One of those people, I came to learn in , is me. I was fifteen years old when I first set foot on Turtle Island Preserve. Depending on who you ask, McCandless is a patron saint or a cautionary tale: the learned young man shirked a life of privilege and material comfort to travel the continent, eventually coming to die young in the Alaskan wilderness. My mother, hoping to provide me a tad more structure, signed me up for Turtle Island Older Boys camp. It was an impactful two weeks.
I was formally introduced to the south Bojangles! I used my hands, constructing a sweat lodge in which I would drip alongside my fellow campers. I fraternized with adults, feeling for the first time that I was one myself. Somewhere at the periphery of all of this was Eustace. As I fell in love with the place and returned every few summers to work at camp as a kitchen troll a position about as glamorous as it sounds or a counselor, Eustace kept his distance.
He must have felt he knew me well enough, though, for his request was a solemn one. Eustace asked me to join the transition team: a group enlisted to help ease the Preserve into a phase where it could survive without him. I had excited discussions with those also being tapped, the electricity of a new thing crackling in the air.
I was also daunted. What would the gig entail? In short, everything. For years, the Turtle Island internship program—a twelve-to-fourteen-month exchange of work for room and board—kept the property running, but was also a means of grooming people for succession.
Few made it the full year, much less proved worthy of taking over the whole damn enterprise. Several summers ago, after countless disappointments, Eustace scrapped the program entirely.
I am a dictator. From a distance, he still exercises near total authority. His workers are to call him four, six, ten times a day, and keep him abreast of just about every decision they make. His permission is required to use some of the countless pieces of equipment that sit rusting on the property, or to move a single desk out of a single cabin on the 1,acres. Turtle Island, like the gangly teens who frequent its summer camps, remains trapped in an awkward transition.
This is the curse of the Last American Man: the very tenacity, ferocity and sacrifice that gave birth to this splendid place may prove precisely the thing that kills it.
Eustace disagrees. He considers the single biggest mistake of his career as being too nice to too many people for too long. But there are notable exceptions. Through an endless tide of disillusioned and disillusioning workers, there is a constant. For whatever reason, Desere has been able to stay the course for nearly fifteen years, keeping both myriad projects of the Preserve and her relationship with Eustace afloat. Why not just officially pass the reins to Desere, and focus exclusively on house-flipping and tv-making?
Desere answers without missing a beat. The real outcome is not limited to the surface impression of the bulleted list of skills taught.
There is a much more profound influence impacted on a grand psyche scope that is more important to us at Turtle Island. For instance, a group may go into the forest with an axe, select a tree - chop it down - cut it to length and split it in half lengthwise.
The group will carve rungs and assemble a ladder from their tree. In doing so they will use tools like the broad hatchet, adz, and froe, wedges, drawknife, auger, and they will learn the skills needed to wield these tools. And this is an excellent education, giving historic perspective and botanical understanding of the forest and ethnographic uses of flora.
But the real "meat of the value" in these "theme based" man and nature interactions is an elusive spiritual connection and stimulation of a deeper part of our natural human essence. This goes back to the roots of our human experience and touches something emotionally moving.
We are affected more deeply than the surface actions of making a ladder. We climb up and down the rungs of time, exercising the essence of being fully human which goes well beyond our present technology and is often trapped within the enslavement of our modern technology - the bills to pay for it, the illusion of freedom, and the dissatisfying theme that only specialists can do anything — while we lack personal empowerment. So come make a ladder at Turtle Island and realize your true potential.
About Turtle Island. Mission Statement: Turtle Island guides people through experiences with the natural world to enhance their appreciation and respect for life. We achieve this through a more comprehensive understanding of nature combined with the lessons and traditions of our elders. Tweetsie Railroad. Mast General Store. Rocky Knob Mountain Bike Park. Horn in the West. The Blowing Rock. Mystery Hill. Farmers Markets. Gem Mines. Rainy Day Activities.
Blue Ridge Parkway. Basics of the Parkway. Climb the Highest Peaks by Car. Just for Kids. Linn Cove Viaduct. Picnic on the Parkway. Top Ten Overlooks. Visitor Centers and Cabins. Bass Lake. Boone Greenway. Cascade Falls.
Crabtree Falls. Elk Knob State Park. Glen Burney Trail. Linville Falls. Mount Mitchell.
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