Wayfinding

I do not know the path. I will not pretend to know it, but sometimes I catch glimpses of it. The way forward to a sustainable economy that is scaled to the natural environment and our sociological welfare is not by roads we have taken so far. Those roads are coming to an end. And what is beyond them? Wilderness? Wasteland? An ocean and us without a vessel? Who knows. One thing is certain about our current route. It is changing.

So how do we prepare for this uncertain future? What do we have to guide us through these changes of climate, Covid Clustering, economic and racial inequality, and natural resource destruction? There is a concept that I’ll call wayfinding. And of all places, the inspiration from this was from a children’s movie. The concept had been with me for a few years, incubating, but it’s starting to take shape. Wayfinding is the notion of reading the landscape around you to determine direction and intuitively establish your path. Consider the following case study from a few years ago:

I was working on the road three nights a week building an addition for a monastery in a remote area. My coworkers and I got to know the local people and we endeavored to exhaust all the possibilities for fun in our downtime. Of course, there were the watering holes with respective drink specials each night, but there were also forests to explore, rivers to run, and pickle ball to be played at the high school in White Lake. This was easily the most entertaining part of our stay, by the way. Every Monday and Wednesday we’d pile in the truck and head into town to join three generations of players to get some exercise and laugh at our own folly.

Our jobsite was a few miles away from White Lake, and as I glanced at a map most of the land was public and forested between the two destinations of work and play. It looked as though I could run the route. So on a Wednesday evening in early spring, having checked the map for the general direction that would have me intercept a county road just south of the White Lake High School, I set my course by the sun as it approached the horizon and told my coworker I’d meet him at the gym in an hour and a half. With that, I took off into the woods.

This concept of “straight lining” had its origins with a friend of mine who told me about it years ago. I had already practiced it a couple times, snow shoeing from the jobsite for a mile, straight cross country, to the outfitter/bar where we stayed. This trek familiarized me with the glacial ridges and hollows between the two points-gave me a feel for the landscape. The features were too small to navigate by, as in the mountains, but they gave me waypoints to shoot for as I used the sun for orientation.

The new destination being roughly the same direction as our hotel, that initial route served as a reference from which I could head a bit farther south to enter a Boy Scout camp where a footbridge to kept my feet dry as I crossed the Wolf River. It was still March with a bit of snow in the woods and over a foot of it in the swamps. I tried keeping to the ridges for the most part, finding one or two that roughly approximated the direction of my intention. I could then take in the landscape and lock in on the next high point as I’d descend into dark swamps with few landmarks other than glimpses of the sun, high stepping through knee deep salt crystals of softening snow pack.

I came out on a final ridge running west straight to the Wolf River and followed the water a hundred yards farther south to the footbridge that took me across. This first stretch did have a bit of a safety net. Crossing a main highway helped my orientation, and I knew I could merely turn so the sun was on my right shoulder to would come to the camp driveway if I become lost. After crossing the river there would be several miles of uncharted territory with no such references. I had only the sun to guide me.

White Lake was generally west, but after crossing the footbridge I knew I was also a bit south of my destination. The sun set just north of west, so I set on a path that almost followed it directly. I kept running, easily at first as the forest in the camp was rather manicured and there were paths that shared my heading. Then the tangles of spruce undergrowth and steep ridges with mucky swamps followed. I was still able to navigate, crashing through brush on the flats and grabbing saplings to aid my ascents on the steepest parts. On the downhills, I’d let myself flow with gravity to a tree, catch myself, and then run/fall to the next as I made my way.

Twice, however, I encountered bends in the Wolf River that forced my course to the south. How far out of my way was I taking myself? Would I be able to gauge how to alter my course back north to regain my intended point of intersect with that county road? After the second deflection south, I refocused with the sun on my left for a few hundred yards before following it straight away once more.

About 15 years prior, a huge tornado ripped through this territory, leaving a quarter mile swath of tangled trees and underbrush. My route crossed this path at a shallow angle. There was no mistaking my encounter with it. Imagine 20-foot saplings growing like hair up through a brush pile and having to run through it. As I negotiated this obstacle, I also crossed a small trout stream. Never got my feet wet since I was scrambling upon fallen trees and brush, not on the ground or in the water.

I regained the mature forest on the other side of this swath and kept moving. The evening light was now golden and the horizon more of a dark silhouette than a compilation of individual conifers. It was beautiful, but the sunlight was waning. I was getting tired, being worked by the relentless steep hills and valleys. Then there were a series of swamps to cross, sometimes without a distinct landmark on the other side by which to anchor my course. I had to go on faith as I waded through the dark snows in these pockets, although the cool air that settled in these low spots was moist and refreshing.

The sun was below the horizon and the landscape changed as glacial moraines gave way to outwash plain. The ground leveled out, and I was entering farming country. I entered my first field but altered course to avoid a house in the middle of this open plain.

With the spring thaw well underway, the blanket of snow had receded from this open stretch, exposing the loamy mud below. Almost ankle deep but thicker than peanut butter, it at least stayed out of my shoes. About two-thirds of the way across, however, I lost one to its gelatinous grip. So here I was hopping on one foot in the mud of a barren farm field trying to maintain balance as I regained my shoe and put it on. I crossed the field without further incident and was relieved by the cover and snowpack of a young conifer forest, interspersed with clearings of winter wheat and grass. This opened into a hollow strewn with rocks picked from the field, brambles growing in the light of the thinned hardwood canopy, and old farming equipment that had outlasted its use. Then I came up to the other side and had another field to cross. I set my bearing, hoping I was getting close to the county road that would take me into White Lake. I lost my shoe one more time but hobbled back to retrieve it and kept on my way.

Exhausted, I still made my way, high stepping through the mud. I was distracted by the anguish of this crossing by an opening in the woods on the far side of the field. It was an access from the road, whichever road whichever road that might be... It felt right, so I headed for it. The cut split a stand of young spruce and came out at a right-angle bend in a paved road. The double center stripe told me I had made it to the navigational refuge of the county road. To my right it led straight north. Straight ahead, though, it led west for a mile before turning south again. Had I come out 100 yards to the south, I would have gone a mile of my way before coming to the road. Luckily, I emerged precisely where I needed to.

Another mile and a half to the high school, although this was the most excruciating part. Gone were the distractions of trees, brush, prickers, and terrain, and the inner conflict over what direction to go. I was at ease to absorb myself in self-pity over my aching joints and knotted muscles. Alas, houses appeared on the side of the road, then streetlights, and finally, the high school.

I walked in but had no idea how to explain to the pickle ball crew what I had just experienced. I pulled the obvious sticks from my hair and wiped as much mud as I could from my shoes. My coworker had primed them of my challenge, and they all kind of chuckled, not sure what to make of the disheveled knucklehead in front of them. I was coerced into a single game of pickle ball, which I promptly lost. I contentedly took my place on a bench and wearily smiled at what I had accomplished. I straight lined 7 miles through woods and swamp and somehow nailed the route. How? I still don’t entirely know.

Socially and environmentally, our path forward needs to be adjusted from the usual routes. Our domestic needs, environmental conditions, and still our dreams collectively determine our objective. Our skill sets, social networks, local resources, and scientific awareness guide our path. The sooner we leave the well-trodden path of environmental destruction, social inequity, and extreme economic stratification, the easier it will be to get on course to a sustainable future. The roads we travel en masse have the comfort of routine and the reassurance of company, but we blindly follow each other in the wrong direction, paving the way with the shattered dreams of our future generations.

Now is the time to blaze paths through the wilderness. But it ain’ all bushwhackin. There are deer trails that cross swamps and relatively clear ridges along the way. There are lesser known footpaths that people have been travelling for millennia that can guide us to growing food and foregoing meat. The fitness of bicycle commuters and tradespeople point us toward training in our homes and backyards instead of driving to the gym, integrating health, recreation, and vocation. We also have undiscovered to aid us on our way. There is nothing like a new venture to reveal strengths and wisdom we never knew we had.

We are already realizing how mobile our workplaces can be. Perhaps we engage in extended periods of slow travel via sail, pedal, or paddle as an alternative to cruise ship vacations or weekend air travel escapes. We can retrofit our homes for energy and spatial efficiency and resilience, and embrace the wisdom of our elders as educational mechanisms for our youth through multigenerational homesteading (sure beats assisted living). We can localize our food networks and grow much of it ourselves. We can adopt bike trailers for grocery runs.

This all seems so simple, and while a complete redirect is currently out of reach for pretty much everyone, we can all start doing little things to get us going. So why is it so difficult to get started? Our momentum has us barreling down the highway with the mass of societal norms, convenience, and jamb packed schedules with no room for anything “extra”. Any alternate living systems are written off as radical or unrealistic. We are entrenched in our unsustainable means, and the wilderness of any other way seems impenetrable. But once you break out of the rutted corridor of our current course and through the initial undergrowth of the wild, a myriad of possibilities present themselves.

This convoy is gonna crash. Or we can hit the brakes and redirect. Most of us still have a choice. For climate refugees, plant and animal species being lost to extinction, and victims of systematic racism and oppression, it’s already too late. This system has already failed them, and it is in the process of failing the rest of us. Hence the political division, social discord, anger, resentment, fear, hostility, and extremism of our current reality.

It does not have to be this way. We can abandon broken systems and walk away from parasitic corporations. Envision what our livelihoods would look like were we to still flourish in another 500 years, complimenting natural systems and enhancing our quality of life rather than crushing them in the name of someone else’s concept of progress. Let us start living by sustainable, fulfilling, enriching mechanisms today. We will make wrong turns and have detours forced upon us at different times, but if we deliberately choose the means by which we live, we can make better choices for the resiliency of our lives and those of our children.

Where do we start? We begin with awareness of our harmful practices and by being open to alternatives to our usual habits. We need to recognize our tendencies that use the most energy, create the most waste, support bad jobs, and destroy the most habitat. We look for alternatives to flying, lawns, and intense packaging. If we deliberately look, we will find there are already alternative pathways to follow. We start small, altering our mindset to not be complacent with the status quo. We make one small change, and then another. We question the net affect of our actions and find decent ways to fill our leisure. Maybe we take a bike ride rather than driving to the bar. We do this enough and longer rides become appealing. Soon a shift occurs, and our course is altered toward a better future.

Or maybe we begin with food, questioning its effects on our bodies, the people who provide it, and the planet. Maybe we experiment with fresh veggies or visit a farm that provides CSA shares. Once we open our eyes to this system, our backs cannot be turned to it. Changing our habits becomes a matter of course.

Wherever we decide to place our attention, there are a lot of options to explore. The concepts that ultimately guide us may be remarkably simple, but that is conversation for another time.