outdoors - The Environment Report

Winter: An Old Friend Returned

As the heart of winter approaches, it’s tempting to withdraw from the outdoor world and wait till spring. But Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom Springer thinks the forgotten benefits of winter far outweigh the hardships:

Transcript

As the heart of winter approaches, it’s tempting to withdraw from the outdoor world and wait till
spring. But as Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom Springer thinks, the forgotten
benefits of winter far outweigh the hardships.

Outside my window there’s an old sugar maple, grey and bare against the late autumn sky. I’ve
raked up most of its leaves and spread them as mulch on my vegetable garden. It seems like the
tree and me have nothing better to do than wait for spring.

But for a tree, the real work of winter has just begun. To prepare for frigid weather, trees undergo
a process known as hardening off. Their sap withdraws from the twigs and branches and returns
to the roots. And the tree’s roots will continue to grow until the ground freezes solid.

When it comes to surviving winter, I think trees have the right idea. It’s in their nature to slow
down and focus on interior growth. Unfortunately, most of us don’t do that. Instead of adapting to
winter, we try to escape it. We dash from our heated house into a semi-heated garage. We drive in
heated cars – which often have heated seats and even heated steering wheels – and we work in a
heated … Well, you get the idea.

But what would happen if we tried harder to accept winter on its own terms? Might we be happier
and healthier?

Researchers say that people can get surprisingly acclimatized to winter weather. As our bodies
get accustomed to cold, we shiver less and our skin retains more heat. In Australia, scientists have
studied aborigines who sleep outside naked in cold weather. They don’t get hypothermia. In
Japan, shellfish divers have been known to spend hours in the ice-cold ocean, wearing nothing
more than a cotton swimsuit.

Spending more time outside in winter can even make you happier. That’s good news for the 10
million Americans who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD is a form of depression
that’s triggered by the short winter days. Some people take anti-depressants to fight SAD. Yet
researchers find that many people can overcome it without using pills. They just need to get
outdoors and absorb some authentic daylight.

Do you suppose Mother Nature is trying to tell us something? For 50,000 years of human
history, winter was a time of rest and rejuvenation woven between the cycle of seasons. And I
doubt that 75 years of electric indoor heat has changed that. For instance, our bodies still crave
good food in winter – not just fudge and party mix, but homemade soup or a juicy pot roast. And
there’s still something about the solemn purity of winter that calls us to focus inward. To boost
the spirits, there’s nothing like a quiet walk on a snowy Sunday afternoon. It’s also the best time
to read the uplifting books that have languished on the nightstand since summer.

This is, without question, the most trying of seasons. It gets depressingly dark by 6 o’clock, and
the wind howls at the door like a hungry wolf. But the frozen solitude of winter is not a thing to
be feared. Winter is simply an old friend returned, who waits in unspoken silence to wish us well.

Tom Springer is a free lance writer from Three Rivers, Michigan.

Low-Impact Trekking With Llamas

"Streak" heads to the trail.

For over 4,000 years, llamas have been used to carry loads through rough mountain terrain. Out West, it’s not uncommon to see llamas carrying tents, sleeping bags, and food for hikers. In the Great Lakes region, llamas are still an unusual sight on the trail, but an increasing number of people are starting to go trekking with them. They’re agile, surefooted, and tread lightly on the earth. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:

Transcript

For over 4,000 years llamas have been used to carry loads through rough mountain
terrain. Out West it’s not uncommon to see llamas carrying tents, sleeping bags, and food
for hikers. In the Great Lakes region, llamas are still an unusual sight on the trail, but an
increasing number of people are starting to go trekking with them. They’re agile,
surefooted, and tread lightly on the earth. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar
Charney reports:

(leaf noise) (walking)

“This is pretty, the lake out here.”

Cheryl Topliff is leading her llama named Streak through the woods at Seven Lakes State
Park in Michigan. Streak is mostly black except for his feet, his face, and the front of his
neck

“And he’s got curly locks on the top of his head – he’s cute.”

And he’s a bit unusual; he’s a talker.

(llama noises)

“I’m getting a fully narrated tour.”

Cheryl Topliff originally got Streak because of his long wooly hair. She’s a fiber artist
and weaves with llama fur. But recently she and her husband got interested in hiking
with their llamas.

“For me personally, it is just getting outdoors on a nice fall day and getting some exercise and
walking, plus the comradery of the other llama people.”

Streak sets the pace for a group of hikers and their llamas. They wander through
meadows full of flowers. They find their way through deep wooded groves. And
trudge up and down hills.

He does like to walk and he likes to be out in front of the whole group.

But today’s trek isn’t for fun. Streak is working on getting certified as
a pack llama – that’s a llama that has been tested to make sure it’s trained
to carry loads and behave well in the backcountry. That means they go
where they’re led and don’t spit or kick.

Dave Foy is with the Pack Llama Association. It’s his job to make sure Streak and the
rest of the llamas are properly tested.

“Not every llama is a pack llama and people have a tendency to think so because that’s
what they’ve really been bred for but some of them don’t like it so a pack trial will put
through a regime of obstacles and trials.”

Such as jumping logs, crossing bridges, and walking through muddy streams.

“Now try to enter that water as close to the flag as possible. We want to make sure he
gets his feet wet.”

Cheryl Topliff’s husband, Don, goes first with a llama named Standing Ovation.

“It’s very shallow. Step over.”

But Standing Ovation wants nothing to do with the water. He hesitates, (“come on”)
(squish), slowly walks in (splash), and then suddenly lunges and jumps to the bank
(splash).

“That’s enough.”

It cost him. Standing Ovation loses points for bad behavior.

(splash)

Streak goes next. He crosses the water with out a hitch, and continues on down
the trail.

(amb of hiking)

(woof woof)

“Wow, I’ve never seen a llama up close.”

(woof)

“Hey, hey, quiet, nice guys.”

Streak and the rest of the llamas are an unusual site in the woods, so people out trekking
with llamas often have to stop to answer questions about what they’re doing. Margaret
Van Camp organized today’s pack trials. She says llamas seem to have gotten a bad
reputation.

“People who don’t have llamas don’t have a positive impression of llamas. They always
think they spit and they think you can’t ride them. What are they good for? But then they
see you doing this and they realize you can have a lot of fun with them.”

“Wow! Look at the pretty llamas.”

(woof woof)

Margaret Van Camp says the nice thing about llamas is that they find their own food,
don’t need much water since they are related to camels, and they don’t damage trails like
horses, mules, and bicycles.

“So that’s why llamas are so nice – because they’re so enviro-friendly they make it easy
to carry more with no more impact on the environment than you – probably less than you
with your hiking boots.”

That’s because llama’s have padded feet like a dog, not hooves which is why on federal
land, llamas are allowed on trails that are closed to horses. And that’s one reason llama
trekking is growing in popularity.

“All right, if you can come one at a time. This is a kicker hill. Next llama. He’s rearing
to go. He’s revving his engines.”

(llama noises)

“We’re going mountain climbing. You ready for this big boy? (llama noises) Good.”

By the end of the hike, Streak has negotiated all the obstacles and passed all his tests.

(amb: trailer door)

Cheryl Topliff loads him in the trailer and heads for home with damp feet, a muddy
husband, and a couple llamas ready for their next adventure in the woods.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.

Gardens Become Sculpture Showcase

The Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park is an outdoor art museum that aims to blend art and nature. This piece is a work by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. Photo courtesy of the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park.

Recently, a new sculpture park opened in the Great Lakes region. This new outdoor art museum exhibits 24 pieces by acclaimed modern sculptors. Eventually, 80 pieces will be on view and the park is expected to become a regional arts destination. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney has a look at how the sculpture park at the Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids mixes art and nature:

Transcript

Recently, a new sculpture park opened in the Great Lakes region.
This new outdoor art museum exhibits 24 pieces by acclaimed modern
sculptors. Eventually 80 pieces will be on view and the park is expected
to become a regional arts destination. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Tamar Charney has a look at how the sculpture park at the Frederik Meijer
Gardens in Grand Rapids mixes art and nature:

The pieces in the 30 acres sculpture park are spread out amid hills,
paths, and nooks. There’s an area with stone and bronze works from the
early modern masters like Rodin, Lipchitz, and Henry Moore. In a hollow
there’s an enormous red gardening trowel by Claus Oldenburg and Coosje van
Bruggen. And suspended just inches over a pond is a kinetic or moving
piece by George Rickey. Just downstream from the pond are 15 gigantic
ceramic eggs. A blue robin’s egg, a speckled killdeer’s egg… they are all
enlarged versions of eggs laid by birds you can find at the park. It’s a
work by Carolyn Ottmers, a sculptor from Chicago. She says the sculpture
park meshes the visual arts with the wonders of nature.

“I think in the way they have chosen to arrange the sculptures, and
integrate within the park… created this arena for encounters which for
me is a similar experience echoed when you walk through nature.”

As you move through the park you catch a glimpse of a piece here, a
suggestion of a work there through the trees, around the bend, or across the
pond. Officials with the gardens say the collection is the most
significant one in the Midwest. But it’s not your typical sculpture park,
with formal manicured gardens adorned with sculpture.

“The sculpture is not a decoration of a garden.”

Magdalena Abakanowicz is a sculptor from Poland. Her bronze piece called
“Figure on a Trunk” is a headless, shoeless person. It’s hidden in an alcove
made of young trees. Abakanowicz rails against the idea of art decorating
a garden, but she says nature can create the right space in which to see
sculpture.

“Spaces to contemplate, spaces to meditate, spaces in which we are
confronted to our own scale and the scale of the world.”

These are spaces that change with the weather, the time of day and the
season. Joseph Becherer is the sculpture curator for the Frederik Meijer
Gardens and Sculpture Park. He says it’s the natural setting that may just get more
people interested in looking at art.

“I think there are many, many people… the majority of Americans that are
very intimidated by a traditional museum or gallery but there is something
welcoming, inviting and warm about coming to a garden.”

And some of the things on exhibit in the botanical section of the gardens
can help people understand some of the things on exhibit in the sculpture
section. It’s something Italian sculptor Arnoldo Pomodoro is well aware
of. At the gardens, his piece called “Disk in the Form of a Desert Rose”
sits on a small grassy field next to a waterfall. After the dedication
ceremony, he was strutting around, greeting the people admiring his piece
when he was approached by a young boy with his buddies from school in tow.

Child: “Um, they want to know what the sculpture is supposed to be… like… about.”

Pomodoro: “In the gallery down is a real rose of the desert so the inspiration
comes from this rose which is a stone very beautiful.”

Pomodoro encourages the children to go into the conservatory to see a real desert rose
to start understanding and discovering the connections between art and nature,
and sculpture and the environment.

“You go and see it’s an homage to the nature. Ciao.”

Kids: “Ciao.”

In the coming years, more than 50 new sculptures will be added to the Frederik
Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.

ARTISTS ‘RE-VISION’ THE GREAT LAKES

"Revisioning the Great Lakes" is an exhibit of student art created through field research at the University of Michigan. Photo by Tamar Charney.

People who study the natural world often do field research. They go to learn about plants, animals, and the ecosystems we live in. But scientists aren’t the only ones who can make use of time spent studying the outdoors. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:

Transcript

A group of students from the University of Michigan have stopped spreading sand on the floor and hanging sticks from a gallery ceiling to watch a video….

(video sound of slosh slosh on the trawl line a bass)

The tape is of a trip they took…to sail, to camp, to hike, to learn about the aquatic life in the great lakes….

(video sound of phylo arthro arthrabida crustratia (fade under))

…And to do some field research. But these students aren’t scientists…. they’re artists. And they are in the process of putting together an art exhibit.

“This exhibit is based on a semesters worth of investigation that art class has been pursuing.”

Joe Trumpey is a professor of art at the University of Michigan. He also teaches scientific illustration. And for years he’s been taking those students to the dessert, and even the jungle, to learn in the real world — instead of the classroom — about flora and fauna and the cells and structures they draw. Now he’s bringing this same method to a studio art class – to encourage these students to develop a relationship with the ecosystems of the Great Lakes region.

“Like any interpersonal relationship, a friendship, a marriage, anything you need to spend time and communicate with each other and to sit in a studio and think well I can make this all up in my head and its all fine. I’ve seen it in books. I’ve seen the pictures, but it isn’t the same as being out there and feeling the wind and the smell and the elements and everything else that’s associated with a particular environment.”

But they did more than just experience the land. Gerry Mull is a graduate student in Fine Arts and a member of the class.

“We explored a lot of environmental issues around the Great Lakes, talked to sea grant people and people doing different kinds of about ecological problems with the Great Lakes.

It was only after learning about fisheries, the food chain, the history of the Lake Michigan sand dunes, the economic impact of Great Lakes shipping, and the plants and animals here that the students got down to the business of creating art out of what they learned.

Gerry Moll has hung long pieces of what looks like brown grass from the ceiling. 24 big primitive forms that resemble sturgeon hover over sand he’s spread out on the floor. He says he hopes his piece creates a longing in the people that see it for the huge number of these fish that used to swim in this region.

“A kind of longing, a dream, a vision of something better, of more sturgeon in the Great Lakes, of what its like and how important it is to have these other beings in our lives. And a lot of fields do that but I think art does it in a special way.”

What these students are doing falls loosely under the category of ecological art — there’s a number of branches of this field – There are artists who actually restore the environment – creating fish habitats or cleaning up a Brownfield as their art. Then there are artists like Gerry Mull who are trying to rekindle our concern for nature. The University of Michigan is in the process of developing an art curriculum that focuses on the environment. And the University of Michigan isn’t alone. Environmental issues are popping up in arts schools and art classes of all levels. Don Krug is a professor of art education at Ohio State University.

“I think it is being taught more and more in higher education and I think it finds its way into art education in public schools in terms of units of study but there is a growing interest and I think if you look at universities throughout the United States there are more and more programs addressing these issues.”

Krug along with the Getty Museum has even developed on-line curriculum materials to help teachers get their students involved in creating art that draws on environmental and ecological issues. University of Michigan Art Professor Joe Trumpey says it only makes sense that art would be addressing something as fundamental as the health of our planet.

“The environment is something that all of humankind shares. Contemporary North American Society has moved away from family farms and is spending time outdoors. Long term relationships outdoors mean a weekend here and a weekend there I don’t think is the same sort of relationship as we had 100 years ago. So, for me, to build work that highlights that, and maybe make it become more into the central focus of peoples lives and understanding about where their food comes from and the relationship between them, and the animals, the plants, the land and the air becomes very important.”

And for artists to create meaningful art about the natural world, Joe Trumpey says they are going to have to immerse themselves like a scientist in the field. Studying the ecosystems around us through paint, clay, charcoal, and the other tools of the artist. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.

Commentary – Image Is Everything

For years, advertisers have used the great outdoors as a marketing
tool. But Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston
thinks it’s time we starting selling something else.

Transcript

For years, advertisers have used the great outdoors as a marketing
tool. But Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston
thinks it’s time we starting selling something else:

I saw the most amazing commercial on television last week. The whole
thing was a series of video clips of wild animals and their offspring
playing in their natural habitats. There was a really cute shot of a
baby hippo playing with its mom in the water. And then it showed a
baby elephant struggling to climb over a tree lying on the ground.
All of a sudden this big maternal trunk swings down and wraps itself
around the baby elephant’s backside and gentle lifts it over the
tree. It was adorable.

Then there were baby seals frolicking on the
ice and fox cubs playing in a field. There was no voice over on the
commercial – just the sound of Bryan Adams voice singing “Forever
Young”. It was beautiful. The final scene was a mother lion sitting
proudly, looking straight at the camera, while a lion cub nestled in
her front paws. It really took your breath away.

The image of the lion and her cub faded and was replaced with a
package of Pampers disposable diapers. An announcer voice simply
said, “Forever Young”.

I couldn’t t believe what I was seeing. Disposable diapers are
arguably one of the most environmentally damaging products we’ve come
up, and here we are using wild animals to sell them.

But it doesn’t matter because it looks good. It’s like this other
commercial for a sports utility vehicle I’ve seen lately. The truck
meanders in slow motion through a pristine forest, while a giant
grizzly bear stands on its haunches and sings opera. The entire scene
is bliss. And then you realize that that wildest thing SUVs drivers
are likely to see is the mall parking lot on a Saturday morning.

But it doesn’t matter because image is everything. That’s why SUVs
are the hottest selling item right now. As long as looks good and
projects the right image well then let’s buy it.

Forget about the fact that all these hot convenience items are
ripping up the planet. They make life easier and they make you feel
great. Who cares if we destroy the environment in the process? We can
always create a new world with the magic of computer animation and
some marketing wizardry.

Or – maybe we actually use all this marketing know-how to clean up
the mess we’ve made. I think it’s time we started selling that idea.

Host Tag: Suzanne Elston is a syndicated columnist living in Courtice, Ontario.

Wilderness Survival

There’s been an increasing interest in wilderness survival classes recently,
sparked in large part by Y-2-K doomsayers. But survival training isn’t
new – for years, hikers, campers and other outdoor enthusiasts have taken
these classes to improve their skills…and along the way, often realize a
deeper connection with the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Wendy Nelson reports:

Adirondack Man

As in so many rural areas, the culture of the Adirondack Mountains is
in decline. The days of hunting and trapping have given way to
condominiums and convenience stores. At one time, the Adirondack
pack-basket was a emblem of this culture. But the number of people who
make them has dwindled. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly
visited one of the few residents keeping this tradition alive:

A Backyard Encounter

Covering the wilderness experience during the cold winter months has
taken Knight-Ridder outdoors writer Sam Cook on snow-shoeing and camping
trips throughout the Great Lakes region. But in a
sampling from his latest book "Friendship Fires", Cook points out that
it’s not necessary go any farther than your own backyard to share a
winter encounter:

Crafting the Perfect Canoe

Jet skis have quickly grown in popularity. But paddling a canoe isstill a favorite with many outdoors enthusiats. While there are severalmodern materials canoes are made of, there’s one man who prefers morenatural canoes. And he prefers to build them himself. The Great LakesRadio Consortium’s Todd Witter has the story: