A Reenchanted World by James William Gibson

Author:James William Gibson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780805078350
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

7

Imitation Wildness

and the Sacred Casino

The ways in which the culture of enchantment interacts with the mainstream culture it hopes to change have created problems that its adherents never foresaw. In addition, contradictions within the culture have weakened the movement. One of the primary conflicts involves human relationships with animals. While all factions seem to agree that totemism implies the symbolic recognition and integration of animals into the human community, differences arise when people are faced with the question of how to live near real animals.

One prominent faction argues that people and animals can achieve an intimate coexistence—that with some adjustments and limitations, they can live side by side like small-town neighbors. For example, the Defenders of Wildlife, who advocate reintroducing wolves to the Rockies, handle situations when wolves kill cattle or sheep by paying compensation to the ranchers. Grizzly bear researchers Doug Peacock and Charlie Russell have both experimented with setting up encampments near grizzly bear habitats to test the hypothesis that humans and grizzlies were not destined to be mortal enemies but could share a territory. They hoped to demonstrate that as long as certain boundaries are maintained, grizzly bears could be reintroduced to what had once been their traditional territories in the Rocky Mountains.

Neither Peacock nor Russell tried to literally live among the bears, to camp with them, but instead kept some distance—Russell even used an electric fence around his cabin compound.1 But among a certain segment in the culture of enchantment, the notion of forming a human-animal family was taken to mean that humans and wild animals should literally live together, without borders. By far the most famous of these advocates was Timothy Treadwell. Born in New York, Treadwell descended into alcoholism and heavy drug use as a teenager. His effort to start over in Long Beach, California, failed, leading only to more substance abuse. In a last-ditch attempt to remake himself, Treadwell journeyed to Alaska in the summer of 1989, hoping to fulfill a childhood dream—to see a grizzly bear. He got his wish, and when he saw his first bear, he was overcome with emotion. “For me, the encounter was like looking into a mirror. I gazed into the face of a kindred soul, a being that was potentially lethal, but in reality was just as frightened as I was.”2 This transcendent experience inspired him to create a new life.

Treadwell vowed to return to Alaska the following summer to become a bear guardian, protecting grizzlies from poachers by living among them. He got through that summer clean and sober, and bonded with some of the bears in Kodiak Island’s Grizzly Sanctuary. But Treadwell feared that he would backslide in California. In his 1997 memoir, Among Grizzlies, Treadwell recalls the confession he made to a bear he named Booble. “I’ll never really be your defender because I can’t stop drinking,” he told the bear. “I’m such a loser.” Treadwell then had a mystical experience. “Booble trusted me with her life and I trusted her with mine. I begged forgiveness from a higher power, then made my pledge.

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