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Photo
by Mike MacDonald.
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o
be human is to want to make things, to construct and build,
to shape and mold. We do this with sand and snow for play.
"Look, Mom," says young Sonia Pollock in the photo
here, "look what I’ve made." We do this with
homes and schools, churches and entire landscapes for human
society. The history of our efforts is writ large upon the
land, how we have sculpted from wild places the shape of
our hopes and dreams, our farms and cities.
But
equally human with our passion to build is a yearning for
knowledge, beauty, and excellence. We are a curious and
imaginative species, endlessly inventive, sometimes irresponsible,
sometimes even wise. The humbling lessons we have learned
in the century just ended are that we do not, despite our
cleverness, know all. We have learned that changing the
land is not always right, or good. We have learned that
changing the land can mean losing our selves and our place
in the world.
This
issue is full of good news, small and large. The story of
the born-again river in McHenry County shows that we, as
groups of people working together, can make amends, can
re-shape the landscape to provide better habitat for scores
of species — and better places for humans to enjoy.
The poem by Mona van Duyn
illustrates the transforming power of the world outside
our windows. And Ed Collins’s search for Dr. Vasey
demonstrates in moving fashion the transforming power of
curiosity.
Ed’s
search for Dr. Vasey, a 19th century physician and botanist
who arrived in McHenry County in 1848 and settled at Ringwood,
spanned two continents and took him to the archives of numerous
universities. Ed found a plant species list for McHenry
County in the Asa Gray herbarium at Harvard. He also tried
the Internet. Typing in "Vasey" to conduct a search,
Ed found a "very famous George Vasey who was an Australian
general in World War II." Ha. Wrong turn.
Gradually
Ed found the real Dr. Vasey. "There’s a very poignant
letter written in 1863 before Vasey learned that his younger
brother, who was in the Union Army, had been killed in the
battle of Fredericksburg," Ed recalls. "It’s
like looking through a lace curtain, or a shade on a window
— it’s misty and veiled but you can see the shapes
of the past. Vasey arrived in Ringwood eight years after
the invention of the plow, so there was very little ground
that had been plowed then. The prairies and barrens were
still original. He lived in the twilight of the prairie
wilderness. To read his letters is to see that world through
the eyes of a 28 year-old botanist who’s in love with
plants."
To
read the story of Ed’s search for Dr. Vasey is to see
the world through the eyes of a passionate and hungry sleuth,
to celebrate with him the joys of discovery. But Ed is also
the kind of historian who’s looking for the future,
here in the Middle West, by shuffling mussels, ungirdling
rivers, planting the seeds of ancient plants along the sides
of modern streams. "We’ve learned how to take
things apart and reduce them to the smallest piece, but
when we do, we lose how they’re connected and it leaves
us, in the end, empty," Ed says. Stewardship —
caring for the land and restoring it — gives us that
chance, he says, to be re-connected. To be a part, not apart.
Chicago
Wilderness offers all of us this priceless opportunity to
re-connect our semi-urban selves with wild nature, to shape
the land wisely and well, to build a meaningful future.
I am so proud to be a part of this.
Debra
Shore may be reached at editor@chicagowildernessmag.org.
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