This Spring quarter my main project focused on the Commodification of Nature and Land Use Policy. My medium for conveying ideas and concepts was the E-journal WordPress page. I regularly wrote two to three page essays on different readings. My bibliography can be found on my E-Journal and Zotero. I used images captured on my job, to convey a visual of concepts and ideas found in my writing.

Here are a few examples of my essays from the Land Use Policy section of my project page:

“The Organic Act of 1916 established a government entity for the management of specific plots of land set aside for conservation. “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that there is hereby created in the Department of the Interior a service to be called the National Park Service, which shall be under the charge of a director, who shall be appointed by the Secretary and who shall receive a salary of $4,500 per annum” (Organic Act 1916). To many, even today, it was heroic achievement on the behalf of “wild” conservation. But wilderness is a lie. It assumes that no human inhabits a piece of land, not in the past or now. It is a false narrative”. (The Organic Act).

“Alternative Six: The NPS Preferred Alternative. This alternative is the one preferred by the National Park Service. The daily quotas for vessels would stay the same as the current limits. The daily quotas for cruise ships would be 2 per day, 3 per day for tours, and 6 per day for charters. There would be a daily quota of 25 for private vessels. This option would factor in extra day use permits increasing the possibility of day use quotas for cruise ships during heavy use. Dundas Bay would remain closed year around to cruises, while allowing one tour a day. The season for cruise ships would increase for by two months, May-September. The vessel speed regulations would change as well, it would change how vessel speed is measured and speed limit in temporary whale waters. The speed would be measured by “through the water” (F.I.S 30), vessels over or equal to 262 feet would be restricted to 13 knots, and 20 knots for those less than 262 feet. The restrictions on cruise vessel destinations would be lifted somewhat, it would add two more places” (Vessel Quotas).

“In the years following the ANCSA there were many attempts to pass a bill in Congress for use of the set aside land. As you can imagine oil, timber, mining, and gas corporations fought tooth and nail not to see any of them passed. It became so strained that nearing the end of the 5-year period in which Congress had to designate the land, President Carter was forced to use the Antiquities Act to designate 56 million acres for National Monuments. The move was not a very popular one especially for those living in Alaska, many of them participated in civil disobedience against the Presidential Order” (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act).

The other section of my project was considering the commodification of nature, as an experience. This part of the project considered the ways in which we experience nature and the term wilderness. There are four essays on this topic, here are examples:

“Sublime landscapes must provoke fear without being afraid. As Richmond Eustis put it “To provoke fear in the onlooker is to provoke an interest—specifically the interest of getting away and never again being in such a situation. To be truly sublime, there must be fearfulness without fear. But without the ability to provoke fear in the onlooker, the sublime cannot occur” (Eustis 25). There is no better definition for guiding in Alaska than that. When our vessel pulls up to Margie Glacier, an actively caving glacier in Glacier Bay, there is no fear of the glacier as the guest are safe a warm on the vessel. Still, Margie Glacier is fearful. The rumbling deep sound of massive ice banging together echoes around the cove, ice towers the size of mountains break off into the water, tidal waves make the boat roll back and forth, and the dramatic freshly craved rock is laid bare to showcase the true power of glaciers. Seeing a glacier from a vessel 150 feet in length epitomizes fear without fear. The human mind can imagine what it must be like trapped inside a glacier without ever facing any sort of life threating danger” (Commodification of the Wilderness Experience).

“The idea of an undeveloped wild place is extremely appealing to those who live in the throes of urban industrialization. But showcasing a tract of land as undeveloped is incorrect and irresponsible. It speaks to the idea that humans started destroying the earth when agriculture was invented. “In this view the farm becomes the first and most important battlefield in the long war against wild nature, and all else follows in its wake. From such a starting place, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that the only way human beings can hope to live naturally on earth is to follow the hunter-gatherers back into a wilderness Eden and abandon virtually everything that civilization has given us” (Cronon 14). Undeveloped land is that pristine space where no human hands have toiled and worked. It creates a chasm a mile wide between those who work the land in rural places, and those who live in the Urban centers far removed from that land” (The Trouble with Wilderness Part 2).

“Mid to late 19^th century, the concept of wilderness as the devil’s territory flipped. It became the place where you could see the face of God. The likes of John Muir and Thoreau became conduits for rushing in the new concept of wilderness, no longer dark and dreary, it was likened to Eden itself. It became Heaven on Earth. “To gain such remarkable influence, the concept of wilderness had to become loaded with some of the deepest core values of the culture that created and idealized it: it had to become sacred. This possibility had been present in wilderness even in the days when it had been a place of spiritual danger and moral temptation. If Satan was there, then so was Christ, who had found angels as well as wild beasts during His sojourn in the desert” (Cronon 4). Those core values though were only given to very specific geological structures: mountaintops, waterfalls, the chasms, the rainbow, sunsets and sunrises. These are the sublime features where you could see the face of God” (The Trouble with Wilderness Part 1).

This quarter project was focused on the history of National Parks, specifically Glacier Bay National Park, and how they operate today. It was also a chance for me to test the ideas of capitalism economics against the Outdoor industry.

This quarter, along with readings, I had the chance to work in the wilderness guiding sector. We operated out of Glacier Bay two to three times a week. So, everything I learned though my readings was actualized in real life. I have and continue to see how the outdoor industry commodified the wilderness experience. I hope that though reading land policies with a critical eye, I will be able to apply this skill into my future career.