After several weeks of very unseasonable weather (i.e., 10-30 F above long term average), we’re now back, for a few days anyway to typical early spring. Here that means temps in the 30s to 40s F and snow on the ground.
That made me wonder about how weather helps define someone’s sense of place. For instance, I’ve always liked winter so I like places with reliable winters. I don’t think that’s a sign of a mental disorder (although Silent Snow, Secret Snow is still strongly in my memory from reading it once as an assigned reading in middle school). I think it has more to do with many fond memories of winter activities, such as sledding during snow days off from school, pond skating, and skiing. Conversely it may be due to my dislike of ice storms and slush. Let’s keep it all frozen all winter and have one thaw (Ice-9 anyone?).
So I enjoy living where there is consistent snow cover in winter and up here I have a lot of company in that way of thinking. Sometimes it’s nice to be with like-minded people. When we’d get our periodic snows in Ft. Collins and I’d hear people talk about hating snow, it made me sad and it made me wonder why in the world they’d choose to live somewhere that gets frequent snow (these were not place-bound people, these were people who intentionally chose to live there, but apparently for reasons other than snow).
I’d have to check with the experts in psychology-of-place (and there’s bound to be grad programs in it and at least two academic journals devoted to it), but I would think that the weather of a place has some bearing on the type of people who live there. Do the wild swings of mid-continental weather (80+F one day -10 F the next) make people optimistic or would it make them grouchy? Does the stereotypical southern California laid-back lifestyle come from their lack of weather worries? Conversely, there’s the stereotype of snow-country residents as self-reliant and un-excitable. I think there’s something to the latter. Unlike the air travelers who get angry at the airlines about snow delays, those of us who live with winter realize that nature rules. If we get snowed in for a day or two, we enjoy the time off. We don’t go crazy thinking we simply must go out. A day or two of being stuck at home (OK, not at an airport) is a nice break from the routine for otherwise healthy people who like the people they live with.
Obviously some people choose where to live based on weather. But we need to look beyond those choosing the sunbelt to avoid ‘bad’ weather. Some people like cooler climates. Some of us enjoy snow. There are fans of thunderstorms. Some people like drizzle and fog. There may even be people whose favorite weather is high winds with hail. It’s an ill wind, and all that. Your weather likes and dislikes are likely colored by how you associate weather with other things and events in a place. How does your place’s weather figure into your sense of place?
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Local Talent
A place can be special because of the local visual and performing artists. And you don’t have to live in Sante Fe or Interlochen to have art as a part of your place. Your local place is sure to have local musicians, artists, a local theater group. Does it make your place special and unique? Do you take advantage of that?
Here in Sault Michigan we have a thriving arts community. The Alberta House showcases local visual arts. We have several theater groups. The Soo Theater Project (the group that’s restoring the old Soo Theater) has classes for visual and performing arts. Our high school has an excellent arts program and music programs (I hope we can continue funding art and music despite the fact that there’s no State Assessment Test for arts and that some people say ‘These kids aren’t going to become professional artists and musicians so why are we offering those classes?’). We have a large number of local musicians. The Sugar Island Music Fest is one venue for these local musicians as are other civic events and, shall we say, local hospitality businesses. Our local native American tribes also add a unique dimension to our visual art and music.
Whether it's kids doing covers of their favorite national acts or local, traditional musicians whose art is informed by their place, the availability of local music adds to the value of our communities. Support your local musicians.
I'm reminded of when I lived in Hays, Kansas, I enjoyed the works of one of the local visual artists who sculpts in limestone. The local limestone is part of the place. It’s a common building material for some iconic structures in the area. It was used for fenceposts by early settlers. That history added to the appreciation of Mr. Felton’s sculptures.
One of our visual artists here, Mary Demroske, does very nice sketches of lighthouses. We have prints of several of her sketches. The art adds to our appreciation of the sites and vice versa.
Just as food nourishes your body, arts nourish your spirit. Just as the local farmers market lets you get to know the people who grow your food, the local art scene lets you get to know the people who make your art. I enjoy talking to the artists just as I enjoy talking to the food growers. I’d like to hear about how local talent makes your place special.
Here in Sault Michigan we have a thriving arts community. The Alberta House showcases local visual arts. We have several theater groups. The Soo Theater Project (the group that’s restoring the old Soo Theater) has classes for visual and performing arts. Our high school has an excellent arts program and music programs (I hope we can continue funding art and music despite the fact that there’s no State Assessment Test for arts and that some people say ‘These kids aren’t going to become professional artists and musicians so why are we offering those classes?’). We have a large number of local musicians. The Sugar Island Music Fest is one venue for these local musicians as are other civic events and, shall we say, local hospitality businesses. Our local native American tribes also add a unique dimension to our visual art and music.
Whether it's kids doing covers of their favorite national acts or local, traditional musicians whose art is informed by their place, the availability of local music adds to the value of our communities. Support your local musicians.
I'm reminded of when I lived in Hays, Kansas, I enjoyed the works of one of the local visual artists who sculpts in limestone. The local limestone is part of the place. It’s a common building material for some iconic structures in the area. It was used for fenceposts by early settlers. That history added to the appreciation of Mr. Felton’s sculptures.
One of our visual artists here, Mary Demroske, does very nice sketches of lighthouses. We have prints of several of her sketches. The art adds to our appreciation of the sites and vice versa.
Just as food nourishes your body, arts nourish your spirit. Just as the local farmers market lets you get to know the people who grow your food, the local art scene lets you get to know the people who make your art. I enjoy talking to the artists just as I enjoy talking to the food growers. I’d like to hear about how local talent makes your place special.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Scents of Place
Scent is the most evocative sense. An aroma can take you back many years and thousands of miles. For a brief time, I lived in a steel town. I presently live in a steel town. Every now and then, there’s an aroma (well, OK, an odor) that brings flashback memories of that earlier place. More pleasantly, sometimes the aroma of baking bread take me back to that same earlier place. It wasn’t all steel town smells. It was also small neighborhood bakery aromas.
Not all aromas trigger that kind of flashback. When I smell feedlot, it doesn’t take me back to towns in the Great Plains. I have pleasant memories of my times there, but feedlot smell wasn't one of them and so apparently doesn't trigger the nice memories. It just triggers a 'yuck.' For a few years, I lived in Fargo, close enough to the sugar beet plant to catch a whiff of that from time to time. My time in Fargo was quite enjoyable but I’ve not been near a sugar beet plant since then to see if that smell would take my mind back to Fargo.
Natural scents here in Michigan’s Eastern Upper Peninsula include the pleasant aroma of peatlands in the spring and summer. It’s a bit of a decaying vegetation smell but it really is much more pleasant than that description makes it out to be. Maybe my pleasant association with the peatland aroma is from enjoying my walks near the peatlands and the views across the peatlands. There’s also an aroma of the first few warm, moist spring days. I heard somewhere that that aroma is related to a soil bacterium but I’ve not looked that up to confirm it.
When communities do visioning exercises that involve listing community assets, the participants often list natural beauty, high quality natural environments, and cultural and historical features as some of the physical assets of their community. I’m not sure how often scents and aromas make the list of community assets but they should.
Not all aromas trigger that kind of flashback. When I smell feedlot, it doesn’t take me back to towns in the Great Plains. I have pleasant memories of my times there, but feedlot smell wasn't one of them and so apparently doesn't trigger the nice memories. It just triggers a 'yuck.' For a few years, I lived in Fargo, close enough to the sugar beet plant to catch a whiff of that from time to time. My time in Fargo was quite enjoyable but I’ve not been near a sugar beet plant since then to see if that smell would take my mind back to Fargo.
Natural scents here in Michigan’s Eastern Upper Peninsula include the pleasant aroma of peatlands in the spring and summer. It’s a bit of a decaying vegetation smell but it really is much more pleasant than that description makes it out to be. Maybe my pleasant association with the peatland aroma is from enjoying my walks near the peatlands and the views across the peatlands. There’s also an aroma of the first few warm, moist spring days. I heard somewhere that that aroma is related to a soil bacterium but I’ve not looked that up to confirm it.
When communities do visioning exercises that involve listing community assets, the participants often list natural beauty, high quality natural environments, and cultural and historical features as some of the physical assets of their community. I’m not sure how often scents and aromas make the list of community assets but they should.
Monday, April 5, 2010
sounds of a place
This time of year, the sounds of my place are spring peepers and woodfrogs, sandhill cranes, canada geese, woodcocks, coyotes. Sometimes I need to say to all these noisy animals 'Shut up, we're trying to enjoy nature here.'
It is nice that the sounds of our place are wildlife. I don't mind the foghorns of the boats and I have never minded a train 1/2 mile off. Those are industrial sounds that are actually evocative and so are nice in their own way. A train a few yards away would be annoying. We can also hear the freeway from about 1/2 mile off when the wind is right. That sound isn't particularly nice. No sirens anyway. If you grew up in the city but are now living in the country, would horns and sirens evoke pleasant memories like foghorns would for someone who grew up here but is now living too far inland to get that sound?
It is nice that the sounds of our place are wildlife. I don't mind the foghorns of the boats and I have never minded a train 1/2 mile off. Those are industrial sounds that are actually evocative and so are nice in their own way. A train a few yards away would be annoying. We can also hear the freeway from about 1/2 mile off when the wind is right. That sound isn't particularly nice. No sirens anyway. If you grew up in the city but are now living in the country, would horns and sirens evoke pleasant memories like foghorns would for someone who grew up here but is now living too far inland to get that sound?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
postings for 1 april 2010
Today, I pass this link on to you: naturemanrules.wordpress.com
and I’d like to say that I’m happy to post the following contribution from a colleague:
Natural Landscape Criticism
By Hugh Roberts
So this friend of mine says ‘Hugh, you gotta come see this special place of mine.’ ‘Oh, great,’ I thought, ‘another forest to traipse through.’
We get there and naturally it was just the same old thing. So clichéd. I mean the grey foliose lichens on the darker grey boulders. It’s been done to death. The odd yellow birch snags scattered in the sugar maples and the ironwood. Yawn. The coarse woody debris. So representational. Like it was put together by Frank Lloyd Wright or something.
Who am I to say that? I’m the first landscape critic. It's not a major in college yet, but just wait.
As a natural landscape critic, It’s my job to make a case for the avant- garde in natural landscapes. To get people to think beyond the typical nicey-nicey. Natural landscapes are nature’s art. Art should be challenging. Art should make us think deeply about our place in the universe. It should lead us to hard questions. Come on, nature. Show us something new. New colors. New tree architectures. New juxtapositions of geology and organisms. Challenge our sensibilities. Enough of representationalism. Shock me with something new. Where’s the Frank Gehry of natural landscapes?
and I’d like to say that I’m happy to post the following contribution from a colleague:
Natural Landscape Criticism
By Hugh Roberts
So this friend of mine says ‘Hugh, you gotta come see this special place of mine.’ ‘Oh, great,’ I thought, ‘another forest to traipse through.’
We get there and naturally it was just the same old thing. So clichéd. I mean the grey foliose lichens on the darker grey boulders. It’s been done to death. The odd yellow birch snags scattered in the sugar maples and the ironwood. Yawn. The coarse woody debris. So representational. Like it was put together by Frank Lloyd Wright or something.
Who am I to say that? I’m the first landscape critic. It's not a major in college yet, but just wait.
As a natural landscape critic, It’s my job to make a case for the avant- garde in natural landscapes. To get people to think beyond the typical nicey-nicey. Natural landscapes are nature’s art. Art should be challenging. Art should make us think deeply about our place in the universe. It should lead us to hard questions. Come on, nature. Show us something new. New colors. New tree architectures. New juxtapositions of geology and organisms. Challenge our sensibilities. Enough of representationalism. Shock me with something new. Where’s the Frank Gehry of natural landscapes?
Monday, March 29, 2010
Food of a Place
Think of what’s special about a place, and often it’s the food. Afterall, food is sensual and evocative.
Maybe that food is part of the historical culture of the place. From living in west central Kansas I have a fondness for bierocks (cabbage and ground beef in a bread pocket). It’s a favorite for Oktoberfest in Hays, Kansas and a favorite of our family even though we now live some distance from Hays. From our time in Colorado, we’re devotees of good Mexican food. Growing up in Kansas City left me with an appreciation of good BBQ.
Our present home in the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan offers its own special, local foods that help make this special place even more special.
We haven’t really taken on the Yooper staple of pasties as a family favorite but it’s a special food for many up here. For my family, it’s more what nature provides. Collecting cranberries and blueberries is an annual family adventure. The cranberry sauce we make keeps for along time and the cranberry liquour even longer. We freeze blueberries and enjoy them year ‘round. Whitefish is another special favorite for us.
I even like the chokecherries. My fondness for them may be inexplicable when I’m in a woodland that simultaneously offers blackberries. I like the blackberries, but the chokecherries remind me of when I lived in the great plains and chokecherries were the fruit nature provided.
Special food of a place includes the foods people coax from nature. NW lower Michigan is rightfully famous for its fruit and we take a few trips down there in the fall to take advantage of the cherries, peaches, pears, apples. Stops at the local wineries add to the appeal of the trip. (On the same theme, while living in Colorado, we’d go out to the west slope for peaches, oh, yes, also the wineries).
We can't grow peaches, pears and cherries very well up here in the Eastern UP. Cold, wet, clay soils and short growing seasons doesn’t make for ideal growing conditions for very many fruits. But with timely rains in a warm summer, even here one can entice a garden to produce some great food. I've never had an easier time growing peas!
The French understand the food of a place. They understand that each place’s unique soils, climate, geography, and agricultural practices produce unique flavors of foods. Terroir is the French term for sense of place applied to food. It’s most expressed in the appellation controlee for wines. Single estate coffee and now single estate chocolate follow the same idea. The European Community protects the ‘brands’ of foods of place. The fact that only cheese made in Parma, Italy can be sold as Parmesan in the European Community is just one of hundreds of examples. That’s about as opposite of the homogenizing influence of national restaurant chains as one can get.
One doesn’t need government regulations to enjoy the special, unique foods of a region. So enjoy your local foods. Support your local farmer’s markets. Or grow some of your own. Our communities would all be better off if people spent more of their time baking and gardening.
A note about food miles. One of the arguments for local foods is to reduce the food miles – the distance food traveled from farm to your plate – and presumably the carbon footprint of your food. I’m all for fair international trade, and like to have access to bananas and coffee, but come on Dole and WalMart, do the canned peaches sold in WalMart here in Michigan really have to come from China? (I’ve made a hobby of reading labels for origin of foods.) The most extreme case I saw a few years ago was lake whitefish, labeled “wild caught in Canada, product of China.” That experiment apparently was not sustainable.
But there are limits to the food miles argument. It can be less energy-intense to truck fruits in from an area I which they can be grown under the sun than to grow them in heated greenhouses. The critics of the local food concept like to point that out.
By that argument, we shouldn’t cook our own food from scratch. It’s got to be more efficient to have the big plant make chicken nuggets for us to microwave than for each of us to heat up our own ovens to cook our own chicken and then discard the bones and other bits when we’re done. At the chicken nugget factory, every part of the chicken is used as a resource, not much is thrown away. And the nuggets are even made from parts of the chicken we maybe don’t always use (I admit I don’t make chicken stock every time I bake a chicken and even when I do, the bones eventually get discarded).
No thanks, chicken nuggets, I’ll invest some energy use and maybe generate some discarded bones by cooking my own. And I’ll look for locally produced foods.
Food connects you to your place. And the farther away your food is grown (literally or figuratively) the more detached you become from the food and from your place. That’s how kids end up not knowing where there food comes from, or, as shown on a recent TV show, can’t even identify vegetables. (On that show the kids knew French fries, but couldn’t identify a potato.) Whether you call it terroir or just call it support for local foods, the result is the same. Appreciate the specialness of foods from your place. And share your ideas of foods from your place. I'd love to hear them.
Maybe that food is part of the historical culture of the place. From living in west central Kansas I have a fondness for bierocks (cabbage and ground beef in a bread pocket). It’s a favorite for Oktoberfest in Hays, Kansas and a favorite of our family even though we now live some distance from Hays. From our time in Colorado, we’re devotees of good Mexican food. Growing up in Kansas City left me with an appreciation of good BBQ.
Our present home in the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan offers its own special, local foods that help make this special place even more special.
We haven’t really taken on the Yooper staple of pasties as a family favorite but it’s a special food for many up here. For my family, it’s more what nature provides. Collecting cranberries and blueberries is an annual family adventure. The cranberry sauce we make keeps for along time and the cranberry liquour even longer. We freeze blueberries and enjoy them year ‘round. Whitefish is another special favorite for us.
I even like the chokecherries. My fondness for them may be inexplicable when I’m in a woodland that simultaneously offers blackberries. I like the blackberries, but the chokecherries remind me of when I lived in the great plains and chokecherries were the fruit nature provided.
Special food of a place includes the foods people coax from nature. NW lower Michigan is rightfully famous for its fruit and we take a few trips down there in the fall to take advantage of the cherries, peaches, pears, apples. Stops at the local wineries add to the appeal of the trip. (On the same theme, while living in Colorado, we’d go out to the west slope for peaches, oh, yes, also the wineries).
We can't grow peaches, pears and cherries very well up here in the Eastern UP. Cold, wet, clay soils and short growing seasons doesn’t make for ideal growing conditions for very many fruits. But with timely rains in a warm summer, even here one can entice a garden to produce some great food. I've never had an easier time growing peas!
The French understand the food of a place. They understand that each place’s unique soils, climate, geography, and agricultural practices produce unique flavors of foods. Terroir is the French term for sense of place applied to food. It’s most expressed in the appellation controlee for wines. Single estate coffee and now single estate chocolate follow the same idea. The European Community protects the ‘brands’ of foods of place. The fact that only cheese made in Parma, Italy can be sold as Parmesan in the European Community is just one of hundreds of examples. That’s about as opposite of the homogenizing influence of national restaurant chains as one can get.
One doesn’t need government regulations to enjoy the special, unique foods of a region. So enjoy your local foods. Support your local farmer’s markets. Or grow some of your own. Our communities would all be better off if people spent more of their time baking and gardening.
A note about food miles. One of the arguments for local foods is to reduce the food miles – the distance food traveled from farm to your plate – and presumably the carbon footprint of your food. I’m all for fair international trade, and like to have access to bananas and coffee, but come on Dole and WalMart, do the canned peaches sold in WalMart here in Michigan really have to come from China? (I’ve made a hobby of reading labels for origin of foods.) The most extreme case I saw a few years ago was lake whitefish, labeled “wild caught in Canada, product of China.” That experiment apparently was not sustainable.
But there are limits to the food miles argument. It can be less energy-intense to truck fruits in from an area I which they can be grown under the sun than to grow them in heated greenhouses. The critics of the local food concept like to point that out.
By that argument, we shouldn’t cook our own food from scratch. It’s got to be more efficient to have the big plant make chicken nuggets for us to microwave than for each of us to heat up our own ovens to cook our own chicken and then discard the bones and other bits when we’re done. At the chicken nugget factory, every part of the chicken is used as a resource, not much is thrown away. And the nuggets are even made from parts of the chicken we maybe don’t always use (I admit I don’t make chicken stock every time I bake a chicken and even when I do, the bones eventually get discarded).
No thanks, chicken nuggets, I’ll invest some energy use and maybe generate some discarded bones by cooking my own. And I’ll look for locally produced foods.
Food connects you to your place. And the farther away your food is grown (literally or figuratively) the more detached you become from the food and from your place. That’s how kids end up not knowing where there food comes from, or, as shown on a recent TV show, can’t even identify vegetables. (On that show the kids knew French fries, but couldn’t identify a potato.) Whether you call it terroir or just call it support for local foods, the result is the same. Appreciate the specialness of foods from your place. And share your ideas of foods from your place. I'd love to hear them.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Negative space
When I think of sense-of-place, I think of positive emotional attachment to our places. In my work in conservation and community sustainability (and even in my work in public health), I see how a positive sense of place can motivate people to work toward conserving what’s good about their places.
But what if your place is not good? What if your place is toxic from chemical contaminants? Or had its landscape disjointed beyond recognition through mountain top removal?
You’d need a sense of some other place or of your place in the past. But you’d especially need a strong sense of your place in the future and the optimism to get you there to motivate you to build your place up not just from scratch but from scratch minus. It'd be too easy to give up on a place.
Some of us get to choose where we live and pick nice spots. Some don’t get to choose. It takes one kind of activism to keep a nice place nice and another kind of activism to restore a place from damaged-beyond-recognition to nice. I think I’m more the first type. I’m glad there are others out there of the second type.
But what if your place is not good? What if your place is toxic from chemical contaminants? Or had its landscape disjointed beyond recognition through mountain top removal?
You’d need a sense of some other place or of your place in the past. But you’d especially need a strong sense of your place in the future and the optimism to get you there to motivate you to build your place up not just from scratch but from scratch minus. It'd be too easy to give up on a place.
Some of us get to choose where we live and pick nice spots. Some don’t get to choose. It takes one kind of activism to keep a nice place nice and another kind of activism to restore a place from damaged-beyond-recognition to nice. I think I’m more the first type. I’m glad there are others out there of the second type.
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