Welcome to Tuolumne meadows and Parsons Memorial Lodge
and the Parsons Memorial Lodge Summer
Series of the year 2020. This is a memorable one I'll always
remember that I'm adding a mask to my uniform. My name is Karen
Amstutz I'm the Lead Naturalist and Supervisory
Ranger here in Tuolumne Meadows
for the Yosemite National Park and it is my
honor and pleasure to be standing here on this rug
right now where so many have stood before me. My body
floods with memories they're etched in my bones
like tablets the memories of people that I would see as I walked up here
the memories of speakers who have said things that have penetrated me so deeply
that it's changed the way I act the way I'm inspired.
Some of you who are watching today have inspired me in this way
every year when I come out here so I want to thank
all of you for being here today and making this this space
fill with ideas as it was meant to be. This lodge was built in 1915.
it's about 105 years ago and it was built to commemorate the first Sierra
Club President Edward Taylor Parsons. It was built to commemorate protection
of land protection of what we love and when we
love something we'll do anything to protect
it and that's the spirit that I want to conjure here today.
There's so many things that we're working hard to
protect so many things that we're filling ourselves with
these days as we long to be in places like Tuolumne Meadows
we long to feel that bright sun to see the sunset and
change the mountains to pink to hear the marmots warning of a hawk coming.
Sometimes we can't be in places that we long to be in
but yet here we are because Parsons Memorial Lodge Summer Series the
28th annual has been made real by a lot of effort
and I want to thank some people for making this effort come to light.
First I'd like to thank to the Yosemite National Park and the National Park Service
for supporting this program for letting
us do this. I'd like to thank the Yosemite
Conservancy and their donors for giving to this effort that's been going on.
I'd like to thank my predecessor Margaret Eissler for coming up with this
idea in 1992 and for filling this room after this
building had been closed for so many years
I'd like to thank the Friends of Parsons Lodge which include all of you
watching paying attention waiting. I'd like to thank my staff the indelible
staff who showed up here to work this summer
who I couldn't do this without and I'd like to thank
Ryan Christensen and Bristlecone Media for making this video project
come to life and get out into the world where it can be be there with you.
And with that I'd like to introduce our speaker this second day
Craig Childs who said yes when I asked him to come he came all the
way from Colorado where he lives in a high mountain town on the eastern
or western slope of the Rocky Mountains
and wanders the desert he's a great
adventurer he's come across so many surprising
things fuel and food for stories that he writes
he's created some of my favorite books and some of many of our favorite books
he's a storyteller he's a father he's a friend to many other adventurers a
former river guide I could go on but you must check him out on on some of
the podcasts he's been on as well as reading his books
one of the most notable is the the podcast for Radio Lab about the seed
jar just wait for the seed jar and with that
I'd like to introduce and welcome and thank Craig Childs.
It's quieter than usual in Yosemite with all that's been happening in the
last several months quarantines and lockdowns
not as many people are up here and you might think that nature would be
filling the space back in like water but it's always been here it's not filling
in the space that that is absent this this space has
always been filled by by the trees the lodgepole pines
the rivers flowing through the clouds rolling up into
into thunderheads and these mountains scraped and carved by glaciers
it seems like we are the the smaller influence here we are the the minor
presence and especially now it feels that way but I
think that's why we come to places like this to Yosemite
or or anywhere in the world where it's not
just us we come to places where it's
it's something bigger than us something that doesn't smell of humans
something that isn't made for our scale this
is made on a geologic scale and what lives here
is not is is not the human world what lives here
is the animal world they are the people they have always been
the people in places like this
when I travel out here I think I recognize that that
I am part of this but I am also I'm also
someone who doesn't live here someone who is is
visiting and and uh when I mean you just see a ground squirrel run across and you
know this is their world you see bear scat off in the woods and
you know this is where they live and and I get these
glimpses but I wonder what these lives are how
far these lives go where are the deer migrating from season
to season where are the bears sleeping where do the elk
bed down I look for the places that are animal that are part of the
animal landscape just a few days ago
I was backpacking with my boys my teenage boys
through the redwoods and out to the sea not too far from
from Santa Cruz and and days of being in these
giant trees ancient fortresses and and we're we live in the high desert
in southwest Colorado so being in a place like that is just
life coming out of everything water flowing around us
waterfalls and seeps and pools it's like this
tour of of all living things and we walked down a creek
to the sea and it opened up clouds rolling in off of the Pacific
that smell of sea water coming up to us and we
we took off our boots and walked out into the surf
and the the sand was just kind of every time a wave would come up the sand would
be boiling with tiny little isopods that
were they were digging underneath the sand and and we scoop
them up into our hands and we're looking at these
these fantastic creatures wild other planet kind of creatures and
turning them over looking at their shells and maybe
asking the question that maybe is hubris
classic of being human of saying 'do you know what I am? Do you have any
idea I've just picked you up? And then I think
huh maybe the isopod is thinking the same
thing is looking at me going do you know what
I am do you have any idea do you know what
world I see and we're picking up shells and we're
picking up sand dollars all this life washed up onto the coastline.
These places where life exists where
animals are are moving and breathing you know we we think of them as as maybe
just being here in Yosemite just being in some natural
magical wonderland but they are everywhere
you see animals all the time you see birds flying through the streets in
between buildings they are the people they have always
been the people we don't get away from them maybe we
barricade ourselves we live in our lives we we insulate
ourselves and and we think that the world is about
humans we think that this is all made for us
built for us it is for us to manipulate and
we forget that that we are one percent if that much of what is living on Earth
in fact we are such a minor percentage we have a
major impact but as as a species
we're just one of millions. When I was up in the redwoods I was
encountering banana slugs and I was there with my kids and
yes we have licked banana slugs before you have to try it just give them a
a deep lick across across their back and then your your tongue
starts to tingle. I figure you do that once and you don't really have to do it again.
So we didn't do it this time but we
ended up following them around you see there
there are silvery paths going through the forest and
and I found one you know about that long and and I set down my pen next to it
for scale and took a picture and then the banana slug
turned around and got on top of my pen and and I watched it
for I'd say half an hour as it explored my
pen and and I'm trying to I'm imagining what it's seeing because
it's eye stocks are going out as it moves ahead and you know
even though they move so slowly when their eye stocks are really going
forward it feels like an unbridled horse just
breaking into the world going forward and from my perspective
moving very slowly exploring every eighth of an inch of my pen and when it
got up around the clicker end of my pen it wrapped
around the clicker and I thought 'Oh it's going to write something what would
it tell me what would it say what story
what do these creatures think how do they see the world?
It turned around and it came down my pen again
just exploring it and it had a face if you look closely at them you see that
their faces are moving eye stalks going out coming back
and it went down the length of my pen and then wandered back
into the forest to do whatever that banana slug was doing in its life.
And did it know I was there did it know that was a thing of mine
what did it feel?
We imagine sometimes that we are the only ones who feel
we are the only ones with emotion with senses with sentience
yet you look at how tender these small slugs are or maybe not so small slugs
and they have a relationship with the world around them
when their eye touches something it darts back quickly and you realize
they feel they think in whatever way a banana slug can think
animals live in this world they are everywhere all around us and
it's not just the big animals not just the mountain
lions the elk the bear it is everything it is the fly on your
windowsill you are encountering a wild animal every
day a wild animal is a beetle in your hand
it is a swallow nesting above your front door. These stories
these animals are telling are being they're they're telling their stories
all the time. They go into their dens in the winter the bears and they hibernate.
Do they dream?
Well let's go inside and talk a little bit more about this.
February bear waits silent in its den a copious wood rat nest pushed up around
its back like a blanket. Outside snow is falling
dizzy with fat flakes twirling and windless air the bear
doesn't know about the storm a barometer in its
organs spaces between gut folds might register a change in
molecules ozone in the air atmospheric pressure
lifted to let in the clouds but the mind does not see it
not any more than the brain stem the reptilian part
that instructs the heart to beat hibernation is not sleep
not dreaming it is a closing of every door but the one
in and out breath so gentle it barely moves
dusty cobwebs that line the cracks a life made of sinew and seasons
carcasses scavenged other bears chased off and being chased
off itself is settled into the hole that its body
formed the shape of its body in twigs and old
bones grade feces pine cones bits of cactus
with spines bent down a male will hibernate at the
same temperature as a female not cold to the touch but not warm
reduced to the simple fact of ursus. There's no longing for the rotten logs
of summer turned over revealing countless squirming pearls
of ant larvae or the familiar scratching post of an old tree
the brain's cortex with its familiar desires
is turned off little will wake the bear a predator a larger already woken bear
clawing into this den looking for drowsy meat. Warmer times of
the year are spent in alertness for this kind of thing
a flick of the ears nose twisting the air like a finger
every follicle is awake and a fly landing at the tip of a long
guard hair causes the bear to shrug. The den is refuge from all of that a
cocoon for the winter deep hold darkness a place to curl
and be forgotten by the outside a storm would not concern the bear let
the snow pile up and drift this rock mouth wind blown
whole root cracked shared with a crowded wood
rat the more snow the quieter the world
defenses come down nothing needs to be known
the bear hears the squeak of tiny wood rat young wrestling for milk from their
mother but does not think about them thinking
is for other seasons. A shadow flickers at the mouth of the
den something is here some cells are awake enough to
detect movement not wind an animal of size footfalls
body grazing rock and blocking snow light from the outside
enough to rise from the dead rest of torpor nostrils creaking
paws twitching sinew coughing to life enough to form a dream of a question
Who is here? The umbrella was left outside
tilted over my day pack to keep the snow off I was halfway into the entrance of a
natural rock shelter its ceiling marked with black tongues
signs of ancient fire smoke it wasn't much of a space knee-high at
most but it was deep protective I wasn't thinking of an
animal inside I was thinking archaeology signs of
people high desert six thousand feet in
elevation southwest Colorado this is a human zone. I was thinking
painted hand prints or a woven basket of desert archaic
origin I've found such things in shelters like
this worth sticking in your head to find out who has been here. I poked in
on hands and knees careful where I lay palm flesh and
fingertips for the cactus pieces brought in by wood
rats to guard the space its nest had been built up taller than I
expected a hill of sticks and bones forming a
barrier bettering the chance of some piece of
archaeology remaining inside. Outside the light was almost blinding
clouds socked to the ground naughty pinyon pine sinking under a long and
steady storm of snow inside I closed my eyes a trick to
adjust to the dark bright to black
flash-blinded me crawling over the hump of a nest
reaching back from my headlamp before I could grab it I felt
warmth on my face the smell of breathing. This could have been a mountain lion den
though the blonde of a cat would have shone through
whatever was in here blended in with the dark
I willed my pupils to widen but they would only go
so fast the color cones slow to let go of daylight
black and whites detecting a shape a shadow within a shadow
something that had eyes. Memory searched for anything an
animal that absorbs light raccoon skunk porcupine for part of a second my brain
thought panther because I could see the eyes
clearer now dark holes set far apart this was no
small animal it had a ring of lighter fur around the
eyes than black. But there were no panthers living here
In that moment the face of a black bear resolved
it looked at me with aimless confusion head lifted out of the curl of its body
peering over its shoulder its furry hind between my hands on the
ground never had the expression of an animal
been so clear to me all of what we call emotions settled
into a damp perplexed expression the bear saying
no not this. In hibernation a bear does not dream
neurobiology is all but shut down internal temperature can drop to just
above freezing and the bear will survive. Not until it rises above 85 degrees does
the brain start to register activity that could be
considered dreaming above that is being awake
this bear was not awake it had to climb rungs of consciousness just to open its
eyes passing through states of awareness that
must have been veiled like a dream
excuse me I said quickly and out loud something had to be said
the bear was obviously having trouble coming to terms with what I was
a long-armed primate had just crawled into its sanctuary
I backed directly out of the clamshell space into
electrified air outside the bear's eyes receded from me
snow hissed as it fell landing with a continuous
shush. I threw on my pack and crystalline white light
and lifted my umbrella creating a hole in the storm
for two seconds maybe three there was no reason to move no sound from inside
I stared at the entrance stunned not thinking a black bear would have den
this low in elevation side of a mesa in the high desert but
how much do I know about bears where they sleep
when they wake. Snow sounded like feathers under my boots
as I walked away the bear stayed with me I could see it blinking at the space I
must have left empty in front of its nose
a scent of human but no one there the sound of a voice
the jibbering of a two-legged echoing in the vault of its head
but only quiet remains listening waiting nothing. Nose lowered to the nest
of its arm its paw a soft place to rest the bear
again made a blanket of itself and returned to forgetting.
These moments that we have with animals
there is something very sharp about this you're reaching beyond your species to
another you're making contact and maybe it's
just anthropomorphization to say oh that bear was feeling something but
you know that bear was feeling something you know that we are not the only ones
who feel there is so much more going on in the
world we slip in and we startle something
awake and it looks at us we make eye contact we are making eye
contact with another species but that doesn't
mean with something that's not sentient that
doesn't mean with something that is that is less than us aren't we all
animals out here aren't we all digging our dens and
finding our ways is the Parsons Lodge not just a den that
we made that we can curl up in?
I think we are all animals in fact I don't think there's a doubt at all
and when you encounter them sometimes they are the ones
coming to find you. I was in a sea kayak off the coast
of Prince William Sound in south central Alaska
and fog had had dropped in it was morning fog you know how it sits
on the still water the water is almost like glass
sometimes you can hear the sound of of waves hitting the rock
but mostly it's silent.
I left my family asleep in the tent on shore
and I paddled out not very far just into open water maybe
200 feet
and you know being from inland being from dry places to be in fog
is just a miracle it is magic and I put my paddle across my lap
and I leaned back on the kayak closed my eyes
and just inhaled this silence and this wetness
so quiet out there the sound of water hanging in the air and then there came
another sound a loud sound very close to me
a deep loud exhale
followed by this long deep inhale seconds long
and I could hear lungs filling I could hear the size of these lungs
something really big. I turned and looked around
couldn't see anything at all in the fog but I knew what it was I knew
that an orca had risen next to me in the water
and was just out there somewhere and maybe it was curious or maybe it saw
me from below and thought i'm going to sneak up on this guy
I'm going to take a nice long breath right next to him
and knowing that it was there yeah it was terrifying I'm not used to
big water I'm not used to whatever is under big water
under the surface I'm used to dry hard ground and what you see is what you
get out there the whole world is down
underneath you and to know that somewhere within
a stone's throw on me there was a dorsal fin standing
up and a sleek black top of a orca's body risen through the water
that is terrifying to me but there's a bigger emotion going on
there is the feeling that oh there is something else
here with me I am not alone maybe not in the I am not alone way of
being afraid but being in company of someone else
and again minutes later I heard that exhale
and I could hear the breath shooting up through the fog
and then the deep inhale the blowhole opening and the lungs filling and again
I could hear the size of this animal and it had come
to see me or be with me or make contact with me or to trick me to make
me afraid I don't know what it was but the animal
was there because I was there we were there together this giant
animal out of view in the fog and I just floated with it unable to see
it but knowing it was there
e think this world is about us we think this is a human place and it is not
we are one we are one of many of so many thinking creatures that see the
world in many different ways see the ground from the view of a
centipede see the water from the view of an orca
look at the slug as it's moving through across
the ground through the leaves look at the dot of its eye stock
make eye contact with it even if it is not an
animal that thinks the way you think or feels the way you feel
it feels the world it goes through the leaves and touches each thing
and responds to it we live in this world of animals.
Another that I encountered was a raccoon and I encountered it on
in Manhattan in Central Park which maybe is not where you would think
of encountering animals but but once you're once you know what to
look for you see animals all over the place there you see
the red-tailed hawks circling overhead you you see the the night herons that
are out you know usually we know night herons
from marshes where they're they're fishing and they're they're
plucking frogs out of the water but here they're in the grass plucking mice
and think about the coyotes that that are spotted in New York City that
come into Central Park imagine a coyote
walking across one of the bridges into the city
out on an expedition going to see what it can see
going deeper and deeper into the wilds of humanity
animals live everywhere and the raccoons in Central Park have their own societies
you see them at dusk dropping out of the trees like commandos
and heading across the ground. Now this raccoon
I encountered it as I was coming on to onto a bridge
one of those arch bridges going over a lake
and it was coming out of the woods on one side and heading
onto the bridge and I was coming on a trail from the other
we were heading the same direction and when we met with each other
we had this exchange and you know when you
you're you talk to an animal you're you know it's
it's not dr doolittle kind of stuff it's looking at an animal
and and recognizing it and the thought in my head was
hey raccoon and the raccoon looked up at me and said
at least I think it said hey human we're both going the same way so let's
just not mess with each other it was kind of a distanced relationship
but we were walking together onto this wooden bridge and as we came
across the top of the bridge a woman was walking our way and she saw the two of
us i can only imagine what was going through her head
she saw the raccoon and looked terrified she she actually climbed up onto the
banister of the bridge and hung onto this planter and leaned
out over the lake to get away from us I imagine mostly to get away from the
raccoon but the combination must have been freaky to see
like we were some weird superhero twin combination walking over the bridge
together raccoon and man and she was just terrified of
whatever we were and maybe I was being cruel
maybe I was taunting her but when I passed her
I looked down into the water over which she was leaning and I said there are
fish in there they'll eat you and she gave me this
look of just what who are you two
we were two animals walking across a bridge together
encountering a third animal who didn't want to be with us
and we walked to the other side of the bridge and the raccoon turned
and went off one direction and I turned and went off
the other and it went on into his life I went on into mine I don't expect the
raccoon remembers me maybe it's seen so many people that we
are just a dime a dozen but I remember that animal I remember
that moment looking into its eyes and going hey
raccoon hey human let's walk together
we aren't alone in this
there are animals everywhere look for them
around you you will see them no matter how deep in the city you live
deep in the wilderness deep anywhere on the surface the ants
walking across the sidewalk the grasshoppers clicking
the cicadas of summer everything is alive
around you everything is thinking dreaming
being feeling the world you can come out to a wild place like
this you can come out to Yosemite or you can find a vacant lot
you can find a culvert that is dripping water into a pool
where water striders are dancing across the surface
and the little circular shadows of their feet
are reflecting onto the floor they are everywhere and we are not alone
thank you for listening