I would firstly encourage you to take a look at my Prezi presentation which I presented in September. What follows is also my detailed response to the reading assignment.
http://prezi.com/217sea5jyw6l/the-truth-about-hiking/
Hiking
Hiking is an activity with a strong prominence in developed countries in North America and Europe mostly because of the prevalence of the "back to nature" movements in these areas. Hiking is also emerging in other places around the world, but the readings mostly focus on the regions mentioned before.
Hiking in forms reminiscent of those in practice today first emerged in Britain according to my readings. This story began with the Norman invasion in 1066, when the conquerors set aside massive tracts of land for private deer hunting. Ever since then there have been severe penalties for breaking land regulations and trespassing or poaching. After centuries, there was a group of privileged land owners ruling the land. They dominated ownership of nearly all the land and began walking as a way of enjoying their assets. During the industrial revolution, floods of people migrated to the cities for the work and capitalist prospects that lie there. They soon realized the horrors of industrial city living, the squalor and densely populated living areas were suffocating. People began to yearn for open spaces of the past, and so they began to wandering in the country to escape their urban woes.
Politics. Different areas of the world have had unique experiences with hiking and its political ramifications. In many areas hiking has been much more political than people realize when first contemplating the subject. Suffice to say, my eyes were opened by the socialist and activistic aspects of this action of bodies in motion.
The Alps. Hiking politics here began with the Naturfreunde (Nature Friends), as an anti monarchist socialist movement advocating access to the mountain wilderness for working people. In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was a golden age of utopian groups, perhaps spurred on by growing interest in Marx's communism. These groups were often centred around the idea of walking and its uses as a tool for social change. These utopian groups were founded as oppositions to mainstream society and strongly advocated for recreational time and public access to the healing powers of nature. These ideals were largely dismantled by the Nazi regime in condemnation of socialist ideals. However, the Nazis did take the organization of these groups and use it for their own ends. Youth groups known as Wandervogels were later incorporated in to Nazi structures because they were an effective means of organizing young people in ways that were already in use and comfortably accepted by them. The ideals of the Wandergovels were exploited by the Nazis to control the minds of young people and subtly instill new belief systems. These sort of organized youth movements were also the basis of the Scouting organization, which was inspired and created mostly by Sir Baden Powell (more strict and militaristically regimented) and Canadian Ernest Thompson Seton ( the more holistic of the two, deeply interested in Native American skills and world views). Overall we see in the Alps regions a yearning for access to public spaces and an ensuing fight for these rights, followed by subsequent corruption of ideals and re appropriation of belief systems.
North America. In North America, the Sierra Club was a major force in creating green spaces for recreational purposes. It began as a small walking club with interests in the natural, untouched world. Walking in nature became virtuous to this group, a sort of righteous defence of the environment. The Sierra Club published authentic information about the areas they were most interested in as a way of raising public awareness of the ecological issues and to garner support for preservation efforts. The founder, John Muir, took a stand against anthropocentric views of nature and he strongly pushed for large areas of land being left wild and untouched. The only activity he would allow seemingly was human recreational activity meant to increase the cultural love of nature. The group was progressive in that it was very accepting of women and their status of equality. Women were not only allowed to join, but were treated with equity and slept outside, performed tasks with the others and hiked with the best of them. After it became clear that some hikers were abusing their rights of access by polluting, Muir advocated for protection of ecosystems from recreational degradation as well. The Sierra Club was the first major force of environmental protection in the United States, and truly made hiking into a political battle to save the environment. Areas were and are still pushed forward for recreational use, but also for sustainability and ecological protection. This is an effort I have learned about personally in classes regarding environmental issues stemming from tourism. One major issue persists to this day - equating love of nature with outdoor leisure activities. It turns out that hiking isn't a universally indicative characteristic of love of nature, in fact some hikers are selfish and damaging. We must see hiking as a culturally specific term, and as an activity it has been mainly enjoyed by middle class people with time and financial means to engage in it.
Britain. This is a country where walking has not been transformed into some other form of adventure; the only country that is as such. It has remained much as it began. Walking in Britain is indicative of a class war. Known widely as "rambling", it is immensely popular and borders on spirituality or even religion with the amount of cultural weight it carries. This is where the history of walking sprang out of inequality and class struggles. During the industrial revolution, residents of the cities needed cleaner more open spaces. However, most of the land in Britain was (and is) privately owned and forbidden to trespassing and general public access. So, many groups were formed to represent the working people and their desire for open spaces. Walking became a political action about trespassing for the sake of breaking down notions of private ownership over that which should rightfully be public space. The "rambling movement" took leadership over the struggle for access and mass trespassing put severe pressure on the government to change land laws. They were eventually successful in forcing the government to mandate landowners to prove that right-of-way did not exist rather than the public having to prove that it did. Proving that right-of-way does not exist is much more difficult and thus a major battle was won for the ramblers. I find it highly ironic that the recreational walking of people in Britain now historically stems from the practices of the aristocratic upper class of land owners. The rambler's actions ended up as an assault on the absolute right to private ownership of land. The struggle continues, but the British public is slowly gaining access to previously private land.
Hiking and the Environment. Walking takes place irrespective of borders and property lines. It is an antithetical statement to ownership and a socialist anti-capialist action. Long have nomadic peoples troubled the ideals of nationalism because they migrate as a lifestyle and observe no borders that determine where they can go.
Hiking does have many implications that many people forget in their heedless lust for physical activity and apparent love of wild spaces. Many papers have discussed the ecological side affects that hiking activities have, such as Lynn and Brown's 2003 paper about the effects of recreational hiking in natural areas. These findings aren't surprising to myself as a camper and hiker, I have had many years of seeing overused trails resulting in trail widening, trail erosion and muddiness accompanied by tree and plant damage, fire rings, and the ever present litter left carelessly beside paths. These symptoms of environmental degradation stem from the anthropocentric worldview that nature exists for our use and abuse, in this case through the acts of ecotourism. There must be an adoption of the mindset that nature is a blessing we are given, yes to be enjoyed, but also to be respected and treated with the utmost of care.
Enjoying the outdoors is something that I find exhilarating and that many hold close because of cultural ties. Hiking is a means by which to connect to our world in ways we cannot normally do in our day to day lives in cities. However, it has also proved to be an activity and a tool used for cultural and social change. We must respect this act and use it with care, but in an ecological and political sense.
Thanks,
Paul
