Zack Porter: The “hush of the land” has never been more important

In short order, COVID-19 has shaken us down to our bones, threatening the lives of countless Americans. The failed social support systems of this country are on full display. As the coronavirus slows our frenetic world down to 3 miles an hour, I’m stirred by the writing of a friend and hero, Smoke Elser, legendary horse packer, wilderness philosopher, and advocate for wild places.

In a new collection of essays, “A Wild Land Ethic: The Story of Wilderness in Montana,” Elser invokes his mentor, Tom “Hobnail” Edwards, in recounting the story of the 1972 designation of the Scapegoat Wilderness. Speaking to Congress in defense of his beloved Lincoln backcountry, Edwards shared:

“Into this land of spiritual strength I have been privileged to guide on horseback literally thousands of people. … I have harvested a self-sustaining natural resource of the forest of vast importance. No one word will suffice to explain this resource, but let us call it the ‘hush’ of the land.”

As the first citizen-initiated wilderness designation, a model for wilderness campaigns since, the fight for the Scapegoat remains a rallying cry. Today, few places deserve the same commitment and recognition more than the Great Burn, a 275,000-acre proposed wilderness on the Idaho-Montana border, one of the largest unprotected wildlands in the U.S.

What the Great Burn offers in spades – in addition to irreplaceable habitat for mountain goats, bull trout and, soon, grizzly bears – is the renewable resource that Smoke and Tom refer to as the “hush of the land.” Just like the Scapegoat, the Great Burn is a fountain of “spiritual strength” that can help us through turbulent times, even if we never set foot in its old-growth forests or alpine meadows.

In the midst of this pandemic, I find hope in bearing witness to the accidental rewilding of America – the spread of the “hush” in our daily lives. Air quality is better than in decades, Interstate highways are quiet, the skies devoid of air traffic. Kids and parents play in the street and observe the arrival of spring in backyards and neighborhood parks.

I imagine the Great Burn’s wolverines, among only 300 remaining in the Lower 48, emerging from maternal dens to find their world unusually empty and quiet, with room to roam and peace of mind in the absence of screaming machines.

When stay-at-home orders come to an end, and the pace of life returns to a gallop, how do we hold on to the hush in our homes and families? How do we give wildlife space and freedom to thrive?

“Tom did more than just listen for that hush,” Elser writes. “He defended it.” Like the Scapegoat nearly 50 years ago, the wild Great Burn needs defenders, today.

If wild places are a source of spiritual strength for you as they are for me, there’s no time to lose. We can follow in Elser and Edwards’ bootsteps and keep the “hush” in abundant supply by shaping the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest’s management plan for the next generation.

Since the 1970s, the Lolo and Nez Perce-Clearwater national forests have managed the Great Burn as the largest “Recommended Wilderness” in the Northern Rockies. In 1988, the Great Burn suffered a cruel injustice: Congress designated the Montana portion as Wilderness, only to see it overturned in a politically motivated pocket veto by President Reagan, the sole veto in the history of the Wilderness Act.

The Great Fire of 1910, from which the area got its name, was an accident of history. The only accident today would be for the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest to reverse its longstanding commitment to the Great Burn.

Submit comments to fpr_npclw@fs.fed.us before Monday in support of maintaining existing protections for the Great Burn recommended wilderness. Just a short email will do.

Coronavirus has demonstrated that we cannot afford to go “back to normal.”

America’s endangered wilderness cannot afford business as usual, either. If we take time this spring to slow down, watch, and listen for the “hush of the land,” we might also be inspired to give wild nature its dues.

Zack Porter has worked in support of wildlife, wildlands and wild waters for 15 years in the Northern Rockies and North Cascades for nonprofit organizations and the U.S. Forest Service.