✨🎈Week 2🎈✨

I have barely known the American history so when I was asking to describe what “Manifest Destiny” is before I read the related lecture, I couldn’t answer. “Manifest Destiny” is like a concept of expansion in 1845. It was held by the United States to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism through the whole North America continent. Runte said Americans have achieved “Manifest Destiny” because the U.S. acquired some territories in 1845 and 1846 from British and Mexico for resolving the settlements of the boundaries in the Pacific Northwest. In Runte Wild and Art:” It was, supporters justified, the “manifest destiny” of the nation to possess all of the territories in between.” clearly stated the concept for the expansion. With the exploring and development of new territories, search for material well-being has been achieved by nationalism. National Park idea came out with the accompanied by the force of appeals for cultural identity through nature which would be part of the destiny. If we look at what the U.S. has today, we could say that destiny has been achieved well.

Why was Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Hypothesis” so important to the development and growth of the American conservation movement towards the end of the 19th Century? Based on the “manifest destiny” and Turner’s “Frontier Hypothesis”, citizens were encouraged to explore and foster the West land. People were told to seek the gold and opportunities in the unexplored land. The beautiful and fresh environment was also an attraction for the people who lived in the crowded and uncleaned city after the views of the wild posted in the public. Like Turner said: “The Frontier not only made the American different than the European but better.”However, the loss of the “Frontier” made people concern about the disappearance of those characteristics. In the explore process, the conservation movement came out with the events related to the preservation of the national parks which had incredibly beautiful features and difficulty to be cultivated. The big concern about the lost in public eyes can be seen as the beginning of rest of other conservation movements, so it is so important to the development and growth of the American conservation movement towards the end of the 19th century.

I was wondering what was the heart in the debate about concerning the creation in Yellowstone Park in Nash’s lecture. The heart of the debate around concerning the creation of Yellowstone National Park is whether the resources should be exploited or keep the original ecological environment. The debate in Nash’s lecture mainly discussed the railroad development and protecting the original landscape like hot springs and wildlife. In the beginning, the railroad was willing to build to support some mining companies for taking advantages from the natural resources in the Yellowstone National Park. However, some discommenders pointed out the railroad will ruin the original nature scenery especially some geysers and hot springs, they stated the greed would against national pride and beauty. The railroad establishment voters went down a lot after the measure of the disadvantages of building it by applying oneself to protect the wilderness of Yellowstone National Park. Thanks to those people didn’t been blinded by the short-term benefit on exploiting the natural resources in Yellowstone National Park, today the posterities in the whole world still have chance to enjoy the national pride and beauty.

My personal reflection will be about my personal experience in Yellowstone National Park which I could understand why forefathers were struggling on balance the benefit of keeping the beautiful landscape wilderness which turned to national parks later on or exploit the resources inside of them. Once, I was unprepared went to Yellowstone National Park alone. I landed on Salt Lake City and drove to the national park. The journey was kind of boring until I reached a small town next to the entrance. I had a break at night and drove into the national park the next day. It was not so crowded and I was lucky to see the wild animals while I was driving. Ignoring the bad smell of those geysers, I really enjoyed the fresh air and green. The environment was quiet and peace so I couldn’t imagine how the circumstance would be if the railroad was build in the national park. I didn’t book any hotel in the national park early so I expected there would be a spot left. Unfortunately, I tried a few hotels in the park and none of them had any room left. So I had to drove out the park back to the down near the entrance to sleep. Except for the fixed spots, there was also some huge free wilderness barely have people been there for hiking. I hope I could have an exciting adventure but I didn’t want to head in the jungle without anything could against the mosquito. I planed a week for visiting the park but I realized it was too long for an individual after three days. Therefore, I drove up along the road on the map and noticed the outside of the national park is an even larger wilderness that has a few people living and some of them are even prettier than the scenery inside of the national park. I had never seen the same scenery in my country because of the different geographic positions so I felt I was inspired to travel and see more places. And I realized uncultivated areas have much more floor space not just in the U.S. but in the whole world. I parked on the rest spot next to the high way and it was next to the river. I felt so helpless and lost while I was standing alone in front of a great piece of wilderness. After I looked at someone else journey in the park, I felt I missed a lot of fun things to play. Here is a video about backpacking though.