Enjoy the show, and I’ll see you next week.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: California, ecotourism, ecotravel, environment, featured posts, Humboldt, nature, outdoors, photography, Siskiyou, travel, water

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An extra photo post for y’alls: I’d been in New Hampshire for a few weeks, and had descended into a mild state of computer addiction. Jamie called one day to invite me on a hike, and it turned out to be one of the best days of my entire journey.

We hiked ten miles that day through the White Mountains, on a beautiful trail past marshes, through forests, along the banks of empty ravines. The mountains out here are old and empty, decaying gradually in landslides. The woods are dark and deep. It was unlike any landscape I knew, but my guides had been hiking here for a decade. They knew exactly where to go.

When we reached Thoreau Falls, we had to go off-trail, scrambling down an almost-vertical slope through rotting, mossy branches. The falls landed in a series of pools, and the water was a deep reddish-orange. High iron content? Iron bacteria? Maybe, but we swam anyway, and basked, and then hot-footed it back through the fading light. A beautiful hike, and one I almost missed.

Thank you, New Hampshire.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adventure, ecotourism, hiking, nature, New Hampshire, outdoors, photography, thoreau falls, travel, water, white mountains

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It was August, but it was also Maine. The air was cool and wet and smelled of the sea. We had left the New Hampshire Farmhaus, crossed the border into Kittery Point, and kept heading east until we hit the Seapoint beach.

Seapoint is one of those public beaches that are so beautiful, the local residents try to claim it as their own. You have to have a parking sticker proving that you live in Kittery Point, or you could get a ticket for leaving your car around. But the fog was thick and the sun was dropping, so we took our chances.

The waves were low and flat and gray, and so was the sky. They met and melded just a few meters from the sand: the waves appeared to be descended from the clouds, and it seemed you could walk right out on their foamy tips and end up in the ether.

I didn’t try. Instead, I clambered over slippery rocks, inspected seaweed and shells and discarded crab traps, took a few photos, waxed philosophical while gazing at the grey sea… and that was Maine, my only time in Maine.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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A little perspective: This is one of very few places in the Americas where you can watch the sun set over the Atlantic. It may be the only place where you can then cross a pier and watch it rise again. Enjoy the show.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: atlantic, cape cod, ecotourism, Massachusetts, outdoors, photography, Provincetown, sunrise, sunset, tourism, travel, water

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I’ve never met her before, but Raina Stefani treats me like a good friend. I’ve been in Provincetown a couple of days, and have been hard pressed to find the local green scene. Raina’s restaurant, Terra Luna, is the only place in the northern Cape with sustainably-harvested fare. When I email Terra Luna for more information, Raina herself replies, and before I know it she’s picking me up on Commercial Street for a personal tour of some local farms.

Why the warm welcome? I soon come to realize that we nature-minded types are few and far between out here. Raina is a Provincetown native, and has watched the Cape change throughout her lifetime; what was once a forward-thinking counterculture enclave has become something else entirely.

Provincetown, a picturesque fishing village at the very tip of the Cape, has long been a summer getaway for city-weary Northeasterners. In the 60s and 70s, it was colonized by hippies and gays, and soon became known as a freak’s home-away-from-home. By the 1980s, “P-town” was a hot spot on the gay circuit, and these days it’s one of the top regional destinations for fags and dykes, bois & grrls alike.

But let’s be honest: this is a set that is prone to profligacy. Six million tourists come to stroll these rainbow-strewn streets each summer, dropping their hard-won cash at lobster bisqueries, techno-thumping scene bars, overpriced B&Bs and gaudy gift shops. Peanut-butter doggie lollipops go for $4 apiece; “I Love My Mommies” t-shirts will cost you $25. From every corner rises the smell of deep-fried seafood, sold at obscene prices and in even-more-obscene quantities.

Almost noplace in the tourist area can you find a sustainable, local-grown or organic meal.

Raina aimed to remedy that glaring oversight by founding Terra Luna in nearby Truro. Her restaurant and catering service focus on local, organic, sustainably farmed and harvested foods. Dishes are top-tier (e.g. grass-fed filet of beef with a gorgonzola crust and port wine reduction glaze, Israeli couscous with toasted almonds, yellow raisins, basil, mint) and described by Frommer’s as “outstanding”—yet business is slow compared to Provincetown’s less-responsible locations.

Terra Luna is a ten-minute drive from Commercial Street. So why aren’t more people leaving the P-town bubble in search of better food?

First problem: Cape tourists don’t seem to care what they eat. Raina knows the local restaurateurs, and can say with certainty that popular restaurants are serving Sysco beef*. Many people are aware that lobsters are overharvested, and that lobster traps and ropes snag everything from seabirds to whales—yet they still mow crustacean like it’s going out of style. And don’t get Raina started on other questionable delicacies, such as foie gras.

The solution to this problem lies in a question: “where did your food come from?“. Raina wants to influence Cape locals and tourists alike to ask—and answer—that question. But so far, the response has been less than enthusiastic. People come here for a worry-free vacation, and they pretty much just stay on the tourist strip, gorging on fried shrimp without thinking of where it originated. Because there’s no pressure on restaurants to be eco-friendly, they focus on raking in as much cash as possible during the high season—which means cutting corners in quality and sourcing.

I know it’s true, because I do it too: sometimes you just want to eat delicious food without worrying about the consequences. But for Raina and other locals, watching millions of tourists rampage irresponsibly over a fragile landscape can be torturous.

There’s another, bigger problem with sustainably feeding a summer population of six million: this little sandbar isn’t capable of producing much food. Come back tomorrow for the hard truths of farming on sand, and the next day we can talk about tourism’s impact on the Cape ecosystem. And then you can tell me how to save Cape Cod.

 
 
*NOTE: Sysco is making a strong effort to serve more organic and sustainable meat; however, mass-produced and cold-shipped beef is ultimately unsustainable.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dining, ecotourism, environment, food, Massachusetts, Provincetown, sustainable, tourism, travel, truro, water

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Provincetown has a lot going for it, but I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow. On my first day out, I didn’t have a feel for the place yet. So I went and wandered the strip, and soon found myself in a shell shop.

And what a shop. The place was so packed with seashells, there was hardly room for the clientele. Bins of colorful starfish, mollusks, corals, and other marine doo-dads filled every corner; shellacked blowfish hung from the ceiling. Tiny shells had been arranged into adorable tableaux, often featuring googly eyes and little signs that said “Cape Cod.”

Except, of course, that most of these shells hadn’t come from the Cape. Out here you can still find mussels, clams and oysters—but for the exotic, collectible stuff you’ve got to go a bit farther.

Like, you know, Asia.

The fact is, most of the thousands of pretty dead things on display here had been harvested under questionable practices half a world away, then shipped in bulk. Odds are, the shop owners order their goods from a catalog like everybody else.

I remember shell shops from my childhood. My grandparents lived in Southern California, and would buy us shells as gifts. We loved ‘em, the more exotic the better. In fact, right now I’m looking at the jaw of a small shark, undoubtedly picked up in some tourist shop somewhere. It looks cool, and it was bought in the ’80s when we didn’t think about things like seashell harvesting. But those halcyon days of ignorant consumption are past, eh? So let’s think about seashells right now.

Horned sea stars are in serious danger from overharvesting.

I’ve checked around, and it looks like the best places to get seashells in bulk are Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, maybe Fiji. These are all places where the battles of industrialism vs. ecology are being waged in very real ways. Unsustainable fishing, lumber harvesting, pollution, hunting of endangered species: all of this is happening every day in a region known for its unmatched environmental beauty.

So you want to buy a shell? Well, just so you know, that dead animal you hold in your hand may or may not have been farmed, and very likely was “harvested” while still alive. No time to collect empty shells namby-pamby on the beach, not when fat Americans like glittery mollusks with googly eyes!

Your shell is also a part of a larger system, a business of extracting from the environment more than it naturally gives. Townspeople that traditionally collected shells to sell to tourists (like, back in the ’80s) have been driven out of their homes by large fishing businesses. Coastal dredging ruins reefs and massacres shellfish. Deep-sea trawling brings rare “treasures” from the depths. And any coastal dwellers that are unlucky enough to have pretty exoskeletons are being driven to extinction by seashell harvesting. And then, of course, they’re shipped around the world, on a big boat leaving a trail of petroleum through the ocean.

But look! It’s a baby pufferfish with a hat on!

Anyway, sorry to ruin your shell collection for you. I’m sad about mine, too. Let’s not buy any more shells, hey?

Want more guilt? Watch and weep:

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: buy nothing, ecotourism, environment, featured posts, harvesting, nature, photography, seashells, sustainable, tourism, water

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This is the Waterpod™.

If you live in New York—or if you’re a sustainability geek—you probably heard about this highly ambitious project: 5 artists living on a barge on the waterways of New York, creating their own food, water and shelter in a demonstration of sustainable technology. The Waterpod visited each borough of New York, hosting events and offering free demonstrations and information to all visitors.

Cool stuff, at least in theory. Apocalypse enthusiasts and Kevin Costner fans alike have long toyed with the idea of living on the water; finally, somebody (one Mary Mattingly) got up the gumption to try it. And as it prepared to launch this spring, everyone from Discover to Inhabitat was singing its praises.

However, by the time I arrived in NY, the project had gotten some mixed press. Questions of the barge’s true sustainability were rampant—and my interest was piqued.

I tried to find information on the technical details via the project’s website, but only found a lot of artist-speak and a long James Joyce quote about water. What was the Waterpod exactly, and was it actually a viable living space—or just a high-concept artpiece created by ambitious amateurs?

The answer, not surprisingly, was a little of both. What I found at the Waterpod was not so much a fully-functioning project as a demonstration of possibility. Maybe it doesn’t work perfectly, but it offers fantastic food for thought and a lot of inspiration.

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Read the rest of The Waterpod: life on a New York boat (883 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agritourism, alternative, art, biotecture, chickens, citizen science, design, diy, ecotourism, education, energy, energy-efficient, environment, experimental, farming, featured posts, gardening, green building, green living, habitat, New York, organic, permaculture, radical, recycling, reuse, river, solar, starving artists, sustainable, teaching, water

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I’d never seen a Great Lake before. “They’re huge,” people had told me. “You can’t see across them.” But that still didn’t prepare me for visiting one in person.

We drove up to the Indiana Dunes State Park, an expanse of protected shore along Lake Michigan. We were hoping to find a spot to camp, but it was the weekend: the park was full of families from the nearby cities. No campsites were available, and we’d have to keep moving.

Still, it would be absurd to get this close to Lake Michigan without seeing it. The National Lakeshore was free and open to the public; we made our way to the beach, and I finally saw my first Great Lake.

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Read the rest of Indiana Dunes State Park (185 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: animal, buy nothing, eco travel, ecotourism, ecotravel, environment, Great Lake, Indiana, Indiana Dunes, Lake Michigan, nature, outdoors, photography, pollution, recreation, state park, summer, tourism, travel, water

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Turkey Run State Park. Yep, that’s what it’s called. There aren’t really any turkeys here: they were hunted to near-extinction in this area, and now you’d have to be pretty lucky to find one. But local history tells of a time when wild turkeys would flock in the deep canyons. Hunters would then chase the birds through the steep-sided “runs” and directly onto their dinner tables.

Just like in Montgomery County’s other strangely-named parks, there’s plenty of history here. Before becoming state parks, these canyons and gorges offered good shelter for settlers and Native Americans. And before that, who knows what creatures prowled these canyon floors?

We do know that the environmental conditions in the gorges have hardly changed in thousands of years. While the rest of Indiana marched onward into agriculture and industry, these spots stayed exactly the same—and those of us lucky to step foot in Turkey Run’s canyons are rewarded with a trip back in time.

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Read the rest of A Trip into Indiana's Prehistory (689 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adventure, climate change, community, ecotourism, ecotravel, environment, hiking, Indiana, nature, outdoors, photography, recreation, state park, summer, tourism, travel, water, weather

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Indiana is full of two things: cornfields and soybean fields. They line the roadsides, flashing past as you drive: cornfield, soybean field. Cornfield, soybean field. Cornfields with rusty tin-roofed barns; soybean fields with power poles marching diagonally across. Soybean fields with tree-shaded farmhouses; cornfields with peak-roofed silo towers like shiny agricultural castles. And then more soybean fields, and more corn fields.

soybean field (with cornfield in background)

Most of Indiana looks like this: an expanse of farmland where the only variation is between those two ubiquitous crops. This is Big Ag country, where a farmer’s goal is to produce as many identical plants as possible. Soybeans and corn, after all, are the true backbone of America.

The fields are beautiful, in their way—but it’s an unnatural beauty, without mystery or variation. Like assembly lines, these cornrows produce ear after perfect ear with nary a bug or blemish in sight. But they rely on genetically-modified crops, nasty pesticides and irresponsible farming practices, and in the shade of those waxy green leaves lies distressed, unhealthy soil.

But I digress.

What I meant to say was: here in Indiana, there ain’t much but corn and soybeans. It’s flat and green as far as the eye can see… except in Montgomery County, where I met Lacy and Justin Smith.

Lacy is an ex-coworker of mine, and an Indiana native. I’d been looking forward to seeing her for months. We met in Lafayette and then headed out to the countryside where she grew up. There, we visited a few of Indiana’s most pristine, beautiful, and well-hidden spots: Shades and Turkey Run State Parks, and the Pine Hills Nature Preserve.

Pine Hills at the Devil’s Backbone – click to zoom in, it’s worth it

Sandstone cliff on the Devil’s Backbone trail

Pretty amazing scenery; more photos after the jump.

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Read the rest of Shades of Death and the Devil's Backbone (483 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adventure, ecotourism, environment, gorge, hiking, Indiana, nature, outdoors, photography, recreation, river, state park, summer, tourism, travel, water

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