Remembering that sense of place

My latest newspaper column:

On many occasions as a nature-observing traveler, I’ve had the pleasure of catching a place’s spirit. Among the places that stand out:

–        The summit of Wright Peak in New York’s Adirondack Park;

–        The hike through the Grove of the Patriarchs in Mt. Rainer National Park, Washington State;

–        Watching, with binoculars and a spotting scope, the spring migration crowd near the Platte River in Nebraska of sandhill cranes;

–        My first sighting – near Long Pond in Monroe County – of a bronze copper butterfly;

–        Fly-fishing at Harbor Lake deep within the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho (http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/sc/recreation/fcronr/fcronrindex.shtml);

–        My first time sitting on a rock at the North Lookout at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary near Kempton, Pa.;

–        Learning the fine art of canoeing on wetland ponds within the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in southeastern Idaho;

–        Peering through the fog enveloping Cape St. Mary in Newfoundland and catching glimpses there of nesting northern gannets and black-legged kittiwakes.

–        Cross-country skiing on fresh Adirondack snow during the winter of 1987-88 after work at Plattsburgh Air Force Base, N.Y.

–        Watching – for more than one hour straight – a northern wheatear bird hoping about on the rocks of the easternmost point in North America, Cape Spear in Newfoundland. (Read about this place at http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nl/spear/index.aspx).

That last experience – always done with the Doug, the KC-135 pilot that lived next door at the time – always stirs in me some stirring memories of the spirit of wild land and wild nature, catching the spirit of both.

My last trip to the Adirondacks more than a year ago with Monica, my wife, included a drive through part of the city of Plattsburgh and a stopover at what used to be the Air Force base and is now a civilian airport. Still on display near the entrance to today’s Plattsburgh International Airport is the B-47 known from its nose art as “The Pride of the Adirondacks.” Back in the 1960s, the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command maintained several squadrons’ worth of Stratojets at the North County base. The “spirit” bomber is the Air Force Museum-sanctioned display bird, a signal to passersby of the former base’s rich history.

In today’s world of video games, around-the-clock TV, mind-numbing commuting while strapped inside a hunk of steel, plastic and rubber, and the blight of billboards and endless acres of parking lots, many people no longer seek a sense of place and the spirit hiding in plain view at natural areas.

My three years at Plattsburgh were made special by the presence on the horizon of mountains clothed in boreal forests, and the realization that more than half of that natural land was – and still is – owned by the public. In this corner of Pennsylvania, the landscape – increasingly so – has been converted from wild nature – spirit – to the soulless dullness of sprawl and cul-de-sacs.

I often think of my time in the uniform of the Air Force as a career dedicated to preserving and defending the American landscape. When one’s travels include lengthy stays in other countries, the richness and spirit of the home country becomes even more evident.

I’m certain that some people would simply accuse me of daydreaming and of being overly nostalgic. Maybe so, but I don’t get that sense of spirit when considering the increasingly paved-over world we inhabit today. Let me know what you think. But remember what real “spirit” is all about.