Past Like a Mask, or, The Trouble with “The Trouble with Wilderness”

Abstract

Twenty years ago I was much smarter than I am today. Contemplating a Fulbright fellowship at the Turnbull Library, I had most of the answers worked out before leaving American shores; all I needed was some evidence. Well schooled in the historical traditions of the Great Plains of North America, which are grounded in the environmental determinism of Texas historian Walter P. Webb, I knew what must have happened in the tussock grasslands of the South Island. In subhumid grasslands colonized by Britons, certain interactions of humankind with the environment must have taken place, many of them symbolized by arcane acts of adaptation—the application of fire to the biome, the bounding of lands with fences and plantings, struggles with animal pests and weedy plants, contests between herdsmen and plowmen, and ultimately the crystallization of a regional identity and a defined character. The rest would be detail, variations on a theme.