Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, Lincoln City, Indiana

A Piece of the Action

Nestled in the middle of rural Spencer Country, Indiana, west of Christmas Lake Village, and just off State Route 162, is a small, unassuming bit of parkland. Inside, you’ll find meandering trails; a replica of a 19th century farm (complete with live animals!), and yet another shrine to Abraham Lincoln. And why not? Here, on this plot of land, the 16th President of the United States grew from a boy into a man. Here, young Lincoln worked the farm, built fences, attended school, went to church, was inspired to practice law, and lost his mother to milk sickness.

It took about 40 years for the country to fully appreciate and honor Abraham Lincoln, and boy did they appreciate him! The Lincoln Head Penny was first struck in 1909, the Lincoln Memorial was funded by Congress in 1910. Lincoln, Nebraska was early to the game, renaming itself from Lancaster in 1869, but dozens of counties and innumerable schools, streets, avenues, and parks weren’t renamed until that first decade of the 20th Century.

There apparently was a fight for “hometown rights” amongst several towns and states. He was born on Feb. 12, 1809, in LaRue Country, Kentucky. But his father, Thomas, packed up the family and moved them to Indiana in 1816 (partly to avoid competing with slaveholding farmers, and partly because land titles in Kentucky were, shall we say, flexible). Lincoln lived in Indiana for the next 14 years of his life, and then went on his own, moving to New Salem, Illinois. Illinois would remain his home state until he made his fateful move to the White House some thirty years later. Once “Lincoln fever” struck, all three states & towns wanted a piece of the action, and tried to claim the President as their own. Each of them built their own shrines, and claim they were “Lincoln’s home”. All are now in the National Park System, and hey, the more parkland and historic properties we can preserve, the better.

There is a bit of philosophy buried in this saga: what marks the life of a person? Is a person’s life dictated by the circumstances of their birth? Or is it in childhood, those most formative of years, whilst under the care of one’s parents? Or is a person truly formed in adolescence, when one learns to work and function in society? Or is a person what they made themselves into as adults, through labor or service or duty? The pragmatic answer, of course, is a life is in continual formation, from birth in a continuum through to death, but that seems like a dull answer, as 19th century philosophy goes.

Up next: an exploration of Franz Joseph Gall’s developments in phrenology.

(No, not really, but we will talk more about Lincoln in the next post).

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Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Stanton, North Dakota

Gone

Another tiny little site, out in the middle of nowhere. A small slice of land, barely four square miles, preserving a few reconstructed mud huts and a view of a minor Missouri River tributary. Fit for the occasional grammar school field trip and not much else.

Through all the denialism around environmental degradation and global warming, I’ve become convinced the human soul is incapable of understanding the concept of absence. We are quite capable of observing the world around us. We can see the moon and the stars and the distant mountains and the dandelions at our feet. We can see what we have, are enthralled by what the other guy has, and are intrigued by what might be hiding behind that mountain over yonder. What we can’t contemplate is what isn’t there. We can’t lament the old-growth forests of New England, because we’ve never seen one. They’ve been gone for decades, or even centuries. They’re not here, so we don’t miss them. Nobody cares that they’re gone.

A couple decades ago, there were a series of logging protests in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The locals were furious that a bunch of East Coast types flew out there to chain themselves to old-growth trees and interrupt logging. I can understand why they’d be pissed off. I would be pretty angry if some guy flew 1000 miles to get in my grill because I drove a foreign car or was an avowed atheist. But the folks of Idaho should understand something as well: we don’t have old growth forests on the East Coast any more. They’re gone. They’ve been gone for at least a hundred years if not two. The eastern United States is a scarred landscape, the result of clearcutting, mountaintop-removal mining, abandoned industrial complexes, sleazy strip malls, and horrid public housing projects. Most of the natural beauty in the east is gone, and gone forever. All we wanted was for the western states to preserve theirs before it, too, is gone.

This same idea applies to the native cultures of the Americas. They’re mostly gone, and those that remain have been scarred by decades and decades of suppression, poverty, extermination, and broken promises. They’re barely recognizable today. But we don’t understand what that really means. Indian reservations have been the way they are our entire lifetime, and for so many generations before us, that we can’t even fathom what native tribal life must have been like in the long, long ago. It’s unfathomable because it’s gone. Gone forever, there’s no bringing it back.

Imagine what life in America would have been if, instead of driving the native populations back and out, our forefathers decided to share the land with them. Would our country have developed any differently? Would we never have connected east-and-west with the Golden Spike? Would there still be American bison on the flatlands of Ohio? Would there be states in the Union with all-Native legislatures and Congressional representatives? What would the U.S. flag look like? What would our architecture look like? What would that great cultural tradition — rock & roll — sound like, infused not just with the minstrel songs of sharecroppers, the folk tunes of Dust Bowl migrants, and the swing of urban jazz, but also with the steady rhythms and chants of the Sioux? Wouldn’t that be kinda cool?

We’ll never know what the impact of Native American culture would have been on this country, on our government, on our society, or on our lives. And we can’t … because it’s gone.

[All pictures on this page are mine and thusly copyrighted.]

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Kings Canyon National Park, Southern Sierra Nevada, California

Forgotten Stepchild National Park

Poor Kings Canyon. At one point, it had a real patriotic name: General Grant National Park, named not after the Civil War victor, but after the General Grant, the second largest sequoia tree on earth (which is named after the Civil War victor). Back then, in 1890, the park only protected the Grant Grove itself. Decades later, after long battles, the rest of the canyon was protected with National Park status, under the boring moniker Kings Canyon National Park.

Kings Canyon gets no respect. It’s in the heart of California’s Sierra Nevada range, a truly beautiful part of the country, but, unfortunately, it’s sandwiched between two behemoths: Yosemite, with its magnificent valley and El Capitan, to the north, and Sequoia, with its groves of massive trees, to the south. Eventually, the NPS merged Kings Canyon with its southern neighbor, and, like Gracie to George Burns, it got second billing: Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. But I think that sucks. Kings Canyon deserves to stand alone, as its own National Park.

As usual, I visited Kings Canyon on a big road trip through a slew of National Park Service sites. Yosemite and Sequoia are grand places, to be sure, but they’re also grandly crowded. Yosemite, especially the valley area, were insufferable to drive through. People stopped for every spot of wildlife or beautiful vista, and the light dusting of snow on Day 1, although wonderfully esthetic, only made the drive more miserable. And Sequoia, well, the groves were not only crowded by noisy. All those tourists, yammering on an on. The mansplainers were completely insufferable.

Then I went to poor, disrespected Kings Canyon … and I loved it. Yes, it doesn’t have the grandeur of Yosemite. It doesn’t have the massive sequoia groves. But what it does have are great hikes, hikes where you can be alone if you want to be. I took a valley hike, and I think I only saw one other couple on the trail at all. While everyone else was scrambling for a spot in some scenic pullout, I was doing what I really love: walking in the woods, away from everything.

When you’re on your own tour of the western Sierras, don’t ignore Kings Canyon. It deserves your attention, your respect, and your feet, walking on its trails.

[Pictures on this post are mine and thusly copyrighted]

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Kenai Fjords National Park, Seward, Alaska

Visiting vs Experiencing

There are three categories of National Park tourists.

The first is the worst: the tourist. The tourist blunders in with their fancy RV, stumbles off some cruise ship, or barrels in on a pair of Harleys. They make a bunch of noise in the visitor’s center, take a high-speed trip through the scenic drive, perhaps (at best) reading 2-3 roadside signs before giving up and barreling off to some picnic area to uncork a bottle of wine, unscrew a bottle of cheap whiskey, or unpack a fistful of juice pops before nearly burning down a campground via an over-butaned charcoal grill.

The second is the polar opposite: the wildlander. These are the folks who truly revel in the hard-core activities: spending days backpacking or river rafting across varied terrains; performing a multi-hour rock traversals up the cliff face; or otherwise reveling in the true wonders of the park: the wilderness. I have full respect for these intrepid travelers, but because I like traveling alone, it would be incredibly dangerous for me. Plus I’m an immense coward.

So I nestle inside the middle group.

Mountains A La Mode

Parks are to be experienced. If you’re in Acadia, you bike the carriage trails. If you go to Key Biscayne, you snorkel the reefs. And if you go to Kenai Fjord, you hike the glaciers* and you kayak the fjords. That’s the Middle Group: find activities that let you experience the park in the few days you have to spend, and enjoy the sh*t out of them.

*Well, you don’t hike *on* the glaciers, that’s dangerous AF. You hike *to* the glaciers. Play safe, everyone.

The kayaking I did at Kenai was one of the best times I ever spent in a park, and I’ve been to well over 200 of them. First, it was a gorgeous day. The sky was so blue, the wind was light, the air was the perfect temperature. Second, the people were fantastic. I typically avoid commercialized park tours, they tend to be too expensive and too lame, but these tour operators were awesome. They were friendly, and helpful, and gave good information, but also knew how to shut up so folks could just enjoy sitting on the water and watch the puffins dive.

Beautiful Day

My fellow kayakers were really cool, too. There were seven of us in all, three couples and myself, and we didn’t know each other (well, hopefully the people in the couples knew each other, but hey, who am I to judge). But everyone was so chill and so interesting and so much fun to be around. It was just us and the puffins and the eagles and the sea lions: the perfect trip.

After the kayaking, we went back to Fox Island. There was supposed to just be some standard lunch, but instead there was some special end-of-season event going on, so we got the full grilled salmon treatment. I rarely remember what I ate on my trips, but that was so memorable. It was all fresh and cooked to perfection and there was no spoiling that day. I was even on-point with my photography that day (a super-rarity).

Photogenic Jay

After lunch, we hopped on a cruise boat for the standard, tourist trip through the fjords. That was … lame, but also hysterical. It’s kinda hard to get excited about tufted puffins or sea lions from 20′ up the side of a boat, when a couple of hours ago you were paddling right alongside them. So the group of us sat in the middle of the deck and chatted for the duration.

My trip to Alaska was, by far, the highlight of all my park trips. I need to go back, visit the panhandle, Aniakchak, and more. It’s a big state with a lot of parks, and I only hit the few with the most … tourists.

Tourists Marvel at the Wonders of Bird Shit Rock

[The photos on this post are mine and copyrighted thusly].

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Links:

Kenai Fjords National Park

Google Maps

Fox Island Kayaking

My Kenai Fjords Photos

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