Latest news with #Stegner
Winnipeg Free Press
5 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Lose yourself, find yourself
In the ditch, I spot my first clump of wolf willow, and I say the words out loud. 'Wolf willow.' And laugh a little at my homage to the title of the book by long-dead American writer Wallace Stegner who, in a way, brought me here. Allow me to explain. It was August and I had just finished reading the book Wolf Willow by Stegner (who would go on to win a Pulitzer for another novel, Angle of Repose). His trademark poetic prose chronicling a childhood in southern Saskatchewan settled deep inside me, and I knew I had to go there. So, I jumped in my vehicle and began a solo adventure to Grasslands National Park. I'm a product of the Prairies — born, raised and settled in places of grass and far-away horizons, so I wasn't expecting something vastly different from the Grasslands. I was wrong. There's a line in one of the local guidebooks here about feeling small in a vast landscape. I felt more than small. Exposed, uneasy. My mind raced for an escape route should a bison come charging out of a coulee. There was neither a boulder nor a bluff to tuck into and hide. A tingle of fear ran up my spine and it was the first time I had this feeling while being outside. Grasslands National Park will make you feel alive. Here's our Top Ten on what to do when you arrive: Technically, Grasslands National Park was established to preserve a representative portion of the Canadian mixed grass prairie ecosystem. But it's so much more than that. This is where Sitting Bull and 4,000 Lakota Sioux sought sanctuary after The Battle of Little Big Horn. It's where Métis hunted bison. Archeological sites number in the thousands here. And it's where ranchers and homesteaders made a brave attempt put down roots on this open range. In any other year, this would be your first stop to purchase a national parks pass. But in 2025, admission is free until Sept. 2. Still, it's a must-visit to pick up info about tours and programs, camping and trail maps because the park is vast — 900 square kilometres divided into two blocks. It was the dog days of summer and I honestly didn't expect to see much wildlife, but again, Grasslands surprised me. Anxious to see the park, I made my way to the West Block just before sunset on my first day. First there was a pair of pronghorns racing across the horizon. Then a doe mule deer and her two young ones. A lone bison was lazily scratching his hind quarters on a post. I spent nearly an hour playing hide and seek with a white-tailed jackrabbit around the historic Larson homestead. Finally, a coyote stopped at the edge of a coulee, peered into the sunset, then disappeared in into the valley. With its distinctive large black-tipped grey ears, the white-tailed jackrabbit is mostly nocturnal, but loves a game of hide-and-seek once in a while. With its distinctive large black-tipped grey ears, the white-tailed jackrabbit is mostly nocturnal, but loves a game of hide-and-seek once in a while. The Village of Val Marie sits at the edge of the park, and down one of its quiet streets is The Sanctuary Inn, a former Anglican church that now holds two suites outfitted with everything you need for a quiet and comfortable stay (a full kitchen, too). I loved entering through the church's front doors to be greeted by vaulted ceilings and original window shapes. The owners have several other properties for rent in the area, plus there are other options including The Convent Country Inn, The Crossing at Grasslands, Sky Story Bed & Breakfast, Don's Place and two campgrounds. The Val Marie Bar and Café inside the village's hotel is where you'll find Rainbow, along with her husband Bob, providing excellent meals along with some of the friendliest service on the Prairies. There's a full Chinese menu, burgers, sandwiches and entrées, plus daily specials and signature homemade drinks like strawberry juice and lemonade. The space has personality to spare with busy pool tables, a mounted mule deer and a long-forgotten piano at the window. Naysayers may call it just a collection of rocks in a circle, and I was leaning toward the same before I took a stroll through Mary's Labyrinth. But then I slipped into a kind of meditation and when I reached the centre, I was ready to reflect on some deep-down things that needed attention. The labyrinth is at The Crossing at Grasslands, so it's private property, but all are welcome between 1 and 6 p.m. Housed inside the absolutely charming Val Marie schoolhouse, Prairie Wind & Silver Sage is a gift shop, bookstore, coffeeshop, art gallery and museum under one roof. There's an impressive collection of guidebooks and local history (admittedly, I could have spent the whole day here), along with adorable stuffed animals showcasing the park's wildlife. Stroll through The Cloakroom art gallery and take in the cultural exhibits of the museum, including a collection of aprons. A black-tailed prairie dog, that is. And the West Block and neighbouring lands are the only places in Canada where the species exists in its natural habitat. If you've never been to a dog town, you're in for a treat. These highly social rodents bark, squeak and call, plus they nuzzle and kiss — showing off their communication skills. One of the best places to witness the fun is on the Top Dogtown Trail. The West Block and neighbouring lands are the only places in Canada where black-tailed prairie dogs exist in their natural habitat. The West Block and neighbouring lands are the only places in Canada where black-tailed prairie dogs exist in their natural habitat. In 2009, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada declared Grasslands National Park a Dark Sky Preserve. And it happens to be one of Canada's darkest. Preserving dark places is important for the billion-year-old natural day-night cycle of flora and fauna, and it also makes for excellent stargazing. Remember to fuel up, stay close to your vehicle and keep an eye out for rattlesnakes, bison and prairie dog burrows. Two Trees Trail, Frenchman Valley Campground and Rock Creek Campground are great stargazing locations. Photos by Shel Zolkewich After a 120-year absence, a herd of plains bison was reintroduced into Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan. Photos by Shel Zolkewich After a 120-year absence, a herd of plains bison was reintroduced into Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan. You're not going to find this request in any guidebook, but think of your visit to Grasslands as an opportunity to embrace silence. These wide-open spaces are your invitation to do just that. As friend and fellow writer Hank Shaw so eloquently put it, 'Silence isn't necessarily rejection — from others or of myself. It is not something that needs to be justified, punished or feared. Silence can be sanctuary. Even solace.'
Japan Today
22-05-2025
- General
- Japan Today
Why protecting wildland is crucial to American freedom and identity
By Leisl Carr Childers As summer approaches, millions of Americans begin planning or taking trips to state and national parks, seeking to explore the wide range of outdoor recreational opportunities across the nation. A lot of them will head toward the nation's wilderness areas – 110 million acres, mostly in the West, that are protected by the strictest federal conservation rules. When Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, it described wilderness areas as places that evoked mystery and wonder, 'where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.' These are wild landscapes that present nature in its rawest form. The law requires the federal government to protect these areas 'for the permanent good of the whole people.' Wilderness areas are found in national parks, conservation land overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, national forests and U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuges. Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives began to consider allowing the sale of federal lands in six counties in Nevada and Utah, five of which contain wilderness areas. Ostensibly, these sales are to promote affordable housing, but the reality is that the proposal, introduced by U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, a Nevada Republican, is a departure from the standard process of federal land exchanges that accommodate development in some places but protect wilderness in others. Regardless of whether Americans visit their public lands or know when they have crossed a wilderness boundary, as environmental historians we believe that everyone still benefits from the existence and protection of these precious places. This belief is an idea eloquently articulated and popularized 65 years ago by the noted Western writer Wallace Stegner. His eloquence helped launch the modern environmental movement and gave power to the idea that the nation's public lands are a fundamental part of the United States' national identity and a cornerstone of American freedom. Humble origins In 1958, Congress established the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission to examine outdoor recreation in the U.S. in order to determine not only what Americans wanted from the outdoors, but to consider how those needs and desires might change decades into the future. One of the commission's members was David E. Pesonen, who worked at the Wildland Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley. He was asked to examine wilderness and its relationship to outdoor recreation. Pesonen later became a notable environmental lawyer and leader of the Sierra Club. But at the time, Pesonen had no idea what to say about wilderness. However, he knew someone who did. Pesonen had been impressed by the wild landscapes of the American West in Stegner's 1954 history 'Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West.' So he wrote to Stegner, who at the time was at Stanford University, asking for help in articulating the wilderness idea. Stegner's response, which he said later was written in a single afternoon, was an off-the-cuff riff on why he cared about preserving wildlands. This letter became known as the Wilderness Letter and marked a turning point in American political and conservation history. Pesonen shared the letter with the rest of the commission, which also shared it with newly installed Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. Udall found its prose to be so profound, he read it at the seventh Wilderness Conference in 1961 in San Francisco, a speech broadcast by KCBS, the local FM radio station. The Sierra Club published the letter in the record of the conference's proceedings later that year. But it was not until its publication in The Washington Post on June 17, 1962, that the letter reached a national audience and captured the imagination of generations of Americans. An eloquent appeal In the letter, Stegner connected the idea of wilderness to a fundamental part of American identity. He called wilderness 'something that has helped form our character and that has certainly shaped our history as a people … the challenge against which our character as a people was formed … (and) the thing that has helped to make an American different from and, until we forget it in the roar of our industrial cities, more fortunate than other men.' Without wild places, he argued, the U.S. would be just like every other overindustrialized place in the world. In the letter, Stegner expressed little concern with how wilderness might support outdoor recreation on public lands. He didn't care whether wilderness areas had once featured roads, trails, homesteads or even natural resource extraction. What he cared about was Americans' freedom to protect and enjoy these places. Stegner recognized that the freedom to protect, to restrain ourselves from consuming, was just as important as the freedom to consume. Perhaps most importantly, he wrote, wilderness was 'an intangible and spiritual resource,' a place that gave the nation 'our hope and our excitement,' landscapes that were 'good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it.' Without it, Stegner lamented, 'never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste.' To him, the nation's natural cathedrals and the vaulted ceiling of the pure blue sky are Americans' sacred spaces as much as the structures in which they worship on the weekends. Stegner penned the letter during a national debate about the value of preserving wild places in the face of future development. 'Something will have gone out of us as a people,' he wrote, 'if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed.' If not protected, Stegner believed these wildlands that had helped shape American identity would fall to what he viewed as the same exploitative forces of unrestrained capitalism that had industrialized the nation for the past century. Every generation since has an obligation to protect these wild places. Stegner's Wilderness Letter became a rallying cry to pass the Wilderness Act. The closing sentences of the letter are Stegner's best: 'We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.' This phrase, 'the geography of hope,' is Stegner's most famous line. It has become shorthand for what wilderness means: the wildlands that defined American character on the Western frontier, the wild spaces that Americans have had the freedom to protect, and the natural places that give Americans hope for the future of this planet. America's 'best idea' Stegner returned to themes outlined in the Wilderness Letter again two decades later in his essay 'The Best Idea We Ever Had: An Overview,' published in Wilderness magazine in spring 1983. Writing in response to the Reagan administration's efforts to reduce protection of the National Park System, Stegner declared that the parks were 'Absolutely American, absolutely democratic.' He said they reflect us as a nation, at our best rather than our worst, and without them, millions of Americans' lives, his included, would have been poorer. Public lands are more than just wilderness or national parks. They are places for work and play. They provide natural resources, wildlife habitat, clean air, clean water and recreational opportunities to small towns and sprawling metro areas alike. They are, as Stegner said, cures for cynicism and places of shared hope. Stegner's words still resonate as Americans head for their public lands and enjoy the beauty of the wild places protected by wilderness legislation this summer. With visitor numbers increasing annually and agency budgets at historic lows, we believe it is useful to remember how precious these places are for all Americans. And we agree with Stegner that wilderness, public lands writ large, are more valuable to Americans' collective identity and expression of freedom than they are as real estate that can be sold or commodities that can be extracted. Leisl Carr Childers is Associate Professor of History, Colorado State University. Michael Childers is Associate Professor of History, Colorado State University. The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. External Link © The Conversation
Indian Express
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
German legislator's concealed meeting with Putin confidants sparks security concerns
German legislators are demanding an explanation from a senior Social Democrat on the parliamentary committee that scrutinises the work of the intelligence services after he held undisclosed talks with close associates of Russia's president. Ralf Stegner, a member of the Bundestag's Parliamentary Control Committee, was among politicians from the SPD and Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives who took part in the April meeting in Baku. Among those they met on April 13 in the Azerbaijan capital was former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Subkov, head of Gazprom's supervisory board, and Valery Fadeyev, EU-sanctioned chair of Russia's human rights council. On both sides, the participants were former members of the Petersburger Dialogue, a forum founded in 2001 by Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The forum was officially disbanded in 2021 after Russia's crackdown on several participating civil society organisations. Four German participants – Stegner, Ronald Pofalla – who once led former Chancellor Angela Merkel's office – and two former regional ministers – confirmed in a statement to Reuters that they had been at a 'private' event in Baku. 'Talking even in difficult times of growing tension is a fundamental principle of good foreign policy,' they wrote, adding that the 'confidential' meeting was not secret, and none of them had a public mandate to be there or had been paid for their presence. The meeting, first reported by ARD public television and newspaper Die Zeit, took place at a time when Russia's ties with the EU are in a deep freeze over its invasion of Ukraine. The timing raised questions over the apparent willingness of some politicians to seek rapprochement even as Moscow wages war on a German ally. In Stegner's case, critics also raised security concerns: Members of the parliamentary control committee have privileged, confidential access to the work of Germany's foreign and domestic security services, both of them heavily involved in gathering intelligence relating to Russia and the war. 'This is a quite impossible and irritating development that must immediately be cleared up,' Konstantin von Notz, the Green chair of the committee, told Der Spiegel. Roderich Kiesewetter, a conservative member of the committee, said Stegner should explain himself, while liberal European legislator Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said Stegner should not be nominated for a new term on the committee. 'People in such a key role have to be above all suspicion,' she told Funke newspapers. 'That is not the case for him.'
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
German lawmaker in hot water over talks with Russian representatives
A Social Democrat lawmaker in Germany has been forced to defend himself against criticism for taking a trip to Azerbaijan for talks with Russian representatives, which came to light after a media investigation. "One of the principles of good foreign policy is that, even and especially in difficult times of increasing tensions, conflicts and wars, dialogue contacts in all parts of the world and also with Russia should be maintained," Ralf Stegner wrote in a joint statement with three former members of the parliament on Friday. German media had reported on the trip to Baku which Stegner and others took on April 14. Stegner told dpa that he was surprised at the polemical reaction, which had "no grounds." "It's important to have contact for there to be any dialogue at all," he said. Stegner stressed that he did not go as a government representative, but a freely elected member of parliament. It was "based on private initiative and organized and financed informally," he said. No sensitive security information or even secret information was exchanged, he said. The deputy chairman of the parliament's intelligence oversight panel, conservative Roderich Kiesewetter, told reporters previously that Stegner "would have to face some questions" on the visit. A senior politician from the liberal Free Democrats, Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, demanded that Stegner be should not be allowed to remain a member of the oversight panel.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
German legislator's concealed meeting with Putin confidants sparks security concerns
By Thomas Escritt BERLIN (Reuters) - German legislators are demanding an explanation from a senior Social Democrat on the parliamentary committee that scrutinises the work of the intelligence services after he held undisclosed talks with close associates of Russia's president. Ralf Stegner, a member of the Bundestag's Parliamentary Control Committee, was among politicians from the SPD and Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives who took part in the April meeting in Baku. Among those they met on April 13 in the Azerbaijan capital was former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Subkov, head of Gazprom's supervisory board, and Valery Fadeyev, EU-sanctioned chair of Russia's human rights council. On both sides, the participants were former members of the Petersburger Dialogue, a forum founded in 2001 by Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The forum was officially disbanded in 2021 after Russia's crackdown on several participating civil society organisations. Four German participants - Stegner, Ronald Pofalla - who once led former Chancellor Angela Merkel's office - and two former regional ministers - confirmed in a statement to Reuters that they had been at a "private" event in Baku. "Talking even in difficult times of growing tension is a fundamental principle of good foreign policy," they wrote, adding that the "confidential" meeting was not secret, and none of them had a public mandate to be there or had been paid for their presence. The meeting, first reported by ARD public television and newspaper Die Zeit, took place at a time when Russia's ties with the EU are in a deep freeze over its invasion of Ukraine. The timing raised questions over the apparent willingness of some politicians to seek rapprochement even as Moscow wages war on a German ally. In Stegner's case, critics also raised security concerns: Members of the parliamentary control committee have privileged, confidential access to the work of Germany's foreign and domestic security services, both of them heavily involved in gathering intelligence relating to Russia and the war. "This is a quite impossible and irritating development that must immediately be cleared up," Konstantin von Notz, the Green chair of the committee, told Der Spiegel. Roderich Kiesewetter, a conservative member of the committee, said Stegner should explain himself, while liberal European legislator Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said Stegner should not be nominated for a new term on the committee. "People in such a key role have to be above all suspicion," she told Funke newspapers. "That is not the case for him." (Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke, editing by Philippa Fletcher)
