Wilderness Reflection
Photo taken in Germantown MetroPark along Twin Creek by Tiffinnie Reed
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘wilderness’? I think of wilderness as a place of fondness, a place that is natural, wild and peaceful; untouched by humans. I think of tall trees, old woods, running water and the animals that inhabit these places. Places like these are becoming harder and harder to find as more land is developed for housing and commerce. I’m very thankful for lands that have been protected and think we need more awareness of protecting and maintaining our natural areas. Whereas wilderness to some may evoke thoughts of fear and the unknown, I think of it as a very natural place which doesn’t have fear attached to it. However, we are quite accustomed to living indoors, with lights, heat and/or air conditioning. We are protected from predators, bugs and maybe even other humans; these are the stimuli that cause fear for most people. John Muir even said, “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest of wilderness.”
As you travel around the places where you live, do you ever wonder, how did ‘this place’ look before you knew it? What would have stood out as geographical markers on this land or places close to us? Specifically, imagine what it looked like before settlers came here and colonized America. How did the indigenous people who lived here before us travel through the land without maps and GPS? They used natural landmarks, and were very aware of the contour of the land and all that inhabited it.
All of Ohio and particularly the Miami Valley, where I live, was inhabited by Native Americans who traversed the area for many years before European settlers came here to conquer their land. Miami, Shawnee, Wyandotte, and Iroqois were just a few of the local tribes of native americans that lived here before settlers started coming down the Ohio River into the Ohio River Valley. They knew landmarks such as the Great Lakes in Michigan, the Ohio River, the Great Miami River, and gorges that were here like Clifton Gorge and the Hocking Hills area. These peoples left their own mark also, with mounds that we can see like the Miamisburg Mound and Serpent Mound which is found in Peebles, Ohio. These landmarks are sacred areas where their loved ones are buried and many relics have been found. Here is a great site that lists many important native american landmarks in the Cincinnati area.
As you travel around the places where you live, do you ever wonder, how did ‘this place’ look before you knew it? What would have stood out as geographical markers on this land or places close to us? Specifically, imagine what it looked like before settlers came here and colonized America. How did the indigenous people who lived here before us travel through the land without maps and GPS? They used natural landmarks, and were very aware of the contour of the land and all that inhabited it.
All of Ohio and particularly the Miami Valley, where I live, was inhabited by Native Americans who traversed the area for many years before European settlers came here to conquer their land. Miami, Shawnee, Wyandotte, and Iroqois were just a few of the local tribes of native americans that lived here before settlers started coming down the Ohio River into the Ohio River Valley. They knew landmarks such as the Great Lakes in Michigan, the Ohio River, the Great Miami River, and gorges that were here like Clifton Gorge and the Hocking Hills area. These peoples left their own mark also, with mounds that we can see like the Miamisburg Mound and Serpent Mound which is found in Peebles, Ohio. These landmarks are sacred areas where their loved ones are buried and many relics have been found. Here is a great site that lists many important native american landmarks in the Cincinnati area.
According to the early surveys, the Great Miami Valley was home to a very dense concentration of mounds and earthworks. Squier and Davis’s “Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley” illustrated multiple earthworks, especially between Colerain and Hamilton. None of those remain visible today, although the strangely gated “Fortified Hill” of Butler County survives on a wooded hilltop on private land. Our recommended route spans from Miami Fort, one of the region’s best preserved hilltop enclosures, to the Miamisburg Mound, the most spectacularly sited of the Midwest’s large burial mounds.
Photo Credit and Caption: https://www.ancientohiotrail.org/routes/great-miami-valley
Germantown MetroPark
photo credit T. Reed
Germantown is a place that has several places of true wilderness with the Germantown MetroPark and TwinCreek MetroPark (2 of the Five Rivers MetroParks) located there. These parks have many hiking trails and even some sections of old forest that hearken back to the times when the Miami tribe called this area home. Prior to them, there were settlements of Hopewell tribes that built earthwork mounds in several places. There are at least two marked areas in TwinCreek Metropark of mounds credited to the Hopewells. Anytime I am in Germantown, I feel a strong presence of the history of these past peoples and as I drive alongside the high ridges of the local land and hike the trails, these landmarks make me pause and imagine seeing these great warriors stalking through quietly as they make their livelihood by hunting and traversing the land. These images of Native Americans go hand in hand with wilderness as they had a high respect for the land and what it provided for them. The people who lived here before us knew this place by landmarks, and they traveled far distances to meet with other tribes for certain events during the year.
Twin Creek at TwinCreek MetroPark photo credit T. Reed
Today, it may be hard to imagine a more simple time, without cars, roads, parking lots, but it really wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things. In 1842, just 180 years ago, the last organized tribe of Wyandotte Indians left Ohio. At that time, to the first settlers here, this seemed like such a triumph but at what cost? The further, in time, we get from these tragic events, the more appalling they are to those of us who still call this place home. Similarly, we may one day (sooner than we realize), look back and see that we have done the same thing to not only our country, but our planet. The egocentrism of us as humans, are usually only able to think about our current selves and our current situation, thus making it hard to conceptualize the impact of our actions.
