It’s foolishly and
reprehensibly irresponsible to rely on some miraculous transformation… The miracle we’re waiting for is us.”
(Derrick Jensen)
How did The Schiff get
its name? It is named after me!
This is the first structure to be named for me.
Jay’s last name is Schifferdecker; The Schiff is an outhouse for Woody Creek
Cabin (photo).
For years, we skied in solitude through the vast volcanic
valley where The Schiff now
stands. Now, our namesake provides shelter and privacy for “ecotourists.”
They sneak a slice of wilderness from
Beartooth Powder Guides, LLC (BPG) in Woody Creek Cabin, paying top dollar for
"Wilderness Lodging." After
all, this is the Greater Yellowstone’s wildest span, nothing like this remains
in the U.S. West. BPG now runs a “Pay to
Play” business here, marketed as “sustainable.”*
We circulate information about wilderness profiteering and
have a petition to prevent further encroachment into vulnerable nearby parcels. BPG owner Ben Zavora and his guides Beau
Fredlund and Jesse Logan have ignored our valid concerns. The name of BPG’s pit toilet, though, roars
its own response.
Here’s a riddle: What is it to be shat on?
Answer: Wilderness.
The Schiff buries
crap. Symbolically, it attempts to
conceal our opposition. Our blog, “The
Schiff Speaks” is a cleansing excavation.
Cutthroat trout below The Schiff
deserve crystal clear waters. Grizzlies
deserve open terrain in which to roam.
They can not be fooled, they know the Woody Creek Cabin pollutes and
encroaches upon their habitat. So too do
environmentalists need straight talk.
Want it, take it, justify it.
Have we not learned? BPG perpetuates a “pattern of plundering” that has revenged resources of the U.S. West for centuries. The Schiff Speaks is a plea for our readers to live a more moral life than our colonial ancestors, to sacrifice for the environment at any cost to personal desire.
Our dismay with BPG is simply an entry point into our wider disappointment
with the environmental movement overall.
As significant and sacred as the Greater Yellowstone is, the topics here
range beyond our backdoor because everywhere the environmental movement is
failing. Our blog is bred from our fears for the planet.
BACKGROUND ON
INHOLDING DEVELOPMENT OF THE BEARTOOTHS:
*In the summer of 2012, BPG developed Woody
Creek, a watershed to the Yellowstone
River. In the spring of 2013,
BPG proposed a hut in the alpine north of Cooke City. In cutthroat & grizzly habitat, the Goose
Lake hut is currently “postponed”
but “still on the table.”
BPG’s enterprise exploits private inholdings. Inholdings are private land surrounded by
protected public acreage. Inholdings are
anomalies on our map; outdated patents originally intended to encourage mining
in the West. Since their designation in
1872, the recreational value of these parcels has soared with the region’s
urbanization. BPG has secured the patented claims with private leases,
opportunistically profiting from land that should no longer be commercial.
There are some relatively wholesome aspects to the BPG
venture (Companion Lake Yurt, guiding), but a business pulling commercial
lodging into public and protected acreage deserves scrutiny. We question BPG’s claims to sustainability,
particularly their focus on leave no trace (irreconcilable with their erection
of a log cabin) and their professed concern for climate change (hard to believe
given that they are also snowmobile guides).
Lynn Stegner and Russell Rowland eds. West of 98: Living and Writing the new American West. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
References:
Lynn Stegner and Russell Rowland eds. West of 98: Living and Writing the new American West. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
Derrick Jensen. "You Choose," in Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson eds. Moral Ground; Ethical Action for a Planet in
Peril. San Antonio: Trinity
University Press, 2010, 60-64. website
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