Wilderness and the American Mind

Hetch Hetchy marked a turning point in American attitudes toward wilderness preservation. Led by John Muir, those seeking to prevent a dam from forever changing the valley’s natural character mounted a staunch defense. Nash uses some of Chapter 10 to frame the debate, presenting both sides. For those who sought to build the dam, the need to provide water to the growing metropolis of San Francisco was the primary rationale. On the heels of the 1906 earthquake and fires, developers looked to the valley as the solution. This utilitarian approach regarded nature as the means to an end. While the two sides mutually recognized water scarcity as a real concern for the San Francisco area, preservationists refused to believe that Hetch Hetchy was the only available option. Nash describes the battle as one that was “bound to be bitter” (161).

Nash describes how the political maneuvers of both sides drew the controversy into a landmark moment in that it was “the first time in the American experience the competing claims of wilderness and civilization to a specific area received a thorough hearing before a national audience” (161). The preservationists, prompted by John Muir, sought the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, a known conservationist in his own right. Roosevelt’s position as president presented complications, as he was thrust into the middle of the debate. While he sympathized with preservationist arguments, he recognized that public opinion favored dam construction. In addition, Roosevelt realized the capital at stake, both literally and politically, and sought a compromise that appealed to both sides. Likewise, some developers sympathized with the preservationists and admitted to the valley’s unique beauty. They even argued that the dam could add to the valley’s aesthetic beauty, and these arguments were persuasive. The sensitivity to the opposing view was important because it recognized the preservation movement’s legitimacy.

Among the key public figures in the debate was William Kent, a California congressperson and friend to John Muir. Kent recognized the importance of his friend’s work, and Muir considered him an ally in the cause. However, Kent argued that “conservation could best be served by granting the valley to San Francisco” (173). Nash does not explicitly call this a betrayal but infers that powerful special interests, specifically Pacific Gas and Electric, used their influence to persuade Kent. Despite the hint of dirty politics, the move to develop gained steam after Kent sided with developers. By 1913, the preservationist argument was overruled and the dam was constructed. Although it was a terrible defeat, especially for John Muir personally, the preservation movement learned critical lessons from the controversy—one of which was that the perception that wilderness deserved protection had grown significantly. In some ways, the cause was a moral one from which they could build the moral authority to defeat subsequent proposals.

Nash begins Chapter 11 by mentioning Thoreau and his romanticized version of wilderness appreciation. This strategy effectively allows him to immediately identify how Aldo Leopold was a different kind of figure in the movement. Leopold aligned with Thoreau’s idealism but, unlike the legendary Transcendentalist, was scientifically minded. Nash depicts Leopold as representing a “synthesis of the logic of a scientist with the ethical and aesthetic sensitivity of a Romantic [that] was effective armament for the defense of wilderness” (182). Leopold’s approach sought to add empirical credence to the movement, which otherwise had been stuck in primarily idealist, aesthetic concerns. His involvement in the movement helped align it with more empirical science.

Nash briefly touches on Leopold’s hunting background and discusses how his experiences hunting big game led to his ecological approach to preservation. Through hunting, Leopold learned the important lesson, which he then advocated, that all beings are interconnected. Rather than seeing humans as distinct and apart from their surroundings, including land and the animals on it, Leopold saw connections. At one time, Leopold advocated a game management style that supported killing off predators to remove the threat they posed to more suitable game such as deer. Removing predators like wolves effectively removed competition for hunters. This strategy, while perhaps well-intentioned, is by modern standards misguided—and Leopold helped American culture see just how misguided it was.

Eventually, Leopold saw the flawed reasoning of the predator removal strategy. He came to understand how humans’ designations of various animals always related to how humans perceived them. Land and game management systems such as removal of predators were unnatural: “Not only did the elimination of beasts of prey remove a desirable check on the population of other species, but the whole idea of an undesirable species was entirely synthetic” (195). In the same way, land management and wilderness, so long as humans controlled them, were an entirely human construct. Therefore, Leopold urged development of a more ecological cultural conscience that considered how to limit human imposition on wilderness. Preserving wilderness was crucial because civilization had so dominated it that few places existed from which to gather “a base-datum of normality, a picture of how healthy land maintains itself as an organism” (198). To learn intellectually and scientifically, Leopold argued for ensuring that places free from human influence remain that way because doing so was vital to humanity.

The first edition of this book was printed in 1967, and Nash initially began working on it as part of his doctoral research in 1960. Chapter 12 primarily discusses the significant preservationist victory that protected Echo Park from the construction of a dam on the Colorado River. The defeat of the dam proposal occurred in 1956, so the events and the public sentiment were fresh as Nash laid out the background and context of the controversy. As he does often in the book, Nash refers to a previous historical point of reference. In this case, he begins the chapter by mentioning the fallout of the 1913 Hetch Hetchy controversy. It was a defeat for the preservationists, but in fighting against the dam construction there, the movement gained momentum, which continued despite the defeat: “Public appreciation of wilderness increased steadily as the nation’s pioneer past receded” (200). While the protection of wilderness remained an issue that the wealthy members of elite society took up and led, the appeal broadened to include those outside the elite. With ever-increasing support, both moral and financial, the movement was stronger than it ever had been to plead its case and prevent construction of the dam at Echo Park.

Also at issue was the prospect that so-called “protected” land was in fact protected. The dam at Echo Park would have flooded an area of 320 square miles known as Dinosaur National Monument. As with Hetch Hetchy, developers pointed to an increasing need for water as the motivating factor for a dam. The rationale was hardly unreasonable: A growing population in the arid Southwest increased the need for a water source. Therefore, the needs of civilization were in direct confrontation with the need to preserve an historic and significant piece of land. According to Nash, preservationists “believed […] that if pressures for development prevailed in the case of Dinosaur, the sanctity of the entire National Park System would be shaken and the end of the American wilderness hastened” (214). Not only would building the dam destroy the monument, but allowing dam construction would essentially open the entire national park system to potential development, compromising its sanctity.

For the preservationists, the key to victory lay in the growth of popular resistance to the dam construction and in the political lessons they had learned from the Hetch Hetchy defeat. By the time of the Echo Dam controversy, the preservation movement’s political acumen had increased considerably. Notable figures like writer Wallace Stegner contributed to the cause and helped generate such enthusiasm for it that before the 1955 vote on legislation allowing dam construction, “House mail showed a ratio of those who would keep Dinosaur wild to those in favor of the dam of eighty to one” (216). This caused postponement of the vote, allowing more time for the movement to build. Imagining how things could have been different had this vote gone the other way is hard, but this hypothetical is one of the more effective strategies Nash subtly encourages.