Land Acknowledgement
I sometimes get hung up on the “land acknowledgment” phenomena. Sometimes it really frustrates and bothers me. The instances that frustrate and bother me haven’t been when I attended an Anchorage School District training on equity in education put on by the First Alaskans Institute at the Dena’ina Center, or when I heard students at Service High School acknowledge on the morning announcements that their school sits (and they’re being educated) on traditional lands of the Dena’ina Athabascans.
What bothers and frustrates me is, for example, when I see a post on social media of an affluent and privileged white yuppie ski-mountaineering in the high altitude mountains of a National Park that ends with a land acknowledgment. It just doesn’t seem genuine to me. It seems like a trendy fad of someone trying to show off how “woke” they are. But, wtf do I know? Who am I to judge? Maybe I’m doing the same here. Regardless, I’ll continue for the sake of nuanced thinking.
How often did the indigenous peoples who for millennia lived traditionally on land in the vicinity of North America’s mountains actually go up into the high altitude upper elevations? I don’t know for sure, but doubt it happened often (if at all). That’s one of my gripes in regard to privileged white folks making such gestures.
Such areas are the recreational playgrounds of the affluent and privileged, not traditional lands of any indigenous people. And, what makes this affluent and privileged recreation possible is dependent on contemporary exploitation and oppression that the affluent and privileged would seemingly prefer not to acknowledge (more on this in the next section) – instead offering token land acknowledgments that are less burdensome on the conscience.
I want to reiterate here (in hopes of limiting some misconstruing) that I’ve great respect for the indigenous peoples and cultures of the world. I also acknowledge the reality of historical trauma, particularly pertaining to the indigenous peoples of North America (and especially the First Nations of the Lower 48 who got the worst of it by way of the US government’s programs to systematically exterminate them and annihilate their cultures [i.e. GENOCIDE]). I’d prefer privileged white Americans regularly acknowledge these genocidal facts of history, rather than token land acknowledgments that don’t really put a burden on one’s conscience.
The reality is that we were all indigenous once upon a time. The empires of the world have been homogenizing all of us – as the Chinese empire did many peoples of Asia, as Rome did many peoples of Europe, as the Ottoman empire did many peoples of the Middle East, as the Spanish empire did many peoples of Central and South America, as the United States did many peoples of North America, etc.
I think the most woke thing to do is acknowledge that the land doesn’t belong to anyone. We belong to the land. This is the only great equalizer. As I’ve written in other trip reports (here and here), we are but one species in the Great Web of Life. And, the web is not a hierarchy with humanity at the pinnacle.
The US government sponsored programs to annihilate the buffalo in order to force peoples that lived off the buffalo into submission. It is a first step to acknowledge the humans that suffered and were negatively affected by these policies. The next step is acknowledging that the Buffalo themselves were a community (a “People”) with inherent rights of their own that were denied as they were exterminated, and their ancient communal grazing land that had been self-sustaining since time immemorial was replaced by the unsustainable paradigm of white, European American private property and cattle.
In fact, land in the Western US could arguably be more rightfully acknowledged as traditional land of the Buffalo themselves than that of the Sioux, or the Arapaho, or the Comanche. It’s worth noting that the different human groups fought over the same land (even before the arrival of Europeans), and the Buffalo lived together on it relatively peacefully with a much longer legacy of community continuity.
What We (Don’t) Acknowledge
You know what I think would be a more “woke” conclusion to an Instagram post? Acknowledging that many components of the iPhone being used to make the post were manufactured, and the phone itself assembled by, oppressed and exploited modern peoples in developing nations. Check out “A Day in the Life of an iPhone Factory Worker,” which is like the 21st-century Chinese version of a 19th-century Southern plantation.
Don’t think you’re any better for using an Android; the exploitative and oppressive process is similar. And, the exploitative and oppressive process doesn’t end with primarily Asian and Eastern European relatively poor peoples manufacturing and assembling such products. It extends home to here in so-called developed nations like the US. How much money does The Zuck make compared to his minions? How much money does the CEO of Apple make compared to its countless employees that at least live under the minimum wage laws of so-called developed nations? And are you naive enough to think that employees of companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google are readily able to unionize for power via collective bargaining if they so desire? The workers toil away their lives in mundanity while the capitalist masters are enriched beyond imagination (but seemingly without any increase in life satisfaction despite their gross wealth).
What else might be more woke to mention in an IG post: that much of the outdoor equipment that’s seen being used in the post was brought into the world through a similarly oppressive and exploitative process as that of the iPhone. Or, that the app itself (for example, Instagram) is controlled by one of the richest and most powerful men in the world and its seemingly innocent photo-sharing function pales in comparison to more nefarious functions of “social media” (such as marketing, advertising, artificial intelligence development, psychological manipulation, and surveillance).
Another HUGE discrepancy I see in regard to American historical trauma acknowledgment and associated double standards as applied by affluent and privileged white folks is in regard to Native American as compared to African American treatment. As mentioned, I see the land acknowledgment phenomena on social media amongst affluent and privileged whites as pretty trendy. On the contrary, I haven’t seen many of these same white folks in the outdoor adventure world end posts with the #BlackLivesMatter.
While American Indians face ongoing struggles and mistreatment (especially women, and more especially those women living in the vicinity of “man camps” associated with extractive projects like the Keystone XL pipeline), atrocities toward African Americans (such as police violence) have been regular occurrences in recent years. Yet, I don’t see a lot of privileged and affluent whites bringing attention to these gross injustices with their social media posts. Are whites pursuing wokeness lacking just as trendy a way to acknowledge that the might of the American empire is based on the enslavement, oppression, and exploitation of African Americans as it is the theft of land from and extermination of indigenous Americans; or is there another racial and ethnic dynamic at play in this case? Might it have something to do with what Native Americans represent in white American mythology versus that which much-more-visible-in-modern-America African Americans represent?
Delving Into the Conservative Mind
Much of the aforementioned has come into my consciousness by way of my attempts to delve into and understand the conservative mind the past several months. I’m not a liberal. I’m definitely not a conservative. Idealistically, I’m an anarchist. Realistically, I’m a socialist. That was discussed in this trip report.
Delving into the conservative mind has increasingly brought to my realization the serious disease that is “libtardation.”
Libtardation is a real thing. The Democratic Party establishment’s unbalanced backing of elitist Hillary Clinton (who disdains “the basket of deplorables” that “cling to their guns and religion”) in 2016 should have made it obvious. After all, how can you win the presidency with a candidate that so blatantly expresses her disdain for perhaps half the country’s population and traditionally American things (like Protestantism and guns) that have been so formative to this nation? The Democratic Party’s resurrection of the uninspiring, zombie candidacy of Sleepy (aka Creepy) Joe in 2020 to quash the insurgent candidacy of self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist (but really Social Democrat) Bernie Sanders has proven that libtardation, if left untreated, will further enable Trumpian rightwing demagoguery.
It’s beyond the scope of this post to elaborate on my discoveries in regard to why Trump was able to accomplish what he did. Plus, it would be disempowering for me to attempt to explain such things. Rather, I call on those afflicted by libtardation to put in the intellectual work to discover such things for themselves. Self-discovery and understanding of these realizations is the only way to overcome the process of libtardation. Yes, it is more work than simply writing off roughly half of American as “a bunch of racist idiots” but that work is imminently necessary.
I’ve sought to understand the conservative mind because, unlike libtards, I don’t write off those that voted Trump into office as “a bunch of racist idiots.” Sure, some of them are and they are his base. But, it took a lot more than white supremacists to get Trump into office as POTUS.
I’ve sought to understand the conservative mind because you can’t change something you don’t understand. I wish liberals would realize this. While I’m not liberal or conservative, I do identify more with liberal than conservative. I also realize the necessity of balance within the two-party system of representative democracy until this defunct system can be transcended and evolve into direct democracy. Things are out of balance, and in the conservatives’ favor.
Identity Issues
To wrap up this pre-trip report rant (as some like to call this), I’d like to touch on issues of identity. Identity formation is a very serious thing, with very widespread implications. One’s identity (who and what we do/don’t identity with) is the cornerstone of one’s reality. Do you identify as a believer or a non-believer, a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative or a liberal? I hope you don’t choose to identify as either of those binary options, for binarism is dying. I hope you will regularly question and examine your identity, and in doing so join the growing movement toward an age of transcendent non-conformity.
The Temple of Randoism: Daytripping the Aemmer and Cobra Couloirs
During the early part of my three-month road trip to explore the terrain, snowpacks, and avalanche information programs of Canada, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah; I was blessed with the conditions and beta to climb and ski one of the “Fifty Classic Ski Descents of North America” and another adjacent couloir (that’s just as good) as a mid-November daytrip.
On November 12, 2019; I climbed Fairview Mountain above Lake Louise and skied the south face. From the bottom of this descent, I headed up towards the Aberdeen Glacier and turned off to Surprise Pass. Apparently, the Surprise Pass loop circumnavigation of Fairview is a classic Canadian Rockies ski tour. I can’t argue with that. The 700m descent to the Plain of the Six Glaciers (which drains into Lake Lousie) from the top of the pass was a long run for mid-November, and it was full of the most blower pow I’d ever skied. I then headed up toward Popes Peak for a long run above the tea house, and then toured back along the lake to the Lake Louise hotel parking lot.
Fairview Mountain south face as seen from Mt. Temple area:
View from the top of Fairview Mountain:
Mt. Aberdeen’s north side:
A friendly Canadian ski tourer descending north from Surprise Pass:
Looking back up at Surprise Pass from the Plain of the Six Glaciers:
Mt. Victoria and the upper Lake Louise valley from the Plain:
Teahouse (and BIG alpine ice climbs on Mt. Lefroy in the distance):
This gave me a good feel for the snowpack on a variety of aspects, in a few different drainages, and on several aspects. The next day I met up with Canadian Rockies guru and guidebook author Marcus Baranow (Confessions of a Ski Bum). With his beta, stable weather, and my assessment of conditions; I went for a tour to check out the Mt. Temple area via the Paradise Valley trail and Lake Annette. I figured I’d have a look at the fabled Aemmer couloir and, with Marcus’ beta, also check out the less publicized Cobra couloir if time allowed.
Albeit with a thin approach through the forest and into the alpine, things were lining up: no red flags of instability, encouraging early-season snowpit test results, and enough coverage with great surface conditions. The nice thing about these two couloirs is that their base is alpine ice This means they can be skied with far less snow than a couloir with scree as its base. It also means less faceting due to a more benign temperature gradient within the early season snowpack. It seemed the timing was just right. The couloirs had enough snow to be skied, with the finest of uber-dry Canadian Rockies powder for surface conditions, but did not yet have enough snow to make for the typically dangerous early season conditions.
Temple from the Paradise Valley trail:
I went up the Aemmer couloir first. Along the way, I couldn’t figure out the sketchiness Marcus had discussed that makes this line so notorious. Something about if you fall or get flushed you’re getting washed over cliffs down to the Temple Lake drainage. It wasn’t until I was off the apron, into the couloir, and looking down the line that I realized what he was talking about. Indeed, the fall line spills partially down the apron on skier’s left and dangerously down the skier’s right over an initial rock band and then over many meters of cliffs to Temple Lake. A fall or flush would be unsurvivable – hence the pucker factor of the classic Aemmer couloir.
The aesthetic Aemmer in view:
While conditions seemed good, and I made my way up the line now concretely aware of its consequences, I forced myself to stop a hundred or so feet from the top due to the presence of wind slab. This wind slab would slow my progress as it would be punchy and difficult to boot through, was potentially avalanche-prone, and would not ski well. I was satisfied to stop and content with getting to ski 90% of the line in blower November pow. Plus, I’d have even more time to ensure I got to check out the Cobra couloir that Marcus spoke so highly about.
Views down the Aemmer:
From the descent of the Aemmer, I wrapped around to the east along the steep base of Mt. Temple to the obvious snow-filled, north-facing deep gouge that is the Cobra couloir. As opposed to the Aemmer, the pucker factor with the Cobra was the apron; it’s several hundred feet of big avalanche terrain. Stability assessment was encouraging so I proceeded up. Reaching the ribbon of snow that snakes up the high rock walls that form this very aesthetic and deeply walled-in couloir, I was comforted by the snow conditions given how sheltered the line is from wind slab development.
Looking up at the Cobra:
Looking down the Cobra:
I went up, up, and up. The line looked much shorter from the bottom. Like the so-called “Alaska factor” of terrain in the Greatland, the hugeness of Mt. Temple made this couloir seem smaller than it really was. After a long descent through perfect snow, I then made the slog back to Lake Louise parking area. A proper Canadian finish to celebrate the day was in order: poutine and Canadian microbrew!
Evidence of much welcomed Canadian progressivism at the Lake Louise Campground: