We
first met at the 2000 New Faculty Orientation at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Lisa Leslie was just returning from six years in England spent at
the University of Liverpool finishing her doctorate in
nineteenth-century British literature with a specialty in the Shelley
literary community. Carolyn
Copenheaver had defended her doctoral thesis, “Vegetation
dynamics of Pinus banksiana in northern lower Michigan,” in the
School of Forest Resources at The Pennsylvania State University.
Although we were from different disciplines, we discovered a
common interest in hiking. During
that first year of teaching at Virginia Tech, we interrupted our grading
with day hikes in southwestern Virginia.
We hiked Sartain Trail, Chestnut Trail, War Spur Trail, Lakeshore
Trail, Saunders Creek Trail, and Kelly Flats Trail.
Our conversations quickly led us to realize that we were seeing
different things even though we were hiking the same trail.
We wondered whether these differences in perceptions were due to
our academic training. Lisa’s
training in literature taught her to see the world in a sensory,
emotional manner. Carolyn’s
training in forestry taught her to see the world in a quantitative,
objective fashion. We decided to explore these differences.
The
one trail we had yet to hike was the Appalachian Trail (AT).
This trail seemed like the perfect location to study our
different perceptions of nature. Carolyn,
being the scientist, decided we needed a proper experimental design.
Lisa did not know quite what she meant, but agreed anyway.
After several hours pouring over maps and guidebooks, Carolyn
convinced Lisa that the study needed replication (i.e. 13 day hikes
along the AT, one hike for each state the trail crosses) and a daily
sampling routine (on the trail by 9 a.m., hike until noon, break for
lunch, identify a location for a one-hour intensive study, and return to
the trailhead). Lisa agreed
to Carolyn’s design with one addition: Talking was allowed before
lunch, but on the return trip, Carolyn had to “shut up.”
We would return to the trailhead in silence to allow us time for
personal reflection. The
intensive study period would provide material for each of us to write an
essay on our perceptions of that section of the trail.
Since beginning this project in August 2001, we have hiked and
written about sections of the AT in North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia,
Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire.
In
comparing our paired essays from these hikes we observed some expected
differences but found some unexpected similarities. As anticipated, Lisa uses more of her five senses in her
descriptions of the trail environment.
For example, in her essay from North Carolina she describes the
“hoarse and raucous caws” of the ravens and the “high-pitched
screams” of a hawk, and in her essay from Maryland (included below)
she writes that when she walks on the rocks with her bare feet she feels
“more connected to the earth.”
In contrast, Carolyn’s essays reflect a more list-oriented and
quantitative view of nature. In
her New Hampshire essay, she identifies “red maple, low-bush
blueberry, paper birch, Canada mayflower, bunchberry, [and] clintonia”
as species present along the trailside.
In her Maryland essay (included below) she quantifies her
surroundings, including “a crack in a rock sheltering 115 seeds” and
“a sycamore sapling (2.6 meters tall from root collar to top leaf.”
The
unexpected similarities included a trend over the course of the project
for Lisa to begin incorporating some quantitative observations in her
essays and Carolyn to begin including more personal reflection in her
essays. In West Virginia
the AT skirts the Harper’s Ferry cemetery where Lisa noted “186
grave stones within sight.” In
a switch of roles, Carolyn confesses in Tennessee “I have always loved
white pine.” We also both
incorporated stories from our past experiences that were not directly
related to the trail. Lisa
makes many connections between her AT hikes and her backpacking
expeditions in England and Scotland, and Carolyn makes many references
to her forestry field work in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
These differences and similarities indicate that our academic
training does influence, but does not limit our perceptions of nature.
As we continue this hiking and writing project, we are eager to
see if these trends continue, and wonder if other unexpected patterns
will arise from our paired essays on the Appalachian Trail.
Response
essay by Lisa Leslie to Appalachian Trail hike in Maryland.
Hike
#2: Maryland
Rough-winged
swallow. “A brown-backed
swallow,” Peterson’s guide emphasizes, lighter than the Bank
swallow. “Note the dusky
throat. Flight unlike
Bank swallow’s, more like Barn swallow’s; wings pulled back at end
of stroke.” My swallow, I scribbled in my notes, is a “single, solitary
swift-like bird” that I “actually saw pause . . . mid-air in front
of a flying insect & then snap him up.”
Next he “lands on a rock for a short rest & then takes off
again, skimming the water or flying high overhead.”
No real information in either description.
I
want more. I want to know
more about this elegant little brown-backed, dusky-throated bird that
flies unlike the Bank swallow and pauses, like a mid-air prayer, before
devouring its prey.
It
is a prey-er, as are we all, our entire lives.
Like the rough-winged swallow that I watched religiously for one
hour on 22 September 2001, on a part of the Appalachian Trail that
skirts along the shores of the Potomac River in Maryland below the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, we all prey on what holds meaning to us,
snapping brief and small memories out of the air with an audible
“click” of our beaks as we try to grasp an instant of worthiness and
fly away with it forever.
*
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*
This
section of the Appalachian Trail is a wide, flat canal path, one of four
modes of transportation from days gone by, running parallel: the Potomac
River, the Canal path, the C & O Canal, the railroad tracks.
It is one of the easiest sections of the AT, much different from
the North Carolina section we hiked last month.
It is well-used by city and suburb dwellers who want to “get
away from it all” on the weekend, to leave behind their concrete and
steel lives and return to nature.
To
many people, this is nature (and at this, my thoughts approached
feelings of horror). This
well-worn, high traffic, noisy and chattering trail: where we
were kept from our silent walking by a National Parks and Recreation
Ranger; where a woman with a degree in Horticulture and Landscape Design
from the University of Maryland told us that pokeweed, with its deep
purple berries and fuscia stems, was once used for dye; where family
after family pedaled their Trek mountain bikes of various sizes merrily
and noisily in enjoyment and determination; this sidewalk that extends
out from Washington D.C., from Baltimore, and from the hearts of all
people who cannot help but snap at that opportunity for
outside-ness—this is nature to them—and to us all.
*
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*
I sit down on a rock by the Potomac River.
I settle myself with my orange field notebook, much more official
than a “journal.” How
much does this affect the subject and sense of my writing?
On our first hike, I did nothing but loll around and enjoy being
in the natural world, but this time I want to focus.
Carolyn’s equipment labels her; she has purpose.
How do I fulfill my half of this project, the person schooled in
literature as compared to the person schooled in science?
My equipment is less obvious, but treasured and valuable
nonetheless: my bird field guide, my binoculars, and most important of
all, my senses. I prepare
to play the part I have adopted for this drama: I am THE ARTIST.
I
am sensitive to all that surrounds me: the rushing river and the warmth
of the sun on my legs; the towering, bright-white cumulus clouds against
the bright blue sky and the active and dusky little swallow; the ionic
and river smell of the water and the inner peace and refreshment that
diffuses through my body like a spell.
A light-blue damselfly that flits near and far.
The rocks patterned in soft swirls of layers in gray, white,
orange, and beige. The
early autumn golden trees on the hillside opposite.
The friendly, melancholy train whistles.
I take off my hiking boots, and notice it is easier to walk on
the rocks with bare feet: I am connected to the earth.
I scramble down to sit with my feet in the water on a small jet
of rock that sticks out into the rushing Potomac.
I am surrounded on three sides by water making distinctly
different sounds. To my
right, the river rushes directly at me; in front are the sounds of
swirls and eddies, a more gentle, gliding flow; to my left, calm lapping
of the back current, as the river forces past this peninsula, comes and
goes. The rocks that I sat
on before are now above and behind me; I am at water level.
I am just another part of the landscape, a small creature
snapping frantically to catch the meaning of experience.
There
is a lot of traffic on the Potomac this sunny day.
Kayaks, both fiberglass and inflatable, rafts, tubes, bright blue
boats—these different water craft get people close to the water for a
day of fun. They all watch Carolyn, I notice, who is slightly upriver
and slightly further away from the water. I turn to look, to see what they see: a woman in a bright
orange cruiser’s vest brandishing tapes and instruments, counting
seeds one by one and measuring her widening circles.
Her obvious scientific method justifies her procedures; I can
look at her and see that she is doing something.
To most eyes what she is doing is curious and uninterpretable,
and that is the draw: the curiosity of the unknown.
I process material on the inside, which looks like nothing, or
laziness. I am just a girl,
sitting on a rock, writing in her journal.
One
of the plants that Carolyn taught me to identify on this hike is the
giant paulownia (Paulownia tomentosa). It is a bold, rather masculine plant with huge, heart-shaped
leaves. The ancient Chinese
extracted products from this plant to use for beauty treatments, but now
it exists largely in waste places.
But I remember it among all the plants we identified on this walk
because, as Carolyn said, it is large—like the “large” words of
Polonius to his son in Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
This
above all: to thine own self be true,
And
it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou
canst not then be false to any man.
These
words are nourishment to souls in search of individuality, and they feed
my own thoughts as I spend this day outside writing.
It speaks of a commitment to the self.
Of a conviction that if we follow our hearts, we become better
individuals and better members of society.
Like the Buddhist concept of mettā, if we cultivate
self-love, we spread that love to others.
Focus and breadth; keeping the larger world in mind while working
to develop the self. And
although I somewhat snobbily said “this path along the C&O canal
is not nature,” it is just that, to some people. If you live in the city, you must take your nature wherever
you find it, snapping it out of the parks and the preserves that have
been created for human enjoyment and human refreshment.
Perhaps even this path allows people to find that still point
within themselves, that wider connection to the world—the focus that
teaches us about our inner minds, the breadth that understands that this
knowledge connects us to the rest of the world.
So.
Back to my journal, back to my binoculars, back to my barefooted
connection to the earth. It
is warm and sunny. I cannot
believe that it is warmer here, further north, one month later, than our
last hike. I cannot believe that not a word has been said, between
Carolyn and I, from passers by on the trail, here in my own journal,
about the events of just eleven days ago [the events of Sept. 11, 2001].
I sit on my perch, like the Rough-winged swallow, keeping a calm
eye on my territory and dashing out to capture whatever is nourishing to
my soul: fact, fiction, myth, nature.
I see vultures riding the thermals high in the blue sky above me
and know that in the end they will feed on animals of the earth; I hear
a train’s whistle and clack in the distance and know that it
transports coal that has been taken from the earth. I snap at all the experiences of this day, hold them fast in
my beak, and take them home to offer to those whom I would hope to feed
with my words.
Response
essay by Carolyn Copenheaver to Appalachian Trail Hike in Maryland
Date:
September 22, 2001
Location:
the AT in Fredrick and Washington Counties, Maryland
Weather:
sunny and warm
This morning we got lost. Not
lost in the woods, but lost trying to find the woods.
At 8:40 a.m. we stopped at the West Virginia Tourist Information
Center in Boliver, West Virginia to ask directions to the Appalachian
Trail. The woman at the
information center told us to follow Rt. 340 to Rt. 671 South and the
trail would cross Rt. 671 after a few miles.
I had the map and Lisa was driving.
I kept looking at the map and even though I could see that Rt.
671 and the AT never intersected we drove south on the road for several
miles past the Virginia/Maryland border because as Lisa said, “She
spoke with such authority. She
sounded like she knew what she was talking about.”
After deciding to save West Virginia for another day and hike in
Maryland, which had an easy access point to the AT, we drove back
through Virginia, back through West Virginia, and into Maryland.
Some of the AT in Maryland runs along an old canal towpath. The canal and towpath is part of the Chesapeake and Ohio
National Historical Park. Construction
on the canal began in 1828 and the full 184.5 miles of the canal was
completed in 1850. The
canal served as a transportation route for goods and raw materials
between the Ohio Valley and the port cities along the east coast.
The canal follows the Potomac River, which is the only river that
travels through the Appalachian Mountains in their northern stretch.
The canal was put out of service in 1924 and was acquired by the
National Park Service in 1938. Today, the canal serves as a recreation area for walkers and
bicyclists. And if our hike
along it was typical, the park is heavily used.
We saw older couples out for morning walks; families with moms
and dads slowly cycling behind crazed kids cycling left, right, and
center across the path; tourists spilling over from Harpers Ferry; an
entire uniformed troop of boy scouts including two leaders; numerous
joggers; and many young couples out for afternoon bike rides.
It was impossible not to interact with our fellow hikers and
bikers—the woman from Maryland who helped us identify pokeweed; the
young couple that asked us what the pretty purple flowers were along the
path (they were phlox); the two young men, completely outfitted in
spandex biking gear, who asked us how to get to the bridge that crossed
the Potomac; and the bored Park Service employee who had been called to
rescue a fawn that had fallen in the canal.
My eyes and ears were tired within a mile of walking.
After lunch we sat on the rocks next to the Potomac River and I
tried to look more closely at my surroundings: mud spattered rocks; a
few fresh-water clam shells; a crack in a rock sheltering 115
seeds—each seed was furry and brown with a six-sectioned ovary and
they were 1 mm long by 0.7 mm wide; a pile of Pistachio shells left by
some previous hiker; a sycamore sapling (2.6 meters tall from root
collar to top leaf); a silver maple seedling (0.8 meters tall from root
collar to top leaf); toad skin lichen growing in the crevice of another
rock. Then, just as I began
to lose myself in my surroundings, a man and his daughter (in a bright
pink bathing suit) approached me on the rocks.
It is very strange to me to be in the woods in such a populated
area. Usually, I spend 8
hours at a time in the woods and see no one but my own reflection (while
trying to get a black fly out of my eye with the mirror in my compass).
At times this can be scary—like the time I got stuck in the
sand on a small two-track in Oscoda County, Michigan.
I knew there would not be anyone down that road for possibly
several days and therefore, it was up to me to figure out how to get
out. I dug around my tires
with an old cottage cheese container I used to measure soil and stuck
broken sticks and blueberry branches under the tires, but my car just
kept digging deeper into the sand.
Eventually, I ended up cutting an old blanket from my trunk in
half with my Swiss Army knife and putting one long strip under each
tire. It provided enough
traction to get the front tires out and back on the road.
I learned a valuable lesson about never taking your driving
wheels off the road. But,
what lessons can I learn from a trail full of people?
Lisa mentions, after the hike, that she was nervous about the
“suspicious-looking” man who was following us closely for about a
half a mile but then disappeared off the side of the path when the Park
Service truck pulled up to ask us whether we had seen a fawn stuck in
the canal. Do we learn
fear? When I work in rural
or remote areas any person that I encounter is a welcome respite from
the solitude and we usually exchange waves if we are driving or stop and
talk if one is walking. But
here, I have to admit the commonness of the people makes them less
interesting to approach; unless there is something unusual or
interesting about the people or their behavior.
My bright orange cruiser vest with its 9 pockets stuffed with
field guides and equipment elicited numerous comments, as did our
stopping at quarter mile intervals to identify plants with my
ever-present field guides. I
guess humans must always be drawn to the unusual and today what was
unusual was solitude. We
had little of it.
Conclusions
Knowing that we plan to write an essay from each hike has
influenced the way we perceive the natural world.
The act of writing the essays has changed our hiking trips from
experiential (living in the moment) to communicative (how can I tell
others about what I’m seeing and experiencing).
Although Carolyn was used to communicating with others about the
natural world, she did this in a highly technical fashion.
This project has caused her to struggle with communicating her
professional view of the forest in less technical language.
Lisa was used to writing about emotional, interpretive
experiences, but she learned quickly that her writing needed to include
more concrete details about what she was seeing.
The essays from this project give us a place to discuss nature
across our separate disciplines, and we have each developed a new
vocabulary that allows us to communicate to those outside of our
academic fields.
Carolyn
Copenheaver is an Assistant Professor in the Forestry Department at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Her B.S. is in Biology from Juniata College in Pennsylvania; her
M.S. is in Forestry from the University of Maine; and her Ph.D. is in
Forest Resources from The Pennsylvania State University.
Her current research interests include dendroecology, forest
succession, and perceptions of nature.
Lisa
Leslie is an Instructor in the English Department at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Her B.A. is in English from Texas A & M at Corpus Christi;
her M.A. is in English Literature from Appalachian State University in
North Carolina; and her Ph.D. is in English Literature from the
University of Liverpool in the U.K.
Her current research interests include the Shelley literary
circle, composition theory, and perceptions of nature.