Communal Imagining of the Bison

How we trek outdoors seems linked to how we walk through life.

We take wandering who we are in the moment. On the trail, I hear young people who blast pop music from their speakers. I see hikers trying to cross challenging trails in flip-flops. We leave our extra water bottles with those who don’t know how treacherous a day hike in high altitude can be. I’ve often been the one lagging behind because I didn’t communicate clearly that my body during a chronic illness will not go at an athlete’s pace.

Likewise, I’m not destination minded. I prefer to meander, to be mesmerized by alpine flowers, to talk to trees, and touch waterfalls. I’m not a slowpoke, but I don’t go out to the wilderness to arrive somewhere. It’s what’s happening on the way that remains the most fascinating. Philosophically, I’m not a materialist, meaning that I don’t experience that what we are on the inside (mind or consciousness) is fundamentally separate from the world we experience on the outside (matter.)

I was reminded this week of the necessity for good communication in relationships with fellow wanderers. Listening to Ezra Klein interview Dan Savage, on asking for what you want in relationship, I was made aware of the dynamics with friends when I go out to explore.  Of having been reluctant to have the big discussion about how I prefer to wanderlust. Of being afraid of their rejection. I admire other’s physical abilities, but I don’t think that walking or hiking or any kind of movement is only for those people who are advantaged in carrying those gifts. I cultivate strength and fitness, but I wouldn’t call myself accomplished at any athletic skill. The only thing I’m great in is allowing life to transform me. (GOAT shapeshifter.)

Living in the mountains with lots of adventurers can be thorny for those with physical limitations. There are very few trails for those with disabilities. Likewise, businesses don’t always accommodate those with limited mobility. When I go into spaces where people are faster or stronger than me, I sometimes translate their desire for speed into fear that I’m less adept. I take their unexpressed want to drive hard as the norm against which mine ought to be judged. It takes some radical rethinking to wander in our own way, authentic to our own desires. And to question the status quo for how we move.

Rebecca Solnit in her book, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, talks about walking being “in some sense, about how we invest universal acts with particular meanings. Like eating or breathing, it can be invested with wildly different cultural meanings, from the erotic to the spiritual, from the revolutionary to the artistic.”

How we trek outdoors seems linked to how we walk through life. The longing to climb a mountain at top speed can feel to me like the marriage of hiking with capitalism, of privileging accomplishment over connection. These activities just happen to occur in nature, the mountain a symbol of what must be overcome. I find myself rejecting these norms, and instead applying more communal, generous meanings to journeys. What would it look like if we engaged with all those people (and other-than-humans) who were going to be impacted by our walk? How would we roam if the voices and experiences of those we encounter along the way were essential to our well-being? If I tried out the possibility that I exist connected to everything (and not separate from nature,) what’s happening in the space/time in which my wandering exists? I didn’t mean to answer these questions conceptually, but to embody them while I was out there.

This past summer, I went out with a friend to a new place in the Canadian Rockies. This friend knew about my moments of losing energy and being incapacitated while I was struggling with a rare disease, and how challenging it had been to return to health. My energy was unpredictable, not the easiest hiking partner, but still, someone immensely grateful for being out there. We came to the trailhead to see this sign:

This was the first time I’d seen notice in Banff National Park indicating that we were in bison territory. The trail that we were exploring wouldn’t be near bison—this was a warning for backcountry visitors on the lands adjacent. Still, it was the first time that bison had made an appearance in the physical world that I occupied.

Plains bison roamed in the Canadian Rockies and were vital to First Nations. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, it’s estimated that 30 million bison lived throughout North America, including in Banff. They disappeared from this region due to overhunting around the time that the national park was created, in 1885. In 2017, sixteen plains bison were reintroduced to the Park, in the remote Panther River Valley, about 40 kilometers north of Banff. Six months later, the herd was allowed to roam free. You can learn more about the bison reintroduction here and here and here, including the significant role that indigenous people played in their return. Ten of the females had calves that year and four years later, the size of the herd was 66 animals.

Around the same time as these beautiful animals were being reintroduced, our son, Joshua was collaborating with artist Bryan Childs at Spider Monkey Tattoo to create his own tribute to the bison, on his right arm. We had long conversations about what the bison meant to him, why he had chosen these images to be placed on his body, and how following the return of the bison brought us so much joy. We sent videos and images to each other. I reminded the kids of when they were little and we visited a display herd of bison at the Paddock just outside of town. The reveal of this art that took over a year to complete brought many of Joshua’s communities into conversations about the bison.

During the time of the return of the bison, my body was deeply fatigued, and I occasionally lost my mind with hallucinations. I was looking for ways to be with the pain that treatments for a rare disorder imposed. I was up most nights, thinking of the ways of the animals who lived near us—my favorites being bear, deer, elk, raven and bison. I often lay in bed those nights and sent gratitude to a long list of plants, animals, ancestors, mountains and humans. I made a smoke practice and brought them into the ways I began my day. Some of these were beings who I had spent hours observing in the park. They didn’t appear separate from me any longer, but a deep part of my experience of living here. The only animal I didn’t see regularly was bison. So, I imagined her.

She reminded me of the importance of perceiving a rhythm, that slowness might be tenaciousness, of the reality that life disappeared only to reappear in other forms and ways. She educated me about interconnection. Bison was an ecological engineer. Her grazing created habitat for a range of animals including elk, ground squirrels and badgers. As North America’s largest land mammal, she provided a rich source of nutrients for scavengers, bears and wolves. Through those encounters and rituals, I began to see that I was capable of holding fortitude, even in illness.

The bison sign on the trail was to educate visitors about what might happen in a human-bison interaction. But for me that day it was a sign that we had been hearing each other, that she and I were capable of influence. Bison had already changed my awareness of how I might wander through these lands. When no one was looking I kissed my fingers and placed them on the head of the calf in the image. That she existed nearby, that were were meeting in some kind of collaborative story, some ecological balance, was enough. We were wallowing in this soil together. Under her influence, I could confront the dominator system that was asking me to go faster, harder, and instead settle into another way, a deliberate kind of existence, liberatory for all.

Other highlights of the last fortnight:

Normal is def overrated.

Will the Republicans f+ck around and find out in their violent bills and language against queer and trans people?

Mythmaking and the masculine, a complex, illuminating conversation.

I love Mae Martin’s work, and this interview that I listened to on a quick road trip was a delight. Mae and the women talk about being sexually confident.

Making this and this on the weekend, because it’s cold, and I need warmth & spice.

Moved by this graphic novel on climate change and its impact in my home state of Kentucky.

There’s a few spaces left for the Writing in the Wild Retreat from April 28 - May 1. Please go here if you’d like more information, or message me for details.

Images: Parks Canada, Bryan Childs, and Sonya Lea.