BillConner wrote on Sep 20^th, 2017 at 12:42pm:

It would indeed be worthy of preservation, however, that's the point - in today's narcissistic age we are so distant from our environment that we simply don't have that kind of relationship with the natural world.  So when we paint on rocks, or for that matter, alter the environment in any way it's mostly about, "look at me," which, in my opinion, is not something that is either worth doing or preserving.

Whatever the motivation for painting on rock's, I suspect at some age it all becomes an historic artifact worth preserving. 

Likewise, is there a possibility that someone today could paint rocks for the same reasons and with the same intentions as the first nation people did hundreds of years ago?  Would that be deemed worthy of preservation?

BillConner wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2017 at 11:29am:

I've only recently come back from our month long trip down the Bloodvein River so I've just seen this response and feel I have to reply.  The Bloodvein, by the way, is an area where there are a great many rock paintings or pictographs.  But, Bill, it is critical to understand that rock paintings are not graffiti.  The intention of graffiti is to state, "I was here."  In some ways it is always a personal affirmation of my being and is, therefore, ego driven.  Pictographs are not that.  They represent teachings, not the person that put them there.  Pictographs mark places that are considered sacred - windows or access points for the acquisition of medicine -  and tell the story of the medicine and its nature.  My point is that what these ancient people were doing was not even remotely similar to painting graffiti on a wall.  It's a profound mistake to compare one to the other and suggest that the only reason pictographs are meaningful or acceptable is because they are old.  They are meaningful because they have meaning and that's why, I believe, they're still there after hundreds, sometimes even a thousand years or more.

The hand of man is everywhere. We were on a beach campsite on Pickerel last year and probably the best tent area had been used as a latrine. Besides the fact that we could see lights on the horizon and my cell phone worked, it wasn't my great wilderness experience that night.
I have no problem with log benches (dead of course) and a fire pit. Bring the rest home. Regardless of what our definition is of "wilderness," this is the real wilderness experience to the vast majority of visitors. It's incumbent on us to keep it in its same relatively pristine condition. Just that alone is going to be really hard to do going forward.

Kerry wrote on Jul 31^st, 2017 at 5:17pm:


It's a philosophical question. At Philmont, they have decided if something has been the way it is for 50 years it's historical and should remain.  I think it's interesting that we can despise a dry laid stone chair built by humans in the last few years but revere a painting on a rock by humans several 100 years ago. Are the metal remnants from the logging historic artifacts or trash violating LNT? Would a rock structure from logging era be ok but one from 10 years ago not be? I like the Philmont policy as being at least clear.

I try not to leave any trace, and carry out other people's trash if feasible. I don't stack stones except an occasional one around a fire pit, but am not bothered by and actually enjoy what some have built. And I like the several hundred year old grafitti.

BillConner wrote on Jul 31^st, 2017 at 11:45am:

Bill, that's a joke, right?

Family story:  My dad (now almost 101 yrs old) was a boy scout canoe guide out of Ely in the early 1940's and caught up in "will we be going to war?" times.  He was an artist type also.  So on one wilderness trip he got a hair-brained idea to put a swastika looking symbol on a big rock face by scraping off the lichens to make it stand out.  It got him put on the suspected anti-American list....

Quote:


I can see it now
Dad can me and the guy's take the canoe out, I promise to be home on time and not do anything stupid.
Son, why was there traces of red ochre powder in the canoe?
  It's NOT mine Dad, I don't know how it got there 

Yeah, those darn native Americans writin' all over the rocks.....

What surprises me is that people haven't tried to do their own pictographs using what the natives used.  Why hasn't anyone written their name and date in red ochre on a cliff face to last for centuries?  Too much work probably.

TomT wrote on Jul 30^th, 2017 at 12:46pm:


How old does grafitti have to be before it's a pictogragh?