling Creek, August 2009).

"For me it's getting away from the crowds. The big RVs with their generators running, it's not camping anymore" (Informant 1, Tumbling Creek, August 2009).

75 "Out here there are other people [as in the backcountry is not a people-less place], but they 're people who are experiencing something really amazing and that is going to help breed a movement that's going to help create more protected areas. Even when I see people in the frontcountry just appreciating nature, then I feel like, this is so important, this is going to help make change " (Informant 2, Shadow Lake, July 2009).

"I like to go to a place and feel like I'm the first person who's ever been there, even if I'm not "(Local mountain guide, interviewed May 2010).

"I like the feeling of disconnect from human society, like getting away as far as you can in your car, and then getting away from your car, and seeing valleys that people in cars can't get to. I like looking at something and knowing that anyone else who may have been there, which is often not very many people, have gotten there the same way I have and have gone for the same disconnect that I'm seeking. "(Informant 3, Egypt Lake, July 2009).

I posed the question "why backpack?" in some form to every hiker I interviewed.

The above is a selection of their answers. It was admittedly difficult for me to explain

why people delighted in leaving behind modem comforts like electricity and flush toilets

to trudge with a heavy pack through sometimes inhospitable terrain because I myself am

almost obsessed with the activity. However, the question is an important one, and is rather key to my project. The following chapter is my attempt to understand who engages in backcountry hiking and why and how these differing motivations show 'wilderness'

areas to be a socially significant in the motivations and imaginations of hikers

Adventure

"Most of us have never climbed a high mountain, instead living in flat, even terrain. There is little need to climb mountains to gather food, have sex, or raise a family. Why do it at all ? At some level, mountain climbing must comprise either a sanity test or an amazing adventure." (Houston 2006:148).

The terms adventure and wilderness are so closely associated one may almost indicate the presence of the other. For there to be adventure there must be a sense of the unknown, the uncivilized and the untouched, and, as previously discussed, wilderness

76 connotes all these. Furthermore, wilderness is fundamentally viewed as a 'risky'

environment, and therefore ripe for adventure. "We live in a post-explorer era in which it

is widely considered that the great adventurers are remnants of history and that the

Earth's mysterious places and peoples have long 'been discovered" (Gordon 2006: 1).

Yet adventure and exploration are ubiquitous in popular culture...why? Is it nostalgia for a

colonial past and the era of exploration (exploitation) or some innate urge to

explore/human curiosity? As Gordon notes, "in Western cultural contexts, adventure is

often communicated and understood through a biochemical idiom, as the pursuit of the

'adrenaline rush' and the 'endorphin high'" (2006:3). Although these biological

explanations for the urge towards adventure do hold true for other outdoor pursuits such

as white water rafting and mountain climbing, they certainly do not pertain to

backpacking. Although hiking through the mountains is certainly a great cardiovascular workout, it is unlikely to get one's adrenaline pumping. There is little direct physical danger to hiking, and it is certainly not an adrenalin rush inducing activity (most of the time ). As Gordon points out, although, "adventure arguably has a close relationship to human biology, but to reduce adventure to its purely biochemical and evolutionary manifestations misses the rich social, cultural, political and economic contexts that shape how and why people think of certain activities and images as adventuresome" (Gordon

2006: 3). Although statistically one is more likely to perish due to a malfunction in the cogs of so-called modern life, such as a highway crash, the familiarity of this sort of peril

Teetering on an alpine ridge or simply getting lost can indeed provoke somewhat of a rush, but these are fairly rare circumstances.

77 renders it far from novel. And it is novelty and the unfamiliar that according to George

Simmel (1997 [1911]) defines an adventure.

"Discourses of adventure are not produced in the present from whole cloth but

instead operate through a kind of citationality; they attain their meanings through the

iteration of already established norms and conventions that are grafted into, and grafted

together, within new cultural and political contexts" (Braun 2003 :185). Most

backpackers I spoke to did have some awareness of the colonial roots of the activity and

clearly acknowledged that "adventure has the gesture of the conqueror" (Simmel 1997

[1911] 226)). One hiker I spoke with, when asked a question concerning changing

motivations for backpacking, stated that some people used to be:

kind of macho-like...like, I'm going to be the first man to look upon this land, y'know, and then get rich from it. It used to be [sic] a lot more economic motivations in terms of backcountry travel...like prospectors...and even there, like people finding here and going let's exploit it for tourism, and pave the railways or whatever...like I guess there's a lot of like Spirit of Adventure and just like the idea of finding new places and putting them on the map(Informant 1, Tumbling Creek, August 2010).

However this same informant also expressed a nostalgia for this 'age of exploration' and

stated that "it's kind of sad sometimes that there's no unmapped places anymore....so we

go out for different reasons now" (Informant 1, Tumbling Creek, August 2010). This

same informant noted that although everything had been 'discovered,' discovery was still

a major motivation for backpacking. To see new lands, he argued, is still a major impetus.

They may not be a 'new world' but they are new to him.

78 The climbers are the flashiest of the outdoors-people, performing daring feats in the harshest of environments. Also, with its discourse of first ascents and record-breaking, the activity closely mirrors the tropes of discovery associated with colonial exploration.

Thus, they often bask in the glory of a spotlight put on them by both popular culture and those who critique it. Hikers (also known as trekkers, trampers, and backpackers) are generally a quieter sort and, I argue, are generally quite different from mountaineers in their backgrounds, beliefs, and goals. However, most authors who discuss outdoor activities do not distinguish those who engage in quite obviously high-risk adventures such as mountaineers and those who, like me, eschew adrenaline-inducing activities in favour of a much more contemplative form of 'adventure.' Hikers can be climbers, and climbers can be hikers, but, in general, I found during my time in the Rockies that the overlap was absent. Even if a backpacker did climb, there was usually a separation between trips for climbing and backpacking trips, with an implicit recognition that these were two very different activities in terms of style.

Mountain climbers in the technical sense (those who use ropes, pitons and other such gear to ascend rock faces to the summits) are not the subject of my study, and so I will not speak in detail about their habits as a group. However, I can speak to how they are perceived by hikers. They are viewed as a rowdy, loud, usually young, sometimes obnoxious, fiercely competitive group (the accuracy of this perception is certainly up for debate). Sitting on the porch at Mt. Assiniboine, enjoying some rare sunshine and few overpriced beers purchased from the luxury lodge, I discussed these differences with the self-dubbed 'two B's,' a pair of middle-aged backpackers from British Columbia (both with a first name starting with B). Bl could be described as the prototypical backpacker,

with his camera set up waiting for that shot of the peak. He had never climbed a peak and

claimed that "it just wasn't for him, he came here to relax and enjoy, not bust his ass." B2

was a former climber, and expressed his frustration with the relatively slower pace of

backpacking. The discussion had been prompted by the arrival at the lodge patio of two

young male climbers who had just hiked in the 24 kilometres from the trailhead on the

Kananaskis side, and were planning on climbing up to the peak of Mt. Assiniboine the

next morning. They boasted that the plan that had been conceived only the night before,

asserting with pride their youthful spontaneity (which some may call recklessness).

Armed with liquid energy gels and crampons, they were going to make their way up to

the halfway hut on the mountain that afternoon, proclaiming no exhaustion from their 24

km trek in that morning. Bl and I shared a look of amusement and rolled our eyes. B2,

however, suddenly had a gleam in his eye, and began to discuss with the young men the

various equipment they earned, bemoaning the fact that he not come to the park prepared

for a climb.

Many hikers I met did not have the push to do harder traverses faster and further that characterizes climbing, mountain biking and other extreme sports with technical

factors. One older female backpacker commented that

They [mountain bikers] are not here for the same experience that we are. It's how fast can you get around. [Hiking] you go slowly. You're looking at the flowers, you're smelling the air, well, what it is, is you're in the moment and cyclist they're get on, pedal fast and get from A to B. It's such a different thing because you're out here sometimes and these guys go whizzing by and you think, they're not paying any attention.(Informant 1, Shadow Lake, July 2009)

80 I met several hikers who consciously didn't try to over exert themselves and set what they termed a relaxing pace. They stated that "you want to get here and not get too bagged. And you want to do it safely" (Informant 1, Burstall Pass, July 2009). Still, there is somewhat a sense of competition between hikers, however more they are concerned with ""soaking it all in." When I see other hikers on the trail, I do get a happy little jolt when I pass them. I feel spurred on to go further, faster. I do take pride in how far I can hike, and how fast. However, any "records" are personal. Hiking is not a sport; it's a pastime. There are no times to beat or records to set, just more places to explore.

Risk is generally perceived as a defining factor in deciding whether an activity is adventurous or not. Is backpacking a "risky" activity? Does having to bring both toques and sunscreen make a backcountry trail a 'risky' environment? Or is it just making us more aware of one's surroundings? Are we pushing the definition of risk too far by including an activity that forces you to individually adapt and react to environmental changes? Backpacking in the Rockies has real risks. However, unlike climbing, most of them are due to the environment in which one undertakes the activity, not the activity itself. Dead trees, nick-named 'widow-makers', have claimed a few over the years, including one young woman in the winter of 2008 while wandering around the Banff

Springs golf course. Every time I pass by a creaky stand of deadfall I become more alert.

Avalanches are a danger in the late spring, which results in the backpacking season not really starting until late June. Nearly every year, usually with the spring snow melt, the local newspaper reports the gruesome discovery of some poor lost soul who wandered a little too far off the beaten path. Fording a river, especially early in the season when the

81 rivers are high with fresh snow melt, can be a very dangerous endeavour (which is why I never select trails that contain a non-bridged river crossing while traveling solo).

However, as any seasoned backpacker will tell you, the annoyances are far more visibly present on any trail than the risks. Bugs, mosquitoes, ticks (Lyme disease is uncommon in the Rockies) and horseflies, take far more of a blood toll for entry into the backcountry than any cougar or bear. And still, as most seasoned backpacker or Parks Canada official will tell you, the most dangerous part of any expedition is the drive to the trailhead along the highway."1

Goffman (1967) defines adventure as a situation where one is prepared, momentarily at least, to let go of a controlled situation and accept one's fate. Perhaps this is where backpacking becomes adventure then. In the backcountry, one has to surrender control of the terrain and climate, especially in regards to weather. As one hiker woefully noted, "when the weather turns bad it can really change the whole atmosphere of the trip"

(Informant 2, Egypt Lake, July 2009). Also, one can certainly underestimate the trail conditions, as a freak storm can load a formerly good trail with broken branches and deadfall to the point of near impassibility (which has happened to me on more than one occasion). However, most of the more seasoned hikers take this in stride, as did one pair from Calgary I met who noted "that's one nice thing about hiking out here is the sunlight is pretty late in the evening. It's pretty forgiving. You can screw up by a couple hours and you're still going to be fine. So you eat dinner at 8:30 pm, so what (Informant 2, Burstall

28 This is such an oft-repeated statement amongst backpackers that almost every person I interviewed made mention of it. Although somewhat of a technique of self-reassurance when contemplating the risks of 'wilderness travel/ it does reflect a gruesome truth. The Trans-Canada highway takes far more lives, both of humans and other species, than any other mountain entity.

82 Pass, July 2009)?". A lack of preparation for the cold creates most uncomfortable, and sometimes dangerous, situations. The mistake of not being prepared for inclement weather is usually made by those unfamiliar with the area (in my experience), who fail to realize that it can snow any month of the year in the Rockies, and at high elevations temperatures dip below freezing even in the height of summer. Fighting the cold takes a lot of energy, and without the proper gear hypothermia can easily be a danger even in mid-August. As one of turn of the century mountain traveller sagely pointed out, "No one need ever think he is going to avoid the weather; no mountains were ever made without it, least of all the Rockies" (Schaffer [1919] 2006:99).

However, perhaps this is where risk becomes a draw for backpackers, and where the adventure becomes part of the trip. A feeling of self-sufficiency and independence from modem infrastructure is a huge draw for many backpackers. And this feeling becomes most prominent when faced with an unexpected situation. In a high alpine meadow in mid-August of 2009 the downpour I encountered on the trail up became a roaring snowstorm. I set my tent up in a sheltered area and listened to the snow accumulate on the fly of my tent. The next morning I awoke to a winter wonderland, on

August 14.1 was surprised to find myself strangely exhilarated, and somewhat elated. I had endured a mountain storm, miles from solid shelter, by myself. And I was fine! I cooked a hot breakfast and set off with double layers of wool socks to trudge through meadows and peaks blanketed in white. It was wonderful, because, proudly, I was prepared with gear to warm and shelter me, which I had carried on my own back. It was a fantastic feeling, and made me feel independent, not from the environment around me,

83 but rather from the trappings of modern infrastructure. This feeling was an illusion of

course, as the trail I was on and the gear I was carrying were far from independent from

the infrastructure I felt I had escaped. However, that feeling of exhilaration and elation at

overcoming obstacles if not without the aid of modern devices, at least under my own

bodily power, was amazing and one, which having discussed with others, most

backpackers share and draws them again and again to undertake backcountry adventures.

Self-Discovery

Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented culture, and doing nothing is hard to do. It's best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking. Walking itself is the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and the beating of the heart. It strikes a delicate balance between working and idling, being and doing. It is bodily labour that produces nothing but thoughts, experiences, arrivals.... Walking cdlows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts (Solnit 2000:5).

Many hikers, including myself, find the activity mentally refreshing and meditative. Those who value this aspect of the activity, if they have the necessary experience, often, like me, choose to hike alone. Most hikers who travel alone tend to be men, but there is a growing number of women with the courage and know-how to backpack on their own (more on that later). Most backpackers I spoke to agreed that the rewards of backpacking solo outweighed the risks:

If you're on your own there's more risk involved. I don't think that it's necessarily an unmanageable amount of risk, but it is more risky. If you forget something or get hurt or something goes wrong you really are on your own. I mean how many other people have you seen? [in two days, two people, on that particularly remote trail]. So you're kind of on your own. And definitely with bear issues the more of you there are, the less chance there is of your having a problem. But, you know, I've gone out on my own. I think there's a risk there but I think

84 you can manage it. If someone knows where you are. (Informant 1, Burstall Pass, July 2009).

One hiker said that "people have weird reaction to my going solo, I get the 'wasn't that

dangerous on your own'? And I'm like yeah, that's sort of one of the reasons I do it

right?" Going by yourself increases the risk, but also increases the adventure.

The most obvious drawback to hiking alone is that there will be no one to go for

help in case of an accident. However many experienced backpackers don't mind this. One

person I spoke with pointed out that "going solo is sometimes a lot less frustrating

because you can go at your own pace and not have to stop every kilometre to wait for

people you're hiking with" (Informant 4, Little Yoho, August 2009). Usually, the people

who hike solo are those who act as leaders when hiking in a group. The burden of responsibility for everyone else's safety, in that instance, sometimes takes away from the feeling of independence which many backpackers value. As one person I spoke with put it, the value of going solo is that, "you only have to worry about yourself and your stuff.

You can go where you want to go." Another recalled that:

I did a group trip last year and I was kind of the leader of the group because I had more experience. And I really didn't enjoy it. I found it was stressful and I didn't come back relaxed at all. I came back and I had a bitter taste in my mouth. So this year there was no question, I want to go solo. I want that adventure because it's more of an adventure (Informant 3, Egypt Lake, July 2009).

Myself, I find it empowering, the fact that I can carry, on my own, what I need to survive.

One man I spoke with who was adamant in his preference for going hiking alone stated that, "I come back from hiking solo way more recharged and reenergized than with a group. You have to be entirely self-sufficient and more aware of your surroundings and I

85 find I do more deep thought while out on my own" (Informant 3 July 2009 Egypt Lake).

There is never any pressure to go solo. Backpacking is not a competitive activity, except

in comparing distances traversed and elevations gained through post-hike storytelling.

Whether one goes solo or not is a choice based on experience in the backcountry hiking,

and, to a large extent, depends on whether one values solitary contemplation or not. There is no pressure to go alone, nor any social merit attributed to doing so, other than perhaps

some pleasure garnered from the reactions of those who cannot believe anyone

(especially a woman!) would hike alone.

"A lone walker is both present and detached from the world around, more than

audience but less than a participant. Walking assuages or legitimizes this alienation: one

is mildly disconnected because one is walking, not because one is incapable of connecting" (Solnit 2000:24). Solo hikers interact with others by choice, not because they have to. And they are among the most likely to socialize with strangers after reaching the campground, or to join up with another group during inclement weather using conversation as a motivation to hike through the rain. But in the backcountry, most of the time, communication is a choice, not a necessary interaction and the resultant freedom to socially disconnect and retreat into one's own mind and senses is highly valued. As one of my informants said, "I mean, we're coming from pretty large cities, y'know that kinda of hustle bustle crazy world there and this kind of slows you down to what personally I feel life should be...y'know...about just...living. So this is where I find it" (Informant 2, Tumbling Creek, July 2009).

86 Tsing frames nature loving for Indonesian students as a "matter of crafting selves"

(2005: 121). According to Braun, recreation can also imply a re-creation of self, body

and identity (for mostly white, middle-class) metropolitan subjects (2004: 28). One

informant noted that "I've come here [the backcountry in the Rockies] in the past when I

was going through difficulties, a break-up, and this place was healing in a lot of ways" (

Informant 1 July 2010 Shadow Lake). The mountains are, for many Western Canadians, a

place not only of recreation and leisure, but also of reflection. Basso notes that certain

"places possess a marked capacity for triggering acts of self-reflection, inspiring thoughts

about who one presently is, or memories of who one used to be, or musing on who one

might become" (Basso 1996:108). Most of the backpackers I spoke with who had camped

and hiked in the Rockies for many years emphasized the 'specialness' of its places, and

the relief and respite they brought on. A respite not associated directly with the fact of

'being on vacation' while engaging with the mountain landscapes, but rather, my

informants directly associated this respite and relief with an engagement with the

landscape itself, by getting 'out' into the backcountry.

To a large extent, backpacking is about sustainability. Not environmental

sustainability, although most of my informants had strong opinions about the preservation

and conservation of natural resources and environments, as do I. Rather, backpacking is

about the sustainability of the self, mentally and physically, which in turn puts other kinds

of sustainability into perspective. In discussing the trekking in the Alps nearly a century

ago, Simmel noted that " alpine journeys have a pedagogic value in that they were a pleasure that could only be had by a self-reliance that was both external and internal to

87 oneself (Simmel 1997: 219). One must, in an act which is often a first for middle-class citizens of developed countries, plan to carry enough food to sustain oneself for the journey. On longer treks, and even on shorter ones, due to the possibility of becoming lost, or delayed, starvation looms as a real threat and one's energy reserves must be kept up in order to reach one's destination. First aid kits must be carried, to sustain life in the face of injury when no immediate help is near. Adequate clothing and shelter must be added to the burden, to sustain heat and warmth against the very real threat of hypothermia. The immediacy of this self-reliance, though, is not one of the drawbacks of backpacking for those who love it, but rather part of the appeal. Although modern equipment, packaged food, and established campgrounds clearly point out the myth of backpacking as "off-the-grid\ it retains enough aspects of self-reliance to give a taste of a sort of freedom from infrastructure that is exhilarating. Cynically this may be called a sort of neo-colonial fetishization of an imagined primitive lifestyle. Those roots are there, to be sure, as I have pointed out in my previous discussions.

However, to my informants, to minimize the sensation to such a critique would be to miss the point completely. This is because the exhilaration from being able to sustain oneself is so much more complex, as I hope I have also pointed out. It's both a relief and a pleasure to 'unplug' from the structures of everyday North American life.29 For myself, as a woman, it allows me to physically realize a sensation of independence from patriarchy, of acting outside of social strictures that dictate certain activities must be

Although I fully recognize that engaging in 'off-the-grid' activities one is still very much part of the modernist paradigm that dominates North American society.

88 conducted with the supervision of a male. For others it contributes to mental self-

sustainability, by allowing them to focus on their selves rather than the chaotic cacophony

of urban life. For still others it reveals to them, in an invigorating epiphany, how little

material goods are needed to sustain life. Others find that in a society where one is taught

by the media to fear one's neighbour, that a faith in community is renewed by the simple

act of sharing tea on a chilly afternoon. I am not trying to paint a picture of some

wilderness Utopia, far from it, but I am trying to reveal the complex reasons why some

people who find the backpacking so addictive. It is a small group of people who engage

in the activity, so small that over the many kilometres I walked last summer I encountered

the same faces more than once.

Community

Here in the backcountry, everything was distilled to simple basics. Yesterday, the camp cook's happy banter with strangers had seemed so naturcd. Today, people we had never met before were giving us the keys to their vehicles. These simple acts of honesty and trust have long been lost back in civilization...Here, without a great leap of faith, we were able to believe in basic honesty and intrinsic goodness of our fellow hikers. We, by definition, enjoyed a camaraderie with these like-minded souls, and knew that they were appreciating the same rewards for their efforts, as we were (Lea in Mountain Odyssey 2007:137).

The sense of community in the backcountry is a draw for many backpackers.

Ironically, in going to a "wild" place, one of the strongest positives which people recall from the experience is often the connections created with other people. One woman noted that "when you're backpacking something like the Chilkoot trail and everyone is summiting the pass the same day you do form a sense of community. We did talk about that on the trail, how when you're traveling along the same route as everyone you do

89 become a community and you do stay in touch' (Informant 4, Tumbling Creek, August

2009). Another hiker stated that she:

got into doing backcountry stuff largely through work 'cause I worked at the warden service in Kootenay. And I find that one of the things I really like about being a field biologist is you go to these remote areas and you totally bond with everybody else, 'cause you realize, that compared to that elephant seal over there, even though that guy's a total weirdo and he's from a different country and very strange, and he's got strange showering habits, he's still more similar to you than that elephant seal. That kind of gets you connected (Informant 3, Shadow Lake, July 2009).

On the trail, communications between hikers range from cursory nods to full discussions

of trail conditions. Generally, communication increases as one goes deeper into the

backcountry; further from "civilization". When one hasn't seen another human being for a

few days, rather than a few hours, conversations with strangers arise easily. (On one of

my first solo backcountry excursions, I realized, to my astonishment and delight, that I

hadn't spoken to another human being for 48 hours, which for a gregarious person like

myself, is quite a feat.) Although conversations may or may not arise on the trail, they

nearly always ensue at the campground cooking area. Backcountry "kitchens," which

range from a clear space in the trees with a couple logs to perch on to fully constructed

kitchen shelters, are the social gathering spots of the backcountry. This is where trail

conditions, destinations and origins, and that most popular of topics, the weather, are

discussed in detail. If the weather is good and the campground is sparsely populated by

only a few tents, then cooking may go on in somewhat convivial silence. However, if the campground is busy and tables must be shared, or if the weather is nasty, a few log tables becomes a hub of activity. "A feature of the common kitchen is that it draws campers together to exchange information and ideas. It was always at such gatherings that I would 90 hear of a bear sighting, or a tough stream crossing, and where I would meet people from different regions" (Lea 2002 30). On one miserably cold and wet day at Magog campground (renowned for the fact that it actually has a kitchen shelter) I spent many hours in the kitchen area, sharing maps with a family from BC, eating precious fresh fruit with a Calgary couple, and sipping chai brewed by an East Indian Edmontonian who was also backpacking solo.

Informal exchanges of goods often take place as well. Travelers heading out will often leave food for hikers that they meet with who are staying on longer, with the attitude of 'why carry it out if you can eat it?' Fuel canisters will often be 'gifted' to those without or staying on. Security of personal belongings is a non-issue in the backcountry, as "you can't lock a tent". In a place where the few personal possessions you carry are often so vital to survival, the reduction in personal attachment to them is interesting, at least in terms of securing belongings from others. Still, theft is completely unheard of.

Although most people go backpacking, to "get away from it all", with that "all" including fellow human beings, the respect for fellow backpackers (i.e. those who also like to get away from it all) is quite astonishing. Perhaps it is because most interactions with others in the backcountry are, unlike most interactions in daily life, often undertaken by choice.

As one hiker I spoke with noted "you can always climb a peak and there's nobody there, you can always go off trail and there's no one there...you can get away."

91 Masculine Achievement and Male Bonding: "There's Always Room for Beer "

One of the first groups I interviewed in the summer of 2009 was a group of middle-aged Caucasian men from the Calgary area. When I questioned them about why they backpacked, one answer put forward was generally agreed upon: "There's no wives here. It's a guy thing, a primal thing. My wife doesn't hike because there's no shower, no blow dryer up here" (Informant 1, Shadow Lake, July 2009) In turn I asked them what they thought about seeing me up in the backcountry then, obviously not a man. They said

I was different, younger, not their wives. Another man I spoke with, from Toronto and hiking the Rockwall trail with his two teenage sons, asked me outright "Where's your boyfriend? Why didn't he come with you?" A little shocked at the sexism of the question

I mumbled some unmemorable reply and later thought in retrospect that I ought to have asked him where his wife was and why she didn't come with him. Ironically, at the end of the trail, his wife picked him up with a cold beer ready for him in the trailhead, while my boyfriend did the same for me!

As Donna Haraway has discussed in detail in her essay on the "Teddy Bear

Patriarchy" (2004), rugged outdoor life was viewed in the early twentieth century as a means of promoting the virile masculinity embodied and espoused by Theodore

Roosevelt. The outdoor life embraced by 'Teddy' was situated as the regenerative solution for a "miscellaneous urban public threatened with genetic and social decadence, threatened with the prolific bodies of new immigrants, threatened with the failure of

30 Sentiment expressed by several of the middle-aged men backpacking in small groups who I encountered. 92 manhood" (Haraway 2004: 154). Tina Loo discusses (with some tongue-in-cheek), a

common sentiment in the early twentieth century regarding the perils of civilization,

especially for the modern male:

Whereas organized camping and canoeing were often enough to cure the modern woman of what ailed her, men seemed to require a different encounter to achieve the same ends. In many ways, modernity had taken a greater toll on middle-class men, rendering them overly rational, soft, a breed prone to nervous exhaustion and incapable of being men; that is, they were incapable of acting decisively and aggressively, of doing the kinds of things that had made civilization possible in the first place. A weekend by the lake in a cabin might alleviate some of the stresses of modern life, but really countering its effects required a much closer and more intense engagement with the wild, not just the outdoors? (Loo 32-33).

A conservation bureaucrat is quoted in Loo's discussion of wildlife management policy as

stating that "nothing calls for resourcefulness so much as the quest for wild life, when the

beaten tracks of a more civilized life are left and one has to return to the primal

competitive habits" (Loo 35).

Vestiges of the association between a virile, primal manhood and adventures in

the outdoors certainly remain. Men do make up the majority of backpackers. However,

this is changing. A large number of women backpack, some even go solo like myself, and

this often comes as a surprise to both male backpackers and other women who don't

venture out on the trails. If men go out into the woods for male bonding, to feel more like

men, does the increasing presence of women in the backcountry counteract this? If

backpacking has a "masculinising" effect on men, does it do the same for women? The

wilderness is both a feminized and yet a masculine space ... are women 'out of place' there? Is the female body in the wilds matter out of place ?

93 Women: "You must have had on your high heels going up Kilimanjaro"

"Why not? We can starve as well as they; the muskeg will be no softer for us than for them; the ground will be no harder to sleep upon; the waters no deeper to swim, or the bath colder if we fall in -so- we planned a trip " (Schajfer 2007[1919]:3)

The above is a direct quote from Mary Schaffer, recorded in her travel narrative

Old Indian Trails of the Canadian Rockies, an account of her travels through what was to become Banff and Jasper National Parks in the summer of 1907. Schaffer, a 45 year old widow, had camped and traveled by horse throughout the Rockies with her late husband.

Upon his death, she still yearned to do so, and, despite the consternation of most of her relatives and friends, embarked on a four month long journey of her own design through areas rarely traveled through by European men, and never by non-aboriginal women.

Although she enlisted the help of two male outfitters, she was most definitely the trip leader. Even more astonishing to her acquaintances at the time was the fact that not only was she embarking on a self-planned wilderness expedition, she did so for nothing more than her own pleasure. She is not a lone example. Many women were active in the Alpine

Club of Canada (as they were not permitted to join the American counterpart) from its inception in the early twentieth century, most notably Elizabeth Parker, the club's first secretary, for whom the Club's hut at Lake O'Hara in Yoho is named, as well as the regionally famous Mary Vaux.

Mountains are spaces available for those individuals who choose to climb them, the common story goes (Frohlick 2002). However:

There are three prerequisites to taking a walk -that is, to going out into the world to walk for pleasure. One must have free time, a place to go, and a body

94 unhindered by illness or social restraints. Free time has many variables, but most public places at most times have not been as welcoming and as safe for women. Legal measures, social mores subscribed to both men and women, the threat implicit in sexual harassment, and rape itself have all limited women's ability to walk where and when they wished (Solnit 2000: 234).3I

Many people, both men and women, are surprised to learn I backpack, and even more

surprised to learn I do so alone. In conversation with several other female backpackers,

we laughed over this and the comment that often followed: "Isn't it dangerous?!"

Walking in the woods, for the reasons Solnit discusses, is still viewed as more dangerous

for women. As if a marauding grizzly will distinguish between a male and female human

when it attacks! There is even a persistent mountain myth that female menstruation will

attract predators (completely false). Myths of potential rape (completely unfounded, no

cases exist) while backpacking alone persist, despite the fact that as one of my informants

stated, "I would say it's one of the least likely places for a woman to be harassed"

(Informant 4, Shadow Lake, July 2009). However, the opinion that the risks are

somehow higher for females in the outdoors persist, as is shown again and again in the

assessment that I am somehow brave or courageous, or "you got guts" for undertaking the same activities as men.

Many women I spoke with used the term freedom in association with the pursuit.

They felt free of the social constraints of not only being a person in modern society, but also occupying a feminized body. "I loved the feeling of freedom that came from being completely out of touch with everyone and everything I'd ever known...No phone, no

31 Solnit continues: "Women's clothes and bodily confinements -high heels, tight or fragile shoes, corsets and girdles, very full or narrow skirts, easily damaged fabrics, veils that obscure vision -are part of the social mores that have handicapped women as effectively as laws and fears" (2000: 234).

95 email, no watch, no itinerary. Everything we need to survive was on our backs and we

could go anywhere we wanted to go" (Nicky Brink in Forgotten Highways 2007:2). One

informant stated that "most people, particularly men who meet me in a corporate

environment, can't imagine me without having a shower, without jewellery and make-up"

(Informant 5, Tumbling Creek, July 2009). This sentiment echoes the thoughts of another

female camper, who, traveling in the Canadian Rockies over a hundred years ago

expressed similar thoughts as she encountered surprise that her leisurely endeavours of

choice involved a renouncement of most material accoutrements associated with modem

femininity. Mary Schaffer, writing of her travels in the same backcountry I traversed this

summer, noted that in learning to camp, she also learned "to revel in the emancipation

from frills, furbelows, and small follies" (Schaffer 2007 [1919]: 2). One woman wryly

comments that she likes manicures and pedicures as much as any woman, just not while

she's hiking because she tends to lose toenails. Her friend laughed that on this

backpacking trip she had brought one small feminine luxury: a travel-size hairbrush! One

of the delights of backpacking, for me and others, is a transformation on perspectives on

the body. As you hike into a wilderness space, although gender is still manifest in

interactions with other hikers, a woman begins to revel in the strength of her body as a

body, rather than a female body. No mirrors, no showers, no sex, just an amazement at the

strength in one's legs as they carry you far and wide. One group of women commented that the most unexpected reaction to their backpacking that they received from men was

surprise at their strength: "they seem to be quite amazed at what we're capable of

96 (Tumbling Creek, August 2009). And they found themselves surprised and delighted as well.

Some women whom I spoke to backpacked alone at times; others preferred not to.

One woman described to me how she gave up climbing and backpacking when she broke up with her former boyfriend, and did not resume participating in these recreational activities until she met her current husband. She felt she couldn't do it without someone else with her. Many women seem to get into backpacking via their partners, and, if the relationship ends, sometimes so does the backpacking. However, more and more women seem to be either taking it up on their own, or continuing on even without the safety net of the partner who introduced them to it. One woman in her fifties who was backpacking solo in the Skoki area told me that she used to backpack with her husband, but when he passed away when they were in their forties she decided to continue on her own

(Informant 1, Hidden Lake, August 2009). I myself am one of those women who initially hiked with their partners, but, as I joke, I lost the boyfriend and got a lighter weight one- man tent instead.

Furthermore, working further against the image of backpacking as stereotypically male-oriented activity (as some of the older male informants I spoke with expressed), is the possibility for it to become a multi-generational family activity. Unlike other more risk-oriented outdoor pursuits, young children as well as older teenagers, and even grandparents, may be included. I saw quite a few families with children of differing ages, dependent on the difficulty level of the hike. These ranged from the high numbers of children under five at the Lake O'Hara campground, which is accessible by bus 97 (including a seven month old!), to the teenage son hiking with his mother and aunt in the

Yoho valley. At the Helmet Falls campground in Kootenay I shared a breakfast of blueberry pancakes with a family of three generations. At Assiniboine, a family flew in by helicopter to the campground so they could include grandma and their five year old on this once in a lifetime excursion. Children do place limits on what activities one can and cannot pursue (Frohlick 2002). However, the variety of options and the possibility for compromise was certainly presented to me (much to my surprise) this summer. I also encountered a pair of hiking seniors who backpacked in their retirement. Age, gender and parenthood were presented to me again and again as obstacles, yet not barriers, to participation.

Race and Class

According to Bruce Braun (2003) and his discussion of risk culture, adventure travel and race, outdoor activities that can be classified as adventures remain the purview of the white middle class not only demographically, but also through the representations of such activities in the media :

The lack of images of non-white adventurers should not surprise us, because the adventure travel industry knows well that there is little to be gained by catering to a constituency that cannot afford what it sells. Such strategies no doubt exist and serve to remind us that the present social order in the United States can be productively analysed in terms of those who have the resources and security to take risks, and those who are instead continuously positioned at risk (or imagined to be so) (Braun 2003: 177).

I would say that although this statement may apply to the media discourse on adventure in

Canada (which draws largely on models from the United States); it does not correlate to

98 the reality of nature-based 'adventure' in Western Canada. The two racial demographics which Braun points to in the United States as being erased from representations and marketing of adventure travel, those of African or South American descent, are very small minorities in Western Canada (especially Alberta). Immigration from these two areas is small, mostly in the past few decades, meaning that the majority of those Western

Canadians who hail from these continents are first generation immigrants. The ethnic grouping which Braun fails to mention in his analysis, those of Asian descent, make up the largest 'racial' and 'non-white'" segment of the Western Canadian population (and thus are often the largest target of racial discrimination, other than First Nations peoples).

I admit, in my study I did not encounter backpackers of African or South American descent, and this is clearly a result of the lack of resources among many first generation immigrants which would allow them to participate in such activities. However, I would stress that, although cultural differences and racial prejudice certainly play a role in preventing the participation of these ethnic groups in outdoor activities, this is largely a result of class and economic barriers. The Asian population in Western Canada is another story all together. One informant from Vancouver noted that:

In Vancouver you see more and more Asians going hiking but generally not that much doing backcountry. Definitely frontcountry, but not so much backcountry. Like in Korea, and Japan, they seem to have a 'walking' culture, yeah, but at a backcountry hut, how often do you see Asians? Or [if you do they are] very westernized like me. When I first worked at Kootenay it was my first time really intensively hanging out with Caucasian people.v Cause I grew up in Vancouver so all my friends are Asian so I was suddenly stuck with this environmental consultant who was like this crazy mountaineer. We were doing white bark pine

32 My use of quotation marks is intended to draw attention explicitly to the social construction of the concept of race and highlight the illusion of race as a biological category.

99 research high up on this southern slope in like horrible conditions and so I was with and my supervisor, and I really didn't have much in common with them, I didn't listen to the same kind of music, they're a bunch of older white men so...but then y'know you find similarities over time (Informant 1, Shadow Lake, July 2009).

She went on to note that, even for her first generation immigrant parents, outdoor pursuits like camping were always part of summer vacation. She noted that many Asian

cultures have walking and even mountaineering cultures, especially Japan and Korea. The

appeal of outdoor adventures like hiking, backpacking, climbing, white water rafting and

skiing to tourists from these countries is well-known amongst Banff tourism operators.

At some of the backcountry spots which are world-renowned, such as Mt. Assiniboine, I encountered many Koreans and Japanese and South Asians, as well as the expected

Germans, Swiss, British and Austrians. While the presence of Asians on the backcountry

scene does not discount the general 'whiteness" of the activity, especially considering the

lack of representation of other minorities, it does call into question the nearly complete dominance of Caucasians in photo imagery of outdoor pursuit.

The whiteness of adventurers is assumed (Braun 2003:183) due to a long history of how adventure is represented in Euro-North American culture. As Braun states

"despite numerous attempts to reinsert the presence of Sherpa climbers in histories of

Himalayan mountaineering , for instance, few people can name the Nepalese mountaineer who scaled Everest with Edmund Hillary" (Braun 2003 183). In search of Canadian examples, I scanned the websites of Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), the most popular outdoors store in Canada, and White Mountain Adventures, which runs guided hiking trips in the Banff area, and Banff-Lake Louise Tourism. I also looked at the

100 brochures in the Banff Information centre, both from Parks Canada and from Banff-Lake

Louise tourism. What I found was no surprise, but certainly disappointing in light of the

ethnically diverse tourism market in the Rockies. There was an overwhelming

representation of whiteness, which I found even more disturbing given the prominence of

tourism from Asia in the area, the proclivity of that market to engage in outdoor activities,

and the large proportion of Western Canadians of Asian descent. The only photo of a non-

Caucasian I was able to find was of a South Asian-Canadian on the board of directors for

MEC, of a non-Caucasian RCMP officer on the Banff-Lake Louise tourism website and a

photo in Parks Canada literature of a Lebanese-Canadian interpreter (who is a friend of

mine). Both images were of employees in the outdoor activity/Parks tourism industry, and

did not frame them necessarily as tourists, customers, or participants.

Ethnic minority groups participate in nature-based recreation less than other North

Americans (Braun 2003). "Parks Canada has historically had limited information and nominal agency goals dedicated to identifying with or understanding foreign visitors or new Canadian groups (Bain, Quinn, & Rettie 2008: 1). Bain, Quinn and Rettie's 2007 study of the attitudes of new Canadians to national parks revealed that new Canadians had

"a strong appreciation for and emotional and familial attachment with nature, including feelings of awe, inspiration and respect in nature" (Bain, Quinn & Rettie 2008: 2). They found that the strongest barriers new Canadians faced that precluded visiting national parks included limited time and money, high cost of visiting parks, transportation issues and lack of information (Bain, Quinn & Rettie 2008:3). This leads us to the topic of class,

101 of who has access to outdoor pursuits like backpacking according to socio-economic

factors.

As noted in chapters one and two, the National Parks and the outdoor pursuits

associated are aimed at a particular class by the tourism industry. Conservation was

undertaken to preserve places of pleasure for the rich, and places of refuge from urban life

for the bourgeoisie. "For many bourgeois people, authenticity meant an encounter with

the primitive camping, canoeing, and simply tramping around in the woods, 'getting'

aboriginal, as one enthusiast put it, was all the rage, just the thing for the growing

numbers of enervated brainworkers populating Canada's cities" (Loo 2007: 31).

However, the pleasure grounds of the upper classes were the source of income for both

indigenous and rural peoples. The question then becomes, who pays the price of conservation? As noted by Braun 2003, Tsing 2005, Lowe 2006, Li 2007, Moore 2005 and by myself in Chapter One, it is usually the indigenous and working class people whom the middle/colonial classes are playing at imitating who face negative consequences due to conservation endeavours. According to Tina Loo, game wardens in

British Columbia around the twentieth century often complained that both Aboriginal people and 'Asiatics' failed to respect conservation regulations, "taking animals and birds with reckless abandon" (2007: 41):

Fur feather and scale may have been under general assault by the forces of progress and development, but in Canada, as elsewhere, the battle to save animals, birds, and fish amounted at times to class and race warfare, with farmers, resource workers, and Aboriginal peoples shouldering the burden of making a place for wildlife" (Loo 2007: 41).

102 Those who didn't follow the rules of "sport" in hunting, those who relied on the natural resources enshrined in the Parks for income, those rural and indigenous people who did not have the resources to recover when shut out from an area (unlike large corporations), were the people who usually suffered negative consequences. Ironically, it is the lifestyles of these same people which middle class people try to re-enact in their attempts to re­ conquer and re-discover the wilderness. One hiker I spoke with noted that "For hunters and trappers backpacking was a way of life. And we don't need to do that anymore but it's still fun to get out and do what they were doing" (Informant 2, Tumbling Creek,

August 2009). This comment troubled me: When does re-enacting historical life-ways cross over into the dubious activity of 'playing primitive'? Such reactions seem to mark places as non-civilized places, where one can get in touch with 'how the world used to be.'

Every hiker I spoke with self-identified as middle-class. However, it is worth noting that, although initially tourism in the Rockies was marketed to the upper classes, the promotion of activities like camping by the Alpine Club of Canada and the advent of the automobile increased accessibility for the middle-classes (Bella 1987). Families with a low middle-income, who are just starting out, often turn to tenting as cheap vacation.

The following are excerpts from a discussion on the subject with one hiker who expressed summarily the dominant attitudes on class and cost I encountered amongst backpackers:

You can do it on the cheap. You don't need to have a down jacket, you don't need to have Gore-tex, you don't need to have a bug net. You can do it on the cheap if you have to and for me, over the years, my gear has gotten better and better. You need some basics, you need a decent sleeping bag. You don't need a -20 bag, but a decent bag. You don't even need a stove. You need a water filter...well, tablets, 103 and even those you could do without and probably be okay. You need something, with a tarp, a decent sleeping bag, a little bit of warm clothes and you're probably going to be okay (Informant 2, Shadow Lake, July 2009). Question (posed by myself): So do you think maybe the idea that there's a financial limitation is not accurate then? Or it's not actually there but it's felt to be there? I would say that it's felt to be there because people who go have good gear and say you need this, you need this, you need this, when in fact you don't. But the truth is for a beginner person that's when good gear is the most important because you want that first experience to be comfortable. Because the more comfortable you are the more likely you are to come back. You see people doing backpacking on the cheap, but you know if they had that money they would be buying the best gore-tex jackets and all the luxuries like that. It's funny there is a material side to it too, which is funny...like going on the internet and getting excited about this cool Gore-Tex technology so I can enjoy natural things better. It's tough to not get wrapped up in that material side of it because you try to get yourself as comfortable as possible so you can get outside as much as possible (Informant 2, Shadow Lake, July 2009).

It was agreed upon that, although relatively budget friendly, "Nyou don't get many people from a disadvantaged urban situation who are into backpacking. Most people out here

have the money to get out here, the resources and the time and also the education to care

about it" (Informant 4, Shadow Lake, July 2009). Park entrance fees were agreed upon to be relatively prohibitive, and probably the most likely reason for, what many backpackers agreed upon, was the "elephant in the room" of the activity, the sometimes overwhelming "whiteness" of it.

If one reads over the quotes at the beginning of this chapter, it is evident that for many for many of my informants, backcountry hiking does manifest the trope of an escape from civilization and its troubles. However, I hope I have complicated the stereotype of the modern white civilized man getting in touch with himself and realizing his masculinity out in the woods. My informants, as can also be revealed in the starting

104 quotes, are quite aware that the wilderness is not a pure, 'undiscovered' new Eden. Their construction of the backcountry is as hybrid as the space itself, consisting of both cultural tropes inherited from Euro-American 'modernity' and an insider's knowledge of one who has travelled in an intimate manner across a landscape made meaningful (all the while interacting with fellow backpackers and their own conceptions of backcountry hiking and wilderness). They are largely aware, at least to some extent, of the social history of the activity and the landscapes it is practiced on.

105 Chapter Four What Good is A Bear to Society?

Telephone Caller; "Bear 66' died?"

Banff Visitor Information Centre employee: "Yes sir, Bear 66 died. "

Caller: "Good."

Banff VIC Employee: "Pardon ? "

Caller: "Good, I hate the bears, they're dangerous. "

Banff VIC Employee: "Well, not usually..."

Caller: "Tell me, 'cause me and a friend were arguing about this the other day, what good is a bear to society?"

Banff VIC Employee: "Well, you've kind, of got it backwards sir, we're in a national park, so we 're here to preserve nature and wildlife. If bears in the park didn 't have the protection that they do, then there would be no reason to come here instead of say, Toronto, and you wouldn't be calling me now. "

Caller: "Oh...well then, can I get some phone numbers?"

-recounted by a former employee at the Banff visitor information centre

This conversation clearly depicts a clash of two differing views on a topic, or

rather, a creature, that is at the heart of many debates surrounding conversation and

resource management in western Canada. The question "what good is a bear to society?"

certainly seemed odd to a resident of Banff National Park, an environment steeped in the

rhetoric of the conservation/ tourism industry. But from the perspective of cultural

analysis, it is not such a bad question...what good is a bear to society? Or, to re-interpret

the enquiry, why are bears important in western Canadian culture? Why is the presence of this large predator tolerated and even celebrated? And why do others fear and even

despise the continued preservation of this animal they see as a danger and a menace?

33 Bears in the Canadian National Parks are given identifying numbers, and some become well-known by these numbers through the local media.

106 How can two views which contrast so strongly co-exist in the same culture, and,

depending on the situation, even the same individual?

"Nature may be the creator of all that is beautiful, all that stirs to poet's soul....but

any sentimentality about these wonders is on the part of the beholder." (Caras 1992:34).

Depictions of bears, like other representations of nature, "are not neutral but have been

continually constructed and reconstructed in political contexts in which they have

reflected some interests and not others" (Mullin 1999:213). The discourse surrounding

bears does not fascinate because it reveals the secrets to this mysterious animal, but

because it reads, to mimic the words of Geertz (1994), like a story we tell ourselves about

ourselves. In attempting to understand human narratives, reactions to, and reflections on

bears, light may be shed on the complex relationship people in Euro-American society,

more specifically in western Canadian culture, have with ideas of wilderness, nature, and

the role of humans in the natural world.

The cultural attitudes towards bears in western Canada and in larger Euro-

American society are incredibly complex and often seemingly contradictory. Ursine

behaviour is often viewed as mysterious and yet just as often understood as familiar, resulting in mixed interpretations of their actions. These creatures are like us in their intelligent unpredictability, making them the ideal symbolic mirrors for ourselves. Bears often take on a starring role in the mythic battle of man vs. Nature. Yet in a unique manner, the bear may play either part in the myth, as a sentient being struggling for survival in a difficult world or as wrathful Nature. The bear teeters on the brink between human and animal, civilization and wilderness, both metaphorically and behaviourally. Its

107 behaviour, habitat, and physiology are uncannily human-like. Storytellers characterize the

bear as a bridging species, "human-like, yet close to the animals and hence to the source

of life" (Shepard & Sanders 1985:xi). To the 'modern' North American, a bear can at

once be a cuddly pooh-bear, a fearsome beast, and "a kind of ideogram of man in the

wilderness, as though telling of what we were and perhaps what we have lost: wily, smart,

strong, fast agile, independent in ways that humans left behind when we took up

residence in the city" (Shepard & Sanders 1985:xi).

Bears as Other

When one is faced with the task of writing an animal's history, it is useless and impossible to choose between the profession of naturalist and that of compiler: one has to collect together into one and the same form of knowledge all that has been seen and heard, cdl that has been recounted, either by nature or by men, by the language of the world, by tradition, or by poets. To know an animal or a plant, or any terrestrial thing whatever, is to gather together the whole dense layer of signs with which it or they may have been covered -Foucault 1970:40

"He is man 'sfood and he make 'sfood of men " - Henry Kelsey, 1690, the first European to wander west into the interior from the Hudson's Bay, remarking on a grizzly seen on the Manitoba plains (Marty 1999:210).

Why, in an anthropological study, do I choose to focus on bears? Because, more

than any other subject, except perhaps the mountains themselves, bears attract and reflect many of the issues previously discussed. In Western Canada, wilderness is more often than not, termed as landscapes occupied by bears. As soon as one enters the parks roadside signs appear stating ominously, "Warning! You are in Bear Country!"Deer, porcupine, coyotes, and even the occasional moose may wander into urban areas with little note or comment. But bears are an entirely different story. Their appearance where they do not 'belong' will, without fail, make at least the local news. Bear attacks will gain

108 the attraction of both the national and international media. They are dangerous, unpredictable, and appear to embody many of the defining characteristics of wild nature.

However, they are also much loved. Every tourist visiting the mountain parks longs to see a bear. Every hiker dreads an encounter. And nearly every Western Canadian, and certainly every backpacker, has a bear story. It is next to impossible to talk about Banff, the Rockies, Canadian wilderness, or backcountry hiking without discussing bears. They inspire strong feelings with nearly everyone I spoke to on these subjects, and in talking about bears, many people's attitudes toward nature, civilization, wilderness, and their own selves were revealed.

The powerful place of bears in Western cultural landscapes has taken its toll on the bear population. Such a powerful symbol of wild nature was the perfect expression of imperial might when dominated. The Roman emperor Gordian "liked to watch bloody matches between bears and dogs or gladiators, and witnessed the death of close to a thousand bears. England's Queen Elizabeth I reportedly enjoyed the sight of 13 bears being torn apart by dogs" (Van Tighem 1997:17). Bear-baiting and dancing bears were popular entertainment celebrating man's triumph over the beast and symbolic defeat of fearsome and unpredictable natural forces. The last bear was exterminated from England over a millennium ago, and the European brown bear only survives in the northern regions and eastern mountain enclaves of its former continental range which stretched from Finland to Syria. However, bears reappeared during the European colonial era

(approximately the sixteenth century) in royal menageries and zoos. "The maintenance and study of captive wild animals offered an especially vivid rhetorical means of re- enacting and extending the work of empire"(Ritvo 1987:205 cited in Mullin 1999: 205).

As colonial empires expanded, representatives of the exotic Other were publicly displayed as tangible evidence of new conquests. Although sometimes human beings, supposed 'savages', were used, more often 'savage beasts' took their place to represent the subjugation of new territories and populations. In the British royal zoo, tigers from

India, elephants from Africa, and of course bears from North America, displayed the colonies as symbolically caged by the civilizing forces of imperial Britain.

The Western European attitude towards bears reached the shores of North

America with the extension of colonial empires. In California, from about 1810-1890, "in arenas up and down the coast, in a modified version of medieval bear-baiting, bears were pitted against wild bulls on sunny Sunday afternoons, on holidays, and on religious festival days (Shepard & Sanders 1985; 156). The circus feats of 'Grizzly Adams' of the nineteenth century western frontier were the pinnacle of this form of entertainment.

Adams' speciality was killing mother bears to obtain their cubs, which would be tamed to become part of the spectacle. "Adams' feats of taming the bear in the nineteenth century embodied our fast-growing mastery over the country's wilderness" (Shephard & Sanders

1985: 158).34 The grizzly bear is the California state symbol, and is associated with nineteenth century ideas of the wild Western frontier. Ironically, by the twentieth century, when the once 'wild' west became well settled, the grizzly had been eradicated from the

34 Adams was eventually killed by one of his supposedly 'tamed' bears. Like many an environmentally- minded mountain local, my automatic reaction was 'he had it coming.' Why am I so unsympathetic to another human being's death in what was likely a rather horrible manner? Why do I side with the bear? Because of my own personal ideas, ethics, and cultural upbringing, when one imposes a good/evil dualism on any conflict between civilization and wilderness I am on the side of the wild thing. I recognize my own bias.

110 state of California, as well as most western states. Author and Alaskan homesteader John

Haines, provides a twentieth century example of this frontier attitude. He reveals that in the moment of confrontation he refused to give way to a bear, "out of whatever stubborn sense of my own right to be there" (1992:73). In true pioneer spirit he had staked his claim to this land, and if the bear threatened his own personal manifest destiny, then it would have to go.

Three distinct species of bears inhabit North America: the American Black Bear, the Polar Bear, and Ursus arctos horribilus, commonly known in Canada as the grizzly bear. The polar bear, which is truly the most fearsome in terms of size and man-eating abilities (they are complete carnivores and will hunt and stalk humans with no qualms whatsoever [Van Tighem 1997: 93]), is often ironically characterized as the most cuddly." However, the polar bear and its growing symbolism as a victim of climate change (and Coca-Cola) is primarily associated with the far north, except by some misinformed international tourists who are consider Banff to be north! The Rocky

Mountain Parks system of British Columbia and Alberta is home to two species of bears, the black bear (which can also be brown, cinnamon, blonde, and white) and the grizzly bear. There is a common confusion between the two. Part of this arises because, in the

United States, the grizzly bear is commonly known as the brown bear and, as black bears can be brown (and grizzlies can appear black), fur colour is a poor species identifier. Also causing confusion is the fact that the grizzly has almost been eradicated from the United

States, save for Alaska. As a result, grizzlies have taken on the mystique of the bear that

35 When I worked at the Banff-Lake Louise tourism information centres, many tourists confirmed this misrepresentation.

Ill is found in more remote, northern, higher-elevation, less-populated areas. There is a popular myth that at a certain height, a certain degree of wilderness, the black bear transforms into the griz.36 This false idea is in direct contrast to the historical fact that not that long ago in both bear and human history the grizzly ranged as far south as Mexico and as far west as the plains of Manitoba (Van Tighem 1997).

As Sid Marty sums up, "the history of the European settlement of North America is also a record of the displacement of wild species from the more productive lower- altitude habitats coveted by man" (Marty 1999: 209). In Euro-American culture, there is a

"strong sense of the proper places which animals should occupy physically...linked to the ecological concept of the 'niche'" (Philo & Wilbert 2007: 230). Philo and Wilbert use

Said's (1978) famous term 'imaginative geography' in suggesting that "many human discourses contain within them a definite imaginative geography serving to position

'them' (animals) relative to 'us' (humans) in a fashion that links a conceptual 'othering'

(setting them apart from us in terms of character traits) to a geographical 'othering'

(fixing them in worldly places and spaces different from those that we humans tend to occupy)" (Philo & Wilbert 2007: 230). Thus even though in pre-colonial history grizzly bears ranged far out onto the prairies, they have now become both discursively and geographically situated in remote mountain valleys. They are celebrated as denizens of the wilderness and at the same time are unwelcome in our towns and on our farms. A prime example of this is the frequent bear-human territorial conflicts in the town of

Canmore. Located just outside the boundaries of Banff National Park, therefore immune

36 One tourist argued with me for over half an hour that a grizzly bear was a 'mountain' black bear.

112 from park development restrictions and residency laws, Canmore has become a suburb

of Calgary and holiday-homes of the rich and famous are growing on the mountainsides

of the region at a cancerous rate. The area occupies a primary wildlife corridor, which has

resulted in many cases of bears de-harvesting backyard apple trees, cougars dining on pet

poodles, and grizzlies lolling about on golf-course greens. Most of the time, these

supposed animal 'trespassers' are removed to a remote location. If they reoffend,

however, they are destroyed.

The carnivorous portion of the bear diet consists primarily of carrion. The

opportunistic habit (and bears are certainly, like humans, opportunists) of ranging out

onto the plains in the spring searching for winter-killed buffalo, elk and other animals

served the bear well for millennia. Then the cattle ranchers came to the foothills and the

plains of Alberta, a recipe for conflict if there ever was one. A dead, bloated cow

possesses the appeal of a prime rib steak dinner to a bear and humans tend to blame bears

for killing cattle the animals fiercely defend as their lucky find (Marty 1999: 284-285).

Although the hunting of bears is legally limited, they are permitted to be killed when

defending property or oneself (even if said property is likely already dead) (Van Tigham

1997: 122). As Knight clearly shows in his research on human-wildlife conflict, "many claims of wildlife pestilence are inaccurate, exaggerated, or ill-founded....There are a number of reasons for the exaggeration of wildlife pestilence: because inefficient farmers

TThe Town of Banff leases land from Parks Canada and cannot grow beyond its designated boundaries. Also, a person is not permitted to reside within the national parks unless one works or owns a business in the national parks.

113 seek to save face, because of a desire to maximize compensation or because of inflated

perceptions of risk among marginal peoples" (Knight 2000: 8). All of these could apply in

the situation of Alberta farmers. Small-holdings ranchers are continuously pitted against

conservationists in battles which are popularly characterized as the little guy vs. the state,

whatever the realities of the situation may be. In the current economic climate it is where

farmers feel increasingly marginalized; the bear is increasingly a pawn, rather than a

player, in a conflict which is inherently a human one.

The conspicuousness of the large predator, and its popular cultural symbolism,

make it the ideal rally-point for the disgruntled farmer or the anti-conservationist. For

some farmers and ranchers, the bear, like the wolf, is what Knight terms the "protected pest," a counter-intuitive term arising out of the complex interaction between increased

human activity, habitat depletion, and resulting conservation efforts (Knight 2000: 11).

However, it must be stressed that the situation of farmers in Alberta is not and cannot be

directly correlated with the experiences of farmers in developing nations, which are the primary subject of study for anthropologists looking at conflicts between agrarians and conservationists (see Moore 2005 (Zimbabwe), and Li 2007 (Indonesia) for examples).

The early twentieth century experiences of Stoney First Nations peoples in Alberta come closer in socio-economic/colonial terms to those conflicts used as examples in anthropological critiques of national parks conservation (see Snow 2005). However, the conflicts involving First Nations people and the conservation movement in western

Up until relatively recently, Alberta farmers were financially compensated for property lost due to bear predation by the provincial government.

114 Canada do not typically involve bears. More similar to the case of Alberta farmers is that of Montana ranchers, who, in protesting the re-introduction of the wolf into the region, portray the wolf as a representative of the Washington bureaucrat and an interfering government trying to impinge on their rights, freedoms, and livelihood (Knight 2000: 22).

In North America, grizzly bear conservation has been criticized as "a burden placed on the rural minority...by the government to satisfy the aesthetic preferences of urban majority" (Primm 1996 in Knight 2000: 145).

Were-bears, Naked bears, and Other Bear-Human Hybrids

'"We polish an animal mirror to look for ourselves " (Haraway 1991:21)

"Skinned, a bear looks eerily like a human" (Van Tighem 1997: 11).

The bear may be geographically isolated into wilderness, the realm of the non- human, yet they, like the term wilderness itself (discussed in Chapter Two) tend to, upon closer examination, not quite fit into such a clear dualism. Animals fascinate because they oscillate between 'like us' and 'not like us,' confusing "our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other" (Foucault 1970:xv, Mullin 1999: 212). As Mullin notes,

"increasingly, animals serve all at once as commodities, family members, food, and the embodiment of 'nature'; it is therefore no wonder that they should be the focus of conflict" (Mullin 1999:215). Animals elicit confused and often contradictory reactions in people; they do not fit neatly or systematically into our cultural imagination. "One and the same individual can think with animals in different and often conflicting ways, using different arguments in different social situations" (Lofgren 2007: 105).

115 Like us, bears themselves appear changeable in temperament. Unlike other 'man-

eaters' they are often non-predatory, and sometimes very tolerant of humans. They are

neither marauding monsters nor cuddly children's toys, yet have the potential to behave

like both. Characterizations of the bear in both Northern European and North American

First Nations culture alternate between that of a "gentle giant and an implacable foe"

(Van Tigham 1997: 15). Bears inspire "both fear, and reverence, hatred and respect, and

antipathy and sympathy" (Knight 2000: 145). All descriptions, whether fearsome or

respectful, tall tale or First Nations myth, horror story or biology report, grant the bear a

powerful place in the social/natural world.

Barbara Noske points out the dilemma in dominant Euro-American culture when dealing with another sentient being is that "there seems to be no option but to impose

upon animals either object status or human subject-status. However, animals are neither machines nor humans. As yet there exists in our thinking little room for the notion of a non-human Subject and what this would imply" (Noske 1989: 157). As apt as Noske's critique of the anthropocentrism of the social sciences when analysing human-animal relations may be, in anthropology it is not an issue that is easily corrected, if we even desire to do so. I am not sure that I agree with Noske's call for an anthropology of animal society, as anthropology, at its heart, is the study of human culture (primatology excepted). However, I do agree that the complexities of human-animal relations go far beyond the objectification/anthropomorphism dualism which Noske critiques. Knight argues that anthropology is guilty of symbolic reductionism, that is, of reducing animals to their human-determined meaning (Knight 2000:1). I agree that there is a certain fallacy in reducing the agency of non-human others (as explored by Latour 1993 and

Haraway 2004). However, although as an anthropologist concerned with the meanings humans create and manipulate in certain cultural contexts, I acknowledge the potential blind spots in analysing animals as symbols, I remain convinced that doing so is a valuable enterprise. The purpose of my research is not to learn more about bear society

(as Noske would advocate) or to expose the agency of non-humans (which I acknowledge may be more powerful than Western scientific thought has traditionally considered) but to use human relations with bears to explore aspects of human culture and thus is quite unapologetically anthropocentric. I will, however, infuse my analysis with the observable

(but not objective1 ) behaviour and biology of bears to complement my analysis of the

"humanufactured" meanings of bears. Nevertheless, I agree with Baker's statement that

"animals quite obviously cannot and do not represent themselves to human viewers. It is man who defines and represents them, and he can in no sense claim to achieve a true representation of any particular animal; it merely reflects his own concerns" (2007: 270).

Claude Levi-Strauss made the point, when arguing against the functionalist explanation for totemism, that animal symbols are not chosen merely because of their utilitarian aspect (i.e. whether are good to eat etc.) but because they are "good to think with" (Levi Strauss 1971: 264). This claim is surprisingly parallel to Geertz's description of the relationship between the Balinese and cockfighting. The symbolism of the cock, rather than arising from merely their importance as a food source, is a complex working

See Latour 1999, and Tsing 2005 for a discussion of the impossibility of objectivity, especially in regards to the biological sciences.

117 of cultural ideas of masculinity, morality, and social order. According to Geertz, the

cockfight is a story the Balinese "tell themselves about themselves" (1994: 121).

Although historically bears had a significant role in both European and First Nation North

American culture as a food source, predator, and competitor, this history alone does not

explain their continuing symbolic power. Bear stories and images are not prevalent in

western Canada simply as 'survivals' of the past, but rather because they are an excellent

medium for reflection upon ourselves.

However, the physiology and behaviour of the bear does contribute to the easy

comparison of bears and humans:

Bears are built somewhat like people. Unlike other large animals, bears often stand on their hind legs and, from time to time, walk upright. Their tracks - imprints of heel arch and toes -suggest the passing of some large, wild, forest person. When a bear rises up on its hind legs, or when it sits, its front legs hang like arms. A bear often stands and reaches, as a person would, for berries it cannot grasp with its mouth. And bears display considerable dexterity with their paws -in captivity they have been known to peel peaches (Rockwell 1991: 2).

The historic diet of indigenous peoples of western North America matches nearly

exactly that of a bear, in plants and animals eaten and in proportion (Rockwell 1991: 5).

A bear's diet of starchy roots, bulbs, nuts, seeds, leafy plants, mushrooms and berries

complemented by fish, elk, deer and moose, is strikingly similar to the traditional food

sources of indigenous peoples living in the same region. This meant that bears and

people, even before the advent of European colonization, shared the same preferences for

food sources and territory, and although each gave the other wide berth, conflict could

result. Furthermore, as a large omnivore, like ourselves, the bear's "attention to potential food is broad and unrestricted, so that, for bears, the whole world is interesting" (Shepard

118 & Sanders 1985: 1). The curiosity and intelligence required to maintain a varied omnivorous diet is not unlike our own.

Perhaps the most familiar and poignant trait which bears share with humans is their infamously fierce maternal devotion. Getting between a mother bear and her cubs is nearly universally regarded as suicidal behaviour. Black bear and grizzly cubs are born in the winter den, blind and helpless, and nearly hairless, weighing only about ten to fourteen ounces each (Rockwell 1991: 4) Much of bear behaviour, like human behaviour, is learned, and bear cubs stay tied to their mothers twice as long as other North American mammals of comparable size (Rockwell 1991:5).

The historic role of the bear has certainly contributed to the genesis of the contemporary Euro-American attitude towards bears. As mentioned previously, bears have acted as both a symbol of man's triumph over nature and imperial conquest.

However, more interesting and complex is the history of the anthropomorphism of bears.

European mythology is rife with tales of bear-human hybrids. The Finns and Lapplanders had tales of were-bears and the term berserker, for a frenzied, fearless warrior comes from ber (bear) and serkr (hide), implying that he who wears the bear hide takes on the strength and power of bears (Van Tigham 1997: 16). Historically, in Euro-Christian culture,

"despite the church doctrine of human-animal separation, humans were often perceived as sharing behaviours and qualities with animals, encouraging the perception of a beast existing within humans, a beast that required taming and vigilance" (Mullin 1999: 204). 40

40 And of course, if Christian Europeans were able to tame the beast, lesser races, such as the Irish, Africans, Asians, were not, and were therefore closer to the savage beasts. I feel no need to reference this,

119 Thus the figures of the were-bear and the were-wolf arose as monstrous pairings of men and animals that resulted from the darker side of human nature.

Tales of human-bear hybrids also exist in North American indigenous cultures.

However, unlike in Euro-Christian culture, animals were not representative of one's baser and beastly instincts, and therefore bear-human hybrids were not readily categorized as negative figures. The most frequent kind of First Nations bear story found cross-culturally appears to be tales of people who married bears (Rockwell 1991: 115). Different versions of the tale "The Girl who Married the Bear," about a woman who marries a bear and whose offspring is half-bear, half-human, are told throughout western Canada and Alaska, primarily amongst northern Athapaskans and their neighbours (Rockwell 1991: 121).

There are many descriptive overlaps between bears and humans throughout North

American indigenous cultures. The Blackfeet use the same word for both human hand and the bear's paw, the Tlingit (Yukon) traditionally regard bears as half-human, the Yavapai of Arizona describe bears as people without fire and eating bear meat is regarded as cannibalism, while the Ojibwa refer to bears as asinjinabe, the same word they use to describe themselves (Rockwell 1991: 2-4). Overall, in most North American First Nations tales, interactions between bears and humans resulting in hybrid creatures tend to frame the bear-man as a heroic figure, rather than a villain.

When one travels alone in the mountains it's easy revert to anthropomorphism in an effort to fulfill the human need for society. This has been noted by numerous park as the historical association between animality and savagery was so prevalent that a list of references would be longer than this paper. However, for a more interesting read than the average anthropology text on this subject, one can always go back to the classic "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift.

120 wardens and wilderness travellers, and I've experienced it to some degree myself on some of my longer solo ventures into the woods. I talk to the bears when I hike through their territory, warning them of my presence. This is both a precaution encouraged by Parks

Canada and other authorities to avoid a surprise encounter (most bears will vacate the area if they hear a human), but it is also strangely comforting to myself. Although I do not know whether they are friendly or hostile (likely neither), it is oddly reassuring to hold a one-way conversation with another sentient being. My greetings usually extend no further than a good morning, and perhaps a comment about the trail condition or the weather, similar to those I would express to any other strange fellow hiker I met on the trail. The difference, and therefore the mystery, is that 1 never know whether the bear is there, is listening, and if it understands or cares.

The Stuff of Nightmares

Remember, when you pitch upon a bear, you have to reach deep inside yourself and listen therefor the message your eyes and ears are conveying, because not even the bear itself is completely sure about what's going to happen next. -Sid Marty (1999: 163), former Banff park warden and author.

Do bear attacks touch people in the far back recesses of their psyches? Reach latent ancestral memories of cave days when humans were potential prey?—Mueller and Reiss, Bear Attacks of the Century, 2005: 1.

Despite the fact that, statistically, a person travelling through bear country is far more likely to be killed in a car accident en route to the trailhead than injured by a bear, bears are still the stuff of nightmares for many. One informant I interviewed insisted she was aware of the unlikelihood of a dangerous bear encounter, as she lived in Calgary and had been hiking in the Canadian Rockies for over 30 years. Yet she still hiked through

121 bear country with trepidation, refusing to go alone and always carrying bear spray,41 with

the occasional tent-bound nightmare. Another knowledgeable backcountry hiker I

interviewed admitted that, although he scrambled peaks solo during the day without fear,

he slept with a knife under his pillow because it made him feel safer. Throughout my time

living and working in the Rockies, I have seen many manifestations of bear paranoia.

From a man who bought bear spray and bear bangers to carry around the Banff townsite

(as if a grizzly was hiding behind the local McDonalds) to a woman who refused to exit

the car along a popular scenic drive for fear that a bear would pounce from behind the

nearest tree. Growing up camping in the Rockies, I remember the fearful late-night

ventures to the outhouse, where every shadow cast by my flashlight was potentially a

hungry bear. When I first began backcountry camping every rustle in the bush, every

curious rodent who approached my tent, was potentially a marauding grizzly. It's taken

me about ten years of tenting in bear country to gain the potential for a good night's sleep.

That being said, recently while camping in an area notorious for grizzly encounters, a

ptarmigan42 tried to perch on my tent, shaking it violently. My first thought upon this

abrupt awakening was 'BEAR'!

Bear attacks happen, and in Alberta there are usually one or two fatalities a year

resulting from bear encounters. Like humans, the most dangerous bear is a desperate bear.

Rarely will a bear consider the edibility of the human species, but when starving we are

Bear spray is a very powerful pepper spray (it has a range of up to 10 metres) and Parks Canada recommends that those who travel through the backcountry carry it. It costs about $30-40/canister, and cannot be transported by air or be taken across international borders. 42 The chicken of the mountains: same size, intelligence, and flying ability.

122 fair game. However, the majority of attacks in recent years, since the institution of bear- proof garbage and food storage policies in the Canadian national parks, have been the result of a bear put on the defensive. Surprising a bear is never a good idea, thus the practice of talking loudly while travelling through bear country. Not surprisingly, the media publicity surrounding bear attacks is the primary generator of 'bear paranoia' in the

Rockies. One couple I interviewed from the U.S. stated that they were frightened of going backcountry camping in Glacier National Park in Washington State, but felt less afraid camping in the Canadian Rockies, because none of the Canadian media reports of bear attacks had reached them, unlike those of attacks south of the border.

As is to be expected in North American culture, there are those who capitalize on the fear of bears. Small bells on Velcro straps, sold as 'bear bells' in gift shops throughout bear country, are a tourist gimmick. They are not loud enough, and do not indicate to the bear that you are a human being, as bears are unfortunately very habituated to the mechanical noises that permeate even the most remote spaces. Whistles are not the best defence either, as the hoary marmot, a favourite snack of grizzlies, makes a whistling noise uncannily reminiscent of the human whistle. Yet both are sold alongside bear spray, the useless toy and the last-resort weapon (both are also often sold alongside teddy bears...but more on that later). Interestingly, for many backpackers, bear spray has become more a comfort than a weapon. The likelihood of having to use it is slim, however, like the New Yorker with the handgun in her purse, one feels more secure

This is common knowledge amongst the people who live in bear country, but for confirmation from the annals of wildlife biology see Van Tighen.

123 having it in one's possession. Peace of mind in a can, and highly marketable as such. I

hesitate to wander out without it, as do many of my fellow campers. The few that

disdained its use were usually male, often international tourists (American, British, or

German), and felt that increased risk was part of the experience (one informant compared

hiking through the Rockies without bear spray to shark diving without a cage).

There is also no shortage of literature capitalizing on the bear's fearsome

reputation. I stumbled upon an exemplary representative of the genre in the Banff Public

library (though I have seen it sold in bookstores and gift shops throughout the region):

Bear Attacks of the Century: True Stories of Courage and Survival co-authored by Larry

Mueller and Marguerite Reiss. The authors are respectively an editor and writer for

Outdoor Life, a hunting-focused magazine. The cover is an enlarged photo of the fang-

filled maw of a grizzly, clearly indicating the tone of the contents within. The author's

introduction begins with: "Bear Attacks of the Century is a book that opens a fearful

wound as old as man himself." With titles like "Ceaseless Terror," "Nightmare Hunt,"

and "Death Came Calling," most chapters detail attacks involving hunters in the remote parts of Alaska. All chapters, whether involving hunters or not, detail the type of firearms carried by the individuals involved, and the calibre of the weapon used to finally destroy the bear. There is an assumption (faulty in my case) that readers are familiar with firearms and will be impressed by, for example, one man's ability to "face a giant bear with only a .357 Colt" (Mueller & Reiss 2005: 113).

One of the interesting things about this book and media of this genre is that, like tabloids, they claim to be 'faithful accounts of true events'. In the introduction, the

124 authors also state that they took great pains not to sensationalize the stories of attacks.

With chapter titles like those mentioned above, it is clear that this is not the case.

Furthermore, the authors draw on the testimony of a Dr. William Wennen, a plastic

surgeon in Fairbanks, Alaska, who has treated several bear attack victims (he is also a

prolific big-game hunter). They use his 'expert testimony' throughout, in places where

other genres of bear literature might use the testimonies of biologists and wildlife

management officials. The author's disdain for parks officials and gun-toting sympathies

are clear throughout the book:

Stupid is camping unarmed -especially in nothing more than sleeping bags in parks where hunting prohibitions have caused bears to lose their fear of humans.44 Park areas demanding this -and desk-bound supervisors forcing surveyors to work unarmed in grizzly territory -is attempted homicide in Dr. Wennen's book (Mueller & Reiss 2005: 8).

Interestingly, many negative portrayals of bears contain just as high a degree of

anthropomorphism as positive ones (to be discussed below). Grizzlies that attack and kill

humans may be described as 'murderers', bears that forage for garbage as 'bad bears' or

'delinquents'. A juvenile grizzly that curiously poked his nose in a few tents was described as a typical teenager 'experimenting'.45 In Knight's research on bears in Japan, he found that Japanese newspapers referred to bears as 'criminals' who warranted the

'death penalty' (2000: 16). In the American mid-west, "you don't just kill a predator, you

This is a claim that in the eyes of most wildlife biologists and park officials is completely bogus (see Van Tighem). I myself have spent many nights camping solo in backcountry areas frequented by bears. I have never had an encounter, and I do not believe myself to be merely lucky. There has not been an encounter between a bear and a backcountry camper resulting in an attack in the national parks of the Canadian Rockies for the five years that I have lived in the area. Bears are clearly afraid of me, as those I have encountered have quickly left the area after a few friendly words on my part. 45 These are all examples of comments I have heard while working in the parks from tourists, locals, and occasionally Parks personnel in describing bear behaviour.

125 execute him" (Steinhart 1995, cited in Knight 16). Bears that are habituated to humans and feed on garbage are often called 'lazy' and 'greedy'. Bears are reported as responsible for 'mugging hikers' (Marty 1999:30). Bears seek 'revenge' on hunters that have injured them (Mueller & Reiss 2005: 135).

However, as Knight points out, it can work the other way round "such that destructive wildlife behaviour points not to animal immorality but to earlier morally questionable human conduct" (Knight 2000: 17). Examples pervade North American prohibitions concerning bears, where taboo conduct is rewarded with a mauling (see

Shephard and Sanders 1985). But it also is strikingly evident in the reaction of locals in the mountain parks to the news of a bear attack. Last year when a young woman was attacked while jogging near Lake Louise, locals subtly pinned the blame on the young woman, a foreign worker. She shouldn't have been jogging alone, in the evening, along a little-used trail, was the common sentiment. As much as the woman's behaviour went against common safety precautions in bear country, there was a subtle undertone in much of the commentary that she brought it on herself.46 Blaming the victims for bear attacks is a quite common practice in the parks, where stereotypes of the ignorant tourist pervade the local culture and are quite celebrated. Although, from the biological/animal behaviourist perspective most bear encounters are the result of human error, the strong cynicism and lack of sympathy for bear attack victims in most cases on the part of those who live in bear country point towards a perhaps deeper conflict or local vs. tourist,

46 This attitude may seem to have gendered implications, however is far from exclusive to women. Men who don't 'follow the rules' of proscribed behaviour in the backcountry and are attacked by bears are seen as equally foolhardy. A male mountain biker who was charged by a grizzly that same summer was commented upon similarly by the locals.

126 resident vs. stranger. As Knight points out, "many people-wildlife conflicts can be

understood as people-people (or people-state) conflicts" (Knight 2000: 2). To

extrapolate beyond this, a tourist attacked by bear may be viewed as representative of an

environmentalist struggle against the urban environmentally-destructive/ignorant

lifestyle, or in other words, an example of 'Mother Nature' striking back.

The primary rule, which is cited again and again by those who live and work in

bear country, is follow your gut. As stated in the above quote from Sid Marty, those who

encounter bears are warned to trust a deeper, more primal intuition. Bears are

continuously associated with the primitive and primeval. Both quotes above seem to

indicate that when faced with a bear, people can call upon their ancestral instincts, either

from when man lived with bears more closely ('cave man' times...?) or from when men

were animals too. Both positions reflect the Euro-American idea that we have progressed

beyond our more primitive and animal-like pasts. However, as this was not an

achievement without struggle involving the suppression of our savage, beastly nature (a

very Christian idea), these latent instincts may be called upon in times of danger. When dissected as above, the rationale for the 'follow your gut' advice is highly problematic, with its associations with social evolutionary ideas of progress and latent primitivism. Yet bears, once more, show us something more about ourselves, as in our reaction to them our darker cultural biases may sometimes emerge.

Teddy Bears and Campfire Stories

One night I was sitting in my kitchen in Field, BC, a village of 250 nestled into the mountains of Yoho National Park. Two friends of mine up from a visit from Edmonton

127 were sitting with me drinking tea and chatting, when we heard a knock at the door. In a village of 250, everyone knows everyone and doors are rarely locked, so, thinking it was a neighbour I yelled out "Come in!" When I received no reply I went to the door to let them in myself. Arriving at the door, the neighbour was staring through the door's window with curious dark brown eyes. I immediately locked the door. I was face to face with a black bear whose curiosity had been piqued by the smells of baking cookies wafting out of my kitchen. As I was in the house, behind thick log walls, I decided this was an ideal opportunity for my city friends to do some up close wildlife viewing and called them right over. The three girlish faces peering out the window seemed to have discouraged the bear from further enquiry, and he ambled up the stone steps out of my backyard. A call the to the warden revealed this fellow had been become increasingly curious about our little village, and the next day he was 'hazed' with rubber bullets to deter further exploration (My own anecdote from July 2007).

When I asked one of my informants why she thought people liked to tell bear

stories, she gave me a bemused look and replied "Because they're fun!" (Duh!). Nearly everyone who has traveled in bear country has a bear story they like to tell. Some of those

with the requisite dash of mystery and danger grow over time to become tall tales, which eventually reach the status of myth and legend. Bear stories far outnumber any other kind of mountain tale, and completely overshadow other accounts of animal encounter. Whole volumes are dedicated to the genre, which fill up the shelves (and quickly leave them) of

Banff book stores. Historian Val Dilell has published a volume compiled of bear stories of long-time Jasper residents. Bears in the Alley, a collection of 111 stories from what is a relatively small and young mountain town is a remarkable example of the abundance of bear stories in Western Canadian culture. Ranging from stories of a mother bear who liked to turn the Jasper golf course sprinklers on for her cubs to play in, to the story of a bear who broke into a bank and left a 'deposit' on the manager's desk, these stories are full of amusement, with a dash of risk, and heaps of anthropomorphism.

128 The stories recounted in Van Dilill's collection Bears in the Alley, although sometimes frightening (but usually amusing) are surprisingly lacking in hostility towards the starring species. Although sometimes characterized as a nuisance or a pest, not a single story adheres to the demonized horror movie image of the man-eater. This may in part be due to the author's own discretionary selection of tales, but as one who lives and works in bear country, I doubt it. The closer one comes to bears, they more they lose the cartoon-like qualities, whether horrifying or Disney-fied, that popular culture has bestowed on them. They become animals, intelligent and powerful, unpredictable and fascinating, but animals, not monsters or pooh-bears. Like the weather, they become another natural force that may be dangerous (and the weather is more likely to kill you than anything else in the mountains), but may also be absolutely delightful.

Stories and tall tales like those mentioned above are the root of more popularized bear stories such as Winnie the Pooh and Yogi Bear. The link between garbage hungry bears and picnic-basket stealing ones is fairly clear. Yet these popularized versions of the bear story go further in anthropomorphizing the animal, and, through them, bears become more like 'people in fur coats' as one of my informants called them, than wild animals.

Sid Marty has aptly called the transformation which many normally sane and intelligent people undergo when encountering a bear in the wild 'Teddy Bear Syndrome'. "Teddy always was a real bear in the child's fantasy world, and now here he is again, by the park highway or campground picnic table, magically animated like a Disney cartoon, reminding the adult of a happier more innocent world" (Marty 199: 163). Encountered roadside, likely munching away on grass, it's easy to forget that this roly-poly ball of fur can disembowel a porcupine with one swipe of its paw or crush the vertebrae of an elk

with one bite.

He seems like that same, non-threatening Pooh Bear of childhood, simply looking for the next pot of honey. Something in this crazy, sick world has remained innocent and kindly — or so thinks our jaded Christopher Robin as he snaps a picture. Don't tell him about danger; don't tell him this Pooh Bear could rip and tear him or his loved ones apart. He comes from the world of drive-by shootings and youth gangs armed with guns and meat cleavers. Muggers don't wear fur coats. Blackie looks so cute and cuddly. Go stand beside him, dear, while I take a picture here, give him some potato chips (Marty 1999: 166).

In their discussion of the pre-eminence of bears within the "ecology of stuffed

animal companions," Forrest et. al, point out that these animal representations, do not

"attempt to penetrate the impenetrable otherness of beardom" but rather "function as

disguised humans, symbols that obliquely reference ourselves" (2005:142-143). Teddy

bears "function as transitional objects between the child and caretakers/outside adult

world. They are comforters that supposedly ease anxiety" (Forrest et al. 2005: 147). The

origin of the teddy bear is a combination of historical circumstances and body

morphology, with the commercial success of the original bear founded upon an almost

mythical incident of President Teddy Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear cub, and the easy

neotony of the bear's morphology (Forrest et al. 2005: 148). 'Teddy Bear Syndrome' represents nostalgia for the innocence and comfort of childhood, nostalgia for a time

when life seemed simpler. This nostalgia overlaps onto another form of reminiscence which the bear may represent, a type of nostalgia for nature entwined with an Edenic longing for the pristine wilderness.

130 The Bear as a Consumer Good

If we ever decided, as a nation, that we did not want grizzly bears to inhabit Banff Park, we would no doubt wipe them out within a few years. Grizzly bears survive because most Canadians want them to survive. In Alberta, where people see the Rockies as the boundary of a wild frontier, the grizzly bear epitomizes the Spirit of the West (Marty 1999: 211).

Author and former park ranger Edward Abbey defines wilderness "as a place and

only a place where one enjoys the opportunity of being attacked by a dangerous wild

animal...A wild place without dangers is an absurdity" (Abbey 1992: 97). Abbey realizes that this creates difficulties for park administrators but he stresses that "we must not allow our national parks and national forests to be degraded to the status of mere public playgrounds. Open to all, yes of course. But - enter at your own risk" (Abbey 1992: 97).

As author and bear advocate John A. Murray writes, for many "probably the greatest

benefit of hiking through this rugged Northern Rocky wilderness is just knowing the grizzlies are out there, living much as they did when Lewis and Clark first ascended the

Missouri River in 1805" (Murray 1992: 91). Murray's comment clearly depicts the nostalgia for a more pristine past that is evident in most conservation discourse. The idea that bears, even in the remotest regions, have not been affected by the European colonization of western North America is clearly illusory, but it is important in maintaining the wilderness mystique of the Parks.

After Europeans no longer felt at the mercy of nature, when "science and engineering had begun to make much of nature more vulnerable to human control, nature began to be viewed with affection and nostalgia" (Mullin 1999: 204). This prompted the beginnings of a conservationist movement, culminating in the creation of the national

131 parks system. The first national park in the world, Yellowstone, was established in 1872 as a public 'pleasuring ground' which would also preserve the scenery and natural resources contained within. It was later realized that this intent is implicitly contradictory; for all that it remains at the heart of the management of both Canadian and American national parks at this time. "The parks are eternally caught in some conceptual no-man's- land between zoo and sanctuary" (Kittredge 1992: 103). This is reflected in the controversy over bear management and policy, as bears cannot be scrutinized without danger if uncaged. However, tourism in the parks would be far less profitable if bears were eliminated or confined to enclosures like a zoo. Wilderness isn't wilderness without the risk and the sense of contact with the primeval that bears provide. Furthermore, as

Celia Lowe and others have pointed out, "charismatic animals allow people to want to save the environment" (Lowe 2006: 34). These animals must, as Lowe points out in her study of the Indonesian macaque, transcend the boundaries between us and them, be

'relatable' as human-like mammals and yet also symbolic representatives of the wild. In the Rockies the bear is more than the charismatic totem of both conservation and tourism, it is the 'keystone' species of the recreation/preservation paradigm of the parks.

Further problematizing the conservation/preservation/recreation mandate of the national parks is the fact that "much wildlife conservationism is based on a dualistic view of nature and society, according to which nature is a sphere that should be free from human resource appropriation" (Knight 2000: 11). Yet national parks are, quite definitively, not the pristine wilderness spaces that they are advertised as. My travels throughout the backcountry of the Rocky Mountain national parks have taken me along

132 old logging roads, through nineteenth century mining camps, past archaeological First-

Nations sites, and over trails covered in gravel flown in by helicopter. The various mountains are named for the conquests of European explorers, for Hudson Bay Company magnates, and for British royalty. The passes and trails used now are remnants of the millennia-old cross-mountain First Nations trade network. The parks are anything but free from a human presence, and evidence of human resource appropriation may be seen throughout the region, if one knows where to look. The bears themselves are not immune to this. Tagged, numbered, and tracked, these animals are not roaming wild, but are closely monitored and managed as a natural resource, as tourism draw and as a symbolic

'national treasure.'

Bears and other wildlife in national parks and preserves are subject to a process which Lemelin terms 'emparkment,' a process which "manufactures an ordered natural experience within protected areas which create an environment where experiences are consumed and visitation evidence is gathered through the help of photographs" (2006:

517). As Lemelin attests in his study of polar bear tourism in Churchill Manitoba, "these photographic collectables can become addictive and fuel in some tourists a need to pursue bigger and better trophies providing further evidence of one's accomplishments"

(2006:517). The trophy recreationist must "possess, invade or appropriate in order to enjoy" and "these photographic quests can be especially aggravating for exotic or threatened species that inhabit more remote and sensitive environments" (Lemelin

2006:518). Haraway notes that "hunting, first with guns and then with cameras, is perceived as an encounter with nature, constructed as a purifying antidote to the ills of

133 civilization" (1989:26). For some, as Lemelin remarks in his study and as I have come across in my own research, the sighting and photographing of a bear is the primary goal of an excursion. One of Lemelin's informants stated that 'they want to say they have seen a bear' and have physical evidence of this accomplishment, this adventure into the wild.

The animal itself is not the point, nor the experience of viewing it, for all intensive purposes it could be a tiger in India, a lion in Zambia, or a pyramid in Egypt.

The effect of this attitude on wildlife is "to convert the world into a department store or museum-without-walls in which every subject is depreciated into an article of consumption, promoted into an item for aesthetic appreciation" (Russell & Ankerman

1996:75). For all intents and purposes, the 'emparked' animal becomes part of the tourist economy, and thus may be subject to the complexities and fluctuations of the capitalist economy. Cries for more bears, complaints about the expense of travel within the parks without the reward of a bear sighting, are commonplace. I overheard one man ask for a refund on his park pass because he hadn't seen a grizzly. Tourism is "all about purchasing experiences rather than 'things,' and increasingly these experiences include natural spaces and wild animalsvv (Lemelin 2006: 530). Ironically, as bears and other wild animals are viewed as symbols of the pristine, the primitive, and the pre-modern, they are "valued as a refuge from consumer capitalism. In theme parks, ecotourism and mass media, contact with charismatic megafauna appeals to consumers as a sort of anti-consumption" (Mullin

1999: 216).

The Ethics of Letting Bears be Bears

134 / , being of sound mind but dead body, do hereby bequeath my mortal remains to feed the Grizzly Bears of North America. Respect my body. Do not embalm! (A little mustard would be appreciated.) Please put me in a deep freezer if I must be held for a few days. My family and friends have been instructed in how to deal with my corpse... Should my family refuse to claim me, or should I be indifferent at the time of my demise, please explain to the County that I can be mailed to a wilderness (as evidenced by the presence of grizzlies and/or wolves) for a lot cheaper than I can be buried in a pauper's grave. Please remove my eyes, kidneys and heart for the living, but retain my liver because I think Griz would like that most. See you in the Spring! -card carried in the wallet of Doug Peacock, wildlife activist (quoted Metcalf 2008 : 50).

Most of my informants, backcountry hikers schooled in bear safety, agreed with

Peacock. They stressed in our interviews that if they were attacked by the bear, they

would not wish it to be killed. 'He was just behaving like a bear' was the most common

reasoning, accompanied by the statement that 'it would be my own fault' [if a bear killed

me]. This is in decided contrast to the opinions of some who I have encountered working

in the more general tourist industry who, like the telephone caller at the beginning of this

chapter, hold bears to the moral standards of human society. Throughout my chats with

locals and tourists who ventured into bear country, all agreed, despite varying

assessments of the risk of the actual occurrence of an attack, that a bear attacking a

human was just a bear 'being a bear' and ought not to face recrimination for such an

attack. The primary difference seems to be that for most North Americans, a bear is a sum

of the symbolism discussed previously, whether fearsome predator or benign 'teddy bear,' but to those, like Doug Peacock, like most locals, and like most of the backpackers,

a bear is also, beyond the symbolism human culture has imposed on it, also (simply-yet- not-so-simply) a bear. A non-human entity, that ought to be judged not only by its

similarities and differences to us, but also, if possible, viewed as a thing-unto-itself. As

135 Metcalf states, "the status of bears as signs cannot be dis-ententangled from the materiality of bears as flesh" (Metcalf 2008: 43).

In his fascinating essay "The Uncanny Goodness of Being Edible to Bears",

James Hatley discusses the ethical implications that arise out of the realization of one's own edibility. He writes that "paradoxically, many who enter the wilderness welcome the threat of being eaten by a bear or mountain lion, even as they fear its occurrence and act in ways designed to keep it from happening" (Hatley 2004:16). The word respect came up consistently when discussing bears with my fellow backcountry hikers. Respect that this is the bear's territory, and that consequently we are putting ourselves under his or her purview when we tread upon it. Some mentioned respect for the fact that we are food for them, others stressed respect for the bear's right to self-defense. Although there was certainly some variance in the opinions of my informants on wildlife management and backcountry bear safety, next to none expressed a simplistic view of the problem. Bears, even as they were discussed as dangerous predators, were also characterized as sentient beings. As something that was both Other and familiar, dangerous and yet not immoral or criminal. My discussions about bears with those who regularly traversed bear habitat clearly depicted an awareness of both the complex nature of the bear itself, and of humans' views of them. Above all, these discussions clearly troubled the clear dichotomies of good versus bad, wild/unpredictable versus tame/friendly. According to

Metcalf, "terms like wild and domestic will not get us sufficiently far in understanding bear-human interactions insofar as they pre-emptively establish where bears end and humans begin" (Metcalf 2008; 9). These creatures, viewed with affection and fear, often

136 at the same time, not only represented a troubling of the Great Divide, but were active hybrids themselves as they wavered, case by case, bear by bear, in their actions towards us. They, uncannily, were the ones who had the power to render us edible or inedible, friend or foe, a position which we are usually in. Such a role reversal is certainly discomforting, yet perhaps is only so because it challenges our own conception of what it is to be human or animal.

In our realization of our edibility, the illusion of a divide between man and nature, between modernity and wildness, is penetrated.

Finding ourselves in the position of being prey to an animal predator is a telling case of the natural world's provoking discomfort difficulty and danger within a human and humane context. Hardly anything could be more intimate than our becoming the food, and so the very body, of another animal in the wilds; yet hardly anything could be imagined to be more terrifying and inarguably inhumane.... Ultimately, we human beings come to insight concerning the very condition of our humanity through an intimate involvement in the natural order, even as this involvement inevitably leads to moments of troubling and even catastrophic incongruence between that order and ourselves (Hatley 2004:14)

In other words, the whole modern system that categorically separates us from the wild, from the natural, from the prey/predator dynamic, comes crashing down. We realize the illusion of our omniscience, and the arbitrary nature of the divisions that modernity has created between us and them, self and Other, nature and culture, good and bad, wild and domestic. Furthermore, we realize that it is not our choice to ascend or descend the Great

Divide. Yes, we may have chosen to hike through bear country, yes, we may have failed to follow the warning signs and stumbled into a dangerous situation, but ultimately, any control over the situation we have is arguably negligible. Whether we like it or not, we have our eyes are forced open, even if just a crack, to our own nature (not separate from the culture) as edible beings. And yet, as I think Doug Peacock, James Hately and many

of the backpackers I spoke to attempt to express, there is something so humbling, so

enlightening, so uncannily good about that. The falsity of any 'Great Divide' may

potentially be, figuratively forced down our throats, as we, potentially and literally, may

be forced down the gullet of a bear.

When I was hiking into the Mt. Assiniboine area in August of 2009,1 came across

a young juvenile grizzly in the meadows about 3 km before the campground at Lake

Magog. He (or she?) looked at me, and I looked at him. I choose to use him or her

because it seems to connote an object rather than another being. And this was most

certainly a moment of sentient being meeting sentient being, a perspective I believe I

share with the bear. There was an uncanny moment of recognition. I do not mean to

anthropomorphize the bear and depict it as having the ability to communicate in a human

way with myself, but rather suggest that this was very much an instance of each animal

sussing out the other in a very universal way. I greeted the bear with a loud hello, not

because I believed she could understand my words, but because I wanted to let her know

in the most familiar way, through sound, what species I was. Upon recognizing my

humanity (at least, according to my supposition), the bear ambled off into the bushes, and

with my heart admittedly pounding a little I hurried on my way. During my four day stay

in the Assiniboine area this bear was sighted by several of my fellow campers, usually at

a distance. One pair of guys who I had gotten to know fairly well during my stay confided

to me, with awe in their voices, that they had 'stalked' the griz as it pounced around in the meadows by the lake, likely hunting ground squirrels. "How lucky we were" they said. I

138 asked if they were frightened that bear would attack. They said that of course they knew it

was a possibility, that's why they watched it through a zoom at a safe distance (several

hundred metres is a safe distance for a bear). But with a sheepish grin, they said, that if he

had attacked, it would have been their fault, because he was "just a bear doing his thing"

(Informant 2, Lake Magog, August 2009). They were grateful to have had the

opportunity to witness a bear being a bear and their potential edibility was an

acknowledged side effect. To learn to live with bears, in the words of Andy Russell,

"people have to learn to something of humility" (quoted in Loo 2007: 206). The

realization of one's own vulnerability, the resultant glimpse at the cracks in the facade of

an ideal modern (hu)man, separate and above the realm of nature, is such an eye-opening and humbling experience, it is, rather 'uncannily good'

Emperor of the Pristine

So, wilderness to me is that when you're walking down some of these trails you don't know what you 're going to meet in terms of a bear, or a cougar, or a wolf...and so you 're on your guard...but that's part of the amazing thing, that these animals are still out here. Because in Europe you might walk forever and you might meet some crazy people but you 're not going to meet any animals So I think that would be the wilderness part...that animals actually live here....And we're ruining that. Like Canmore and places like that, yes, it's a sin, Part of the neatness about it is that it's theirs. We're interlopers (informant at Shadow Lake, July 2009)

Just as Geertz did not claim that that Balinese cockfight was the master key to

Balinese culture, I do not claim that the bear can reveal all the inner workings of mountain culture in the Canadian Rockies. However, humans ideas of and interactions with bears do reveal quite a bit about cultural ideas regarding nature, animality, and humanity. In Alberta and British Columbia, the grizzly bear is culturally regarded as, in the words of Sid Marty, the "Emperor of the Pristine" (Marty 1999: 217). With this title

139 comes a symbolic association of ideas of a primeval wilderness, of primitive man, of our primal, beastly nature, and/or an Edenic child-like innocence. What one sees reflected back in the bear's gaze, is highly dependent on who is looking. One can see a reflection of oneself, or something completely alien and frightening. However, the varying reactions which people have historically had to bears, and which carry on in a cacophony of differing opinions and ideas today, tell us very little about the bears themselves. But they do reveal quite a bit about the values of the person reflecting on the wild animal. In Banff, where I live and work, there is nothing like a good bear story to start a conversation, which will often turn into a heated debate, as politics, wildlife management policy, biology, and mythology enter the fray. What good is a bear to society? They are certainly useful symbols for interpreting social attitudes, and, beyond ecological reasoning, they are beloved enough that many of us fight for their right to stick around. But beyond that, bears are bears, and they remind us, in several ways, that we are human. At the same time, they also remind us that, like bears, we are animals, and cannot ever be fully

'civilized.' Not because we have an innate savage nature, but rather because civilization and wilderness are false categories, and one cannot divide nature and culture, neither for bears or for humans.

140 Conclusion

My first trip of the backpacking season was a one-day trip, at a location close enough to

the Banff town site that it could be hiked (albeit very strenuously) as a day trip. I chose this trail

neither for its proximity to my home or the relative ease of access to the campground (little

elevation gain and an initial hike in of only 8km), although my winter-softened muscles were

grateful for both these factors. No, I chose this trail because of the seasonal nature of access. Lm8

campground, at the junction of the Lake Minnewanka shore trail and the Aylmer Pass and

Lookout trail, is closed for most of the summer camping season, from July 15-October 1. In the

past, I had always missed the resultant small window opportunity to hike this trail. And I obeyed

the closure not out of fear of fines from the wardens (whose presence is next to invisible in the

backcountry these days, as lack of federal funding keeps many of them confined in offices more

often than on the trails), but because I respected the reasons why this trail became out of bounds

at a certain time of year. Berries. Or more specifically, buffalo berries, known to many locals as

bear-berries, as they are one of the favourite noshes of the grizzly king of the mountain. After

mid-July, Aylmer pass exploded with them, and attracted quite a few of the mountain giants who,

in their gorging, were more likely to be startled by human trespassers. A few well-publicized

attacks and the pass was shut down during berry season. As I hiked along I was slightly nervous.

However, I saw little evidence of an ursine presence. No scat, no scratched trees, no severed

hands clutching bear bells in a death grip (dinner bells, we locals call them, as their tinny

mechanical sound does little to drive off predators). Later in the day, as the trail wound through

avalanche paths (prime griz feeding grounds), I found myself more nervous, and gave a few good resounding yells that echoed slightly through the valley. However, although I saw no sign of the

great bear's presence, I am glad I followed the rules. There were no attacks at Aylmer Pass in the

summer of 2009, although there were a few close encounters between inattentive mountain bikers

141 and an irate mother griz. At the trailhead there is a large sign detailing the seasonal closure and

the reason for it. There are those who ignore such warnings, citing the paranoia of a federal parks

service who does not want to be sued. Others, like me, respect the boundaries and regulations set

up for us, in recognition that they protect the bears more than they protect people.

Backpacking fluctuates between collusion and compromise with the depictions of the

general tourist imaginary and popular cultural narratives of wilderness. I set off into the woods to

commune with nature, but in a way that follows the government decreed rules of engagement. I

hike through prime grizzly bear territory next to a man-made lake. I traverse raging torrents on

bridges that were brought in by helicopter. Does this make my wilderness experience inauthentic?

No, because wilderness never was authentic, and many of those who actually participate in

nature-based activities recognize that to some degree. Most of my informants were aware that for

all the propaganda of tourist advertisement, outdoor clothing stores, and adventure magazines that

the big 'out there' does not exist in an untouched state. But that's not the point. For many of us

who love to 'get away from it all' the reasons for doing so are more complex and yet much more

simple. We want to see the world, not in the form of postcards or television specials, but by

getting down and dirty. Backpacking is often uncomfortable, usually strenuous and physically

demanding, and offers very little in the way of cultural capital (nobody cares if you do it unless

you're an explorer going somewhere 'new' or a journalist or maybe an aspiring anthropologist

writing her master's thesis). But it does offer a direct sensory engagement with the world in a way that many of us who feel overwhelmed at times by the cacophony of our contemporary technophile media-dominated culture use as an escape. Does this escapism have ties to colonialism and the modernist paradigm? Definitely. Is it only one way of knowing and engaging with a landscape? Absolutely. But does an examination of one supposedly simple activity open

142 up the complexities of a place largely erased by an idealization of wilderness? I would argue that

it does.

Escobar argues that we need to pay attention to "the connections between the making and

evolution of nature and the making and evolution of the discourses and practices through which

nature is historically produced and known" (Escobar 1996 46). Nature is not a monolithic force,

but a culturally constructed concept that is subject to change. My mountains are not a pristine

wilderness, but culture-bound landscapes entangled in human practices, processes, and discourse

as convoluted as its peaks. The Rockies are no longer an escape from the urban and urbane for

me, but rather a hybrid entity thoroughly entangled in biology, topography, geography, discourse,

politics, history, and culture. The odd thing is 1 find this troubling no trouble at all. Realizing

complexities and trying to understand them is difficult, but rewarding, especially concerning a

place which I hold dear. Although I no longer idealize the Rocky Mountains as wilderness, I feel

more in love with it than ever, because I feel I have deepened my understanding of how and why I

and others like me, feel connected to those places. "We are all related. We are one with nature"

(Snow xii). This sentiment advocates the dissolution of nature-culture dualisms which permeate

our society. These words, spoken by a Stoney Nakoda elder, may be read as reiterating, as Donna

Haraway succinctly states, the idea that "nature cannot pre-exist its construction" (Haraway 1992

296). We are part of the environment we are in, and we cannot erase those connections even

through the division of certain areas into natural zones such as national parks and others into

civilized urban settlements.

Schama observes that "landscape is a work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock. . . Landscapes are culture before they are nature"

(Schama 1995, cited in Cruikshank 247). As I attempt to gaze differently, I recognize however

143 that this new way of seeing is no more authentic or 'realistic' than those of the tourists. Just new

to me. The places I am looking at are becoming multilocal, socionatural, and more layered than they were before. But that doesn't mean my eyes have become more omniscient than those of my camera lens. However, in attempting to change my gaze, I am able to get a glimpse behind the metaphorical curtain to the backstage where this culturally manufactured production called

wilderness takes place. Just as I am beginning to recognize the different geological strata in the mountains behind my home, I am beginning to see the different layers of perception that have shaped my fieldsite, my backyard, my mountains.

As I near completion of the written discussion of my research, I know I have come to a realization probably universal to the anthropologists: Fieldwork is a humbling experience. As I look back on my interviews I find myself wishing I had asked this or that, and focused my questions differently. There are clear gaps to me, which, as my project is over, I do not have the resources to fill. I understand now why anthropologists go back to the same field site again and again, sometimes over decades. There are always more questions and an urge to delve deeper. I also understand why anthropologists develop relationships with their informants. Such relationships would not only be personally rewarding, but also academically as being able to contact informants for follow-up explanations etcetera would be very useful. Because my interviews were one-off's with strangers, this was not available to me. However, I do think I have scratched the surface of how and why the landscapes of the Rockies are constructed as wilderness, as places of respite, adventure; of complex cultural histories; of practices that engage with cultural concepts of nature; and of bears.

On my final trip, to Elk Lake in late September of 2009,1 camped alone. No one shared the campground with me, I saw no other soul once I passed from the frontcountry into the

144 backcountry. It was an odd day. A hot wind blew, making it unseasonably warm for late

September in the Rockies, with highs close to thirty degrees Celcius. Blue sky, warm wind, completely different from some of my midsummer trips. Complemented by a subtle bronzing and bruising of the landscape into fall hues of brown, burgundy, and gold. No interviews were conducted on that excursion, all discussions that went on were between myself, the wind, the mountains, and the bears whose presence I felt lurked beyond the edges of my vision.

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