CAPTIVATE for Public Lands Day: Finding awe and inspiration in nature

In the summer of 2018, I was a cliché: an aimless liberal arts post-grad looking for some sense of “meaning” in life. I had spent a year hopping from gig to gig in the arts—building a career but never building satisfaction—and found myself living in Seattle with few connections and even less money. A life-long New Yorker, I had been all over the globe but had never been west of the Mississippi. To me, “public lands” meant the relatively modest and contained parks of the East Coast. 

Pure chance--in the form of a car breakdown--led me to join a friend’s family on a trip to Mount Rainier National Park. The moment I stepped out of the car at Sunrise basecamp and saw the peak of Tahoma (a traditional, Indigenous name for the mountain) on a rare cloudless day, I felt the wind punched from my lungs. 

That sensation was captivation—and it led me down a path of discovery that I’m still traveling to this day. 

Since my experience at Tahoma, I’ve devoted myself to learning more about the shape of our public lands from the iconic national parks to obscure Bureau of Land Management areas. I’ve discovered these lands have rich histories—stories of love and hope as well as violence and destruction—that remain relatively unknown to the public at large, despite accounting for nearly 30 percent of U.S. land. It’s clear to me that if we all learn the past of these lands and put the present into context, we can yet change the future.  

There are a few things you can do to CAPTIVATE during the week leading up to Public Lands Day:

• Take a dive into The Wilderness Society Public Lands Curriculum, which aims to share a complete history, including lost stories, of U.S. public lands.
• Find out how you can take advantage of free and low-cost resources to explore public lands for yourself. 
• Take in a series of photo essays by Indigenous photographers with deep ties to significant landscapes across the United States. 
• Check out just a few of the best hiking experiences that public lands have to offer.

In honor of Public Lands Day 2023, The Wilderness Society invites you to discover the many ways you can connect and experience public lands. Whether you’re a weekly visitor to Fishtrap Recreation Area or a library-bound student reading about Badger-Two Medicine, there is always something new waiting for you. Go forth, find what is captivating to you on public lands and get inspired to join us in building a more inclusive, equitable conservation future for all!