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“Only God Can Create A National Park”
There has been a persistent sense among many Americans that national parks are special places, even sacred. It was Horace Albright, the second Director of the National Park Service, who said in 1930 that “Only God can create a national park.” Such theologically tinged interpretations, of course, borrow on the leftover patriotism of nineteenth-century Manifest Destiny. This story of the…

The challenge of summer gardens in the American south
“Why do we have a garden?” we ask ourselves when the weather makes working in the yard a sweltering pain. For food, for exercise, for meditative relaxation.

A tree fell in the forest, and many were there to hear it
This week a rotten tree fell hard in the forest. Many thousands were there to witness its undoing, but no one heard the crash. Not even the tree realized it had fallen.

The Religious and Spiritual Appeal of National Parks
Religious elements of national parks may not be obvious, but visitors’ experiences rely to some extent on traditions of religious travel and religio-aesthetic interpretations.

Wilderness of Hope
Wilderness is a fantasy of human desires born of a false binary of wild nature without people. But imagining wilderness might deliver us to a new geography of hope.

Detourist
A detourist is a disrupted tourist. She disrupts the conventions, values, aesthetics, and purposes of the tourist mentality.