Wilderness Etiquette - Enos A. Mills

"Wilderness Etiquette"

by Enos A. Mills

from "Rocky Mountain National Park"

    "It is better to let the wild beast run,
        To let the wild bird fly.
    Each harbours best in its native nest
        Even as you and I."

A change for the better is slowly coming over the conduct of those who camp. But, after all, this is a critical time for the wilderness, and the active assistance of all nature lovers is needed to keep its beauty unimpaired and to perpetuate our parks and wild places of recreation. We still have some splendid fringes and fragments of wilderness, but many of these places are being impaired and endangered through misuse. The frontier is gone and the outdoors of yesterday is almost extinct. Often the wilderness is mistreated as though worthless, no man's land.
    Better manners in campers is a need of the hour. Our recreation places are being steadily used by ever-increasing numbers of people, and these places need more thoughtful care from all users that they may con-tinue ever fresh and wild. To ruin our scenic resources is to rob the future and to injure ourselves.
    A temporary camp often leaves a permanent, ugly scar in the wilderness—destruction and defacement. During an outing many people simply forget their manners and run amuck; often they are as destructive and as irresponsible as children. Notwithstanding they are uninvited though welcome guests to Nature's garden, their conduct is selfish and bad. Although most of this recklessness is thoughtless exuberance and but little of it wanton, its effect is none the less ruinous. Living trees are hacked, carved, peeled, and sometimes burned at the stake. Song birds are shot and hope-filled nests used as targets. Wild flowers are treated as though they were pernicious weeds. A general persecution is extended to every living thing. Many of the frightened wild folk flee for their lives, and I am sure that the trees, too, would escape if they could. At times, I suppose, trees cannot avoid reflecting concerning the conduct of campers and no doubt often look scornfully down on these barbarous, migrating animals, proud of the fact that they are above them!
    One of the best guides I have known was a celebrated Yellowstone Park guide with whom I camped for a few days one summer. He had horse sense, was a genius for being ever vigilant, and the only people I ever heard him denounce were those who mistreated horses. His wilderness etiquette was faultless. Under his direction all camp refuse was burned or buried; no scars, no junk, no remains of mutilation were left in sight. A New York lawyer who gave a picnic dinner by a campfire in the wilds won his hearty approval. The camp site was so carefully cleaned that only an expert trailer could have discovered that it had ever been used. The fire had been made upon a flat outcropping rock. At the close of the feast every scrap was buried, the rock brushed, and the ashes also buried.
    In every region visited by picnickers and campers the problem is to prevent the mutilation or the destruction of the attractions, and to keep the region free of refuse. Visitors as well as local people can help maintain the charm and cleanness of our outing wildernesses by burying or burning all camp refuse—tin cans, lunch boxes, bags, and chocolate papers.
    The cutting of the picturesque and ancient trees at timberline, the uprooting and the excessive gathering of wild flowers, have already seriously scarred many near-by places of enjoyment.
    Whenever requested, children cheerfully respond and do their best to leave camp sites clean and unscarred. Realizing that elder folk will also help, this appeal is made to them. It is easy to understand that an enemy of our country should want to destroy its attractiveness. Everyone may show his love of native land without desiring to kill a foreign foe. We believe that every good American will respond to the general appeal now being made throughout the land to protect and perpetuate our parks and wild-garden outing places.
    The kodak is helping to save the wilderness. It is one of the most influential factors in promoting a more rational and refined view of the flowers, the birds, and the trees. It throws the robe of beauty artistically over everything. Through it the search is led for Nature's best; it reveals fairylands and develops an appreciation of the beautiful. The carrier of the kodak finds inspiration in Nature's garden and unconsciously becomes its protector. The kodak carrier is never cursed by those who follow after. It requires more skill to focus a kodak than a rifle upon big game; the triumphs of picture-taking are infinitely greater than the triumphs of the trigger. Picture-taking will help soften and subdue the savage heart of man; it is destined to displace the rifle in outdoor literature, and will help the wilderness win our hearts. Some time the rifle's deadly echo will fade for the last time from the endless melody of the wild, while Nature's grand and varied bugle song will ebb and flow on forever.
    One evening, after a day on the heights among crags and stained snowdrifts, I descended into the forest with the intention of camping alone on the shore of a small alpine lake. By chance there arrived at this secluded lake during the afternoon three separate camping parties, all of whom were busy establishing camps when I appeared. While enjoying supper with one set of campers, two strangers from the nearest campfire came with the request that everyone assemble at dark near their tent to enjoy a big bonfire. A score of people gathered to see the lighting.
    A large pile of dead logs and limbs awaited the torch. This pile—a funeral pyre—was against the base of a veteran spruce that stood alone in a narrow grassy strip between the woods and the lake. While trying to decide how to save the tree from fiery, torturous death a lady from the third camp walked calmly away from the group. At a few yards she stopped and gazed upward at the top of the doomed spruce. In a moment she had every guessing as to the height of the spruce; then there was a rush and merry jostling over the waiting firewood as everyone tried to measure the diameter of the old tree. The guesses concerning the probable age of this veteran tree indicated a general and pathetic ignorance of all the pathos and poetry of forest life. At last it occurred to someone that a bonfire at the base might kill the spruce. In this momen-tary silence which followed this suggestion, someone declared the lake shore was the place of places for a campfire—that the water would reflect the movements of both flames and smoke and show changes and shadings. The woodpile was moved. Eagerly the fire blazed and gushed by the water's edge. While it burned and faded, our heroine told of the struggles which trees make with the elements and with insects, of their adventurous lives and their romantic seed-sowing for the life to come. Everyone walked away from the fading embers of the fire with sympathy for the forest.
    Often I have wished that there might be an effective sign or suggestive quotation that would agreeably linger in the minds of all, and ever kindly counsel the protection of the wild plants and animals. I wish that everyone might vividly imagine that the bended limbs above the arched and leafy entrances to the woods ever shaped themselves into these assuring words: "Health and hope for all who enter here," and, that once within the mellow-lighted and peaceful place, all would responsively hear the treetops whispering: "These are your fountains and gardens of life; kindly assist in keeping them."

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