Is Outdoor Recreation a form of Resource Extraction?

Reframing our relationship to enjoying the 'great outdoors'

Note: The following piece is an exploration of thoughts that may instill some discomfort in readers who identify as outdoors persons, athletes, boarders, bikers, climbers, etc. I am a hypocrite in that I too partake in many of the thought patterns and ideas I discuss below, and I don’t mean to cast blame or guilt on anyone through this exploration. Instead, my aim is to try to put a critical lens on issues that tend to go unexamined within this sect of society so that we can add more conscious consideration to our actions in order to do better moving forward.

If you feel discomfort or take offence to anything below, recognize that the discomfort you feel is simply you reaching the limits of your comfort zone, and is an invitation to grow and expand beyond that. Just like we do in all of these outdoor endeavours - push yourself!

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Almost boardin’ on Lil’wat territory. p: Justin Kious

For as long as I can remember, getting outside into nature has been a pillar of my identity, a defining characteristic that has been a pivotal force in my decision making and life pursuits. Heading out into the great outdoors offered an escape from the complex anthropogenic structures of both cities and society, and I found solace in exploring these spaces. I have fond memories of playing hide and seek in the woods behind my school, with my brothers in the creek behind our house, with GI Joes and Dinosaurs in the mud in our backyard, and I always thought it was ridiculous that on the dirtiest of days my Mom would make us strip down to our underwear and hose us off before coming inside…why was dirt such a bad thing?

I was very fortunate to be raised in a family that normalized getting out of town and outside on the weekends, learning to ski, bike and hike at a young age, and it became part of who I was. It lead me to goto school in Montana where I skied about 130 days each year while getting my BA in film (no small feat), and when I attended school in Australia a decade later I did so at a place where I could surf 5 days a week. I used this passion for the outdoors to sculpt a career working in the outdoor industry for over a decade shooting, creating and directing action sports films. At the time, I saw it as a great way to get outside ‘for a living’ (though anybody who works in the industry knows, its hardly a living), to see some incredible parts of the world with great people, and as a way of inspiring others to get outside. I still see it like that, have no regrets, and am so grateful to have had those experiences. Yet over the years I’ve naturally and unintentionally become distanced from the depths of the industry in pursuit of other passions, and in doing so, have become a bit more of an observer to trends and patterns that I hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps it comes with age or as I’ve learned more about the history of these sports, these broader western societies, and reflected on the intersectionality of it all, but I can’t help but become aware of a darker underside to it all which still largely goes unaddressed today, and it has me questioning…

…are outdoor sports a form of resource extraction?

Uttering such a phrase would’ve been considered blasphemy to my younger self, and I’m sure many of those who identify as an outdoorsy person reading this now are rolling their eyes in mild offence. Rightfully so - we tend to regard ‘extractive industries’ such as oil & gas, old growth logging, and mining as dirty capitalist pursuits that are destroying local ecosystems and habitat while contributing to climate change in a way that threatens our very existence on this planet…pretty much the worst thing ever. There’s no way our beloved outdoor sports could also be considered as such, could it?!

What is ‘Extraction’?

Well lets start first by looking at what the term ‘extraction’ really alludes to. At the highest level, ‘resource extraction’ simply refers to any activity that withdraws resources from nature. These tend to be heavily one-sided activities that take from an ecosystem or region more of a thing, or resource, than can’t be naturally replenished by that ecosystem within a timespan relative to rate of extraction or in a manner that destroys that ecosystems ability to function and recover. So when old growth forests that take thousands of years to develop the ecological and biological complexities that life there requires are cut down and put on a 70 year agriculture-inspired rotation harvest, more is taken from that ecosystem than is able to regenerate within that harvest frequency timespan and the ecosystem itself is damaged and unable to function as well. When fossil fuels that have compressed 60 million years of the suns energy through photosynthesis which removed carbon molecules from the atmosphere is burned, it will take 60 million years for natural processes to recoup that same amount of carbon - there is no easy way to ‘speed that up’, and yet despite knowing the impact this has on our planetary systems, we continue to burn it. These industries are normalized through the lack of consideration of externalities, or the unpaid costs of doing business. IE, the unconsidered long-term ecological damage created by short-term logging harvests, the long-term impact to genetics when natural populations are replaced with those from a nursery or hatchery and the impact it has on their ability to evolve and adapt, or the impact of a rapidly changing climate on ecological stability all around the world as a result of the influx of carbon into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, etcetera. When these externalities are unconsidered, these activities can be argued as ethical and normalized because the negative impacts are deliberately being ignored.

With resource extraction, there is no reciprocity, no contribution to the betterment of other non-human people (and often human people as well), no giving back, and perhaps most importantly, there is no respect.

And for what purposes? To meet human needs, sure, but increasingly in our late-stage capitalist society it is to meet the fiscal needs, or rather greed, of a small group of people who direct these industries. Longstanding presence within colonial societies and generations of wealth accumulation through industry operations has created a very powerful few elite who often sabotage progressive efforts towards alternatives through influence on policy and public opinion that maintains the dominance of their mode of operation instead of allowing society evolve towards something better. It is, in its simplest form, selfishness.

That, in a nutshell, is an extractive mindset - the taking of something finite while not considering or blatantly ignoring the impacts those actions may have on others, motivated by selfish desires.

…Huh. Does that not sound at all a little bit like a powder day? Or like when the swell hits and the winds are perfect offshore? Or just after a spring rain when the trails are tacky and rippable? Or those cool, dry late-summer mornings when the rock is tactile and grippy, but will be too hot by 10?

“You’ve gotta shred that line before someone else does!”

“This is my wave, kook, beat it!”

“Rip it before the ruts form and harden up!”

Extracting Sḵwx̱wú7mesh coldsmoke

Outdoor Recreation is Extractive.

Anyone that’s ridden Mt Baker on a weekend understands the fact that powder snow, indeed, is a finite resource! But its not just the snow itself, its where it falls and how it stacks up to create a line that can only be ridden a few times, or a pillow that can only be hit once. In the same way, there are only so many waves in a set and the weather is only so good for a moment, so quick action is required. Trail conditions only last so long, and are too impacted by frequency of use and weather. There is only so much capacity for ‘fun’ when our expectations and attachments to what makes it so are reliant on the fleeting and ultimately finite quality of conditions.

When those conditions do arise, it is a frenzy rush of people ‘getting after it’, a swarm of taking, of extracting joy through poor relationship to the lands. Think of human relationships for a moment - if you knew someone who showed up from time to time and only ever took things from you, never valued your opinion, never brought you joy, but simply robbed you every time you interacted, and you had no say in the matter, how would you feel? They might say that they love you, but do they act like it? You’d probably think that it was a pretty terrible relationship, and would want to get out. Thats basically what we’re doing through outdoor recreation, and yet this toxic relationship goes ignored by nearly everyone who participates.

But ignoring the uncomfortable comes easy in todays society, just as it is to continue to ignore all of the unconsidered impacts of these actions, on both human and non-human people.

How many acres of forest are cleared, landscapes manipulated and habitat destroyed to develop ski resorts that, sure, get people outside and enjoying ‘nature’, but simultaneously contribute to its destruction? Many resorts from big to small depend on frequent visits and large volumes of guests to operate a profitable business, and in many cases environmental protections are secured with caveats for recreational access, but that increased frequency of use can end up degrading conditions for all and potentially causing more harm to wildlife populations and ecosystems. Even something as simple as routinely salting the highway up to your favourite ski hill can create massive changes in the freshwater ecosystems downstream that has trickle down impacts of which we are only beginning to understand.

What are the impacts of thousands of individual footsteps on a delicate, threatened dune grass or reef as people make their way out to the surf, or populations of sea lions or sandpipers living nearby that are disturbed by human presence? What happens to the microsites of oldgrowth mosses and lichen that take hundreds of years to establish that numerous species depend on for habitat that are scraped off or ‘cleaned’ for a climbing route? What are the impacts to the hydrology of a hillside with snaking winding trails cut deep into the soils that allows water to pool or slopes to slide? How about the trees whose roots are exposed or compacted under shallow soils as tires and boots stomp it down, and how does that impact the way that that tree grows, adapts to changes or draws water up during a drought? Individual impacts are often overlooked because they are seen to be small and insignificant, or not as blatantly destructive as classically defined ‘extractive industries’, yet over time with everyones tiny impacts combined, it can create some big issues for the other non-human people in these ecosystems, and their ability to survive on a changing planet.

How many physical, extracted resources from the plastics to alloys and critical minerals went into the production of the equipment and tech being used? How many fossil fuels were burned to create and transport it all around the world, or to routinely bring them and their owner to the places where they are used? This overlooked aspect of production and consumption (which I’ll talk more about later) is probably one of the most normalized impacts of the industry where it is commonplace to replace gear and equipment on short 1-3 year timescales if not shorter, which not only uses tons of resources in its production but the build up of all this discarded gear is staggering.

If conditions are great, but you aren’t able to enjoy it because that one guy keeps paddling back out to the peak, or that one crew has claimed that zone, how does that make you feel? And when roles are reversed, how would you expect the others to feel and treat you, and what does that do for human communities around these activities? ‘Community’ is often one of the leading motivations and justifications for folks getting involved in outdoor recreation, yet the intrinsic human desire to meet ones own needs is exacerbated in the presence of finite conditions, and this selfish desire to take more for oneself can often fragment community and create rifts.

At the end of the day, is there any inherit reciprocity built in to these activities?

When these landscapes are looked at merely as playgrounds to have a great time at for the weekend, what gets given back? And not just to the human communities that make it all happen, but to the non-human ones who also depend on these lands…or is it all about taking?

It may be obvious so some of you, but for those that it’s not, I apologize in advance for the bluntness of the following truth:
All of these sports are an inherently selfish, ego-driven pursuit with absolutely no broader significance to the world.

You’re not curing cancer, ending world hunger, or saving endangered wildlife populations here, you are contributing absolutely nothing to anyone or anything but yourself. It is selfish to shred that pow line, it is selfish to claim that wave, it is selfish to rip that loamer, it is selfish to climb that slab, it is selfish to hike that peak. These activities and pursuits do nothing but satisfy ones ego or sense of entitlement reinforced by their status within these communities, and ultimately serve no greater purpose to anyone beyond the individual.

…but its fun. I get it, I partake as well! Isn’t that the idea or justification behind it, that because it’s fun it gets more people out experiencing nature, and that is overall a good thing? Ironic, because at the same time, nearly everyones main objective when outdoors recreating is to get away from people.

Socially, we arbitrarily praise the idea of sharing but in practice, its not so common. The idea of sharing is rare in each of these sports. Partly because of that finality of conditions, and partly because the individual ego doesn’t want to party wave, or get second tracks down a face, because industry norms have glorified the individual pursuit rather than the community benefit. Yet the truth of it is that moderation of ones inherit selfishness can bring higher rewards at the end of the day, and party waves build community. I’ve had some of the best, most high octane head-high waves of my life without another soul around, and they were a riot…yet the ones that stand out most in memory are the 2ft party waves with a couple of friends. Ultimately, sharing is caring, not just about those around you but the world that we all live in together.

So is outdoor recreation extractive? Yes.
Is it as bad as oil & gas? Well, no, but that doesn’t negate its impact.

In a society that is in desperate need of reconnection to the lands on which we live, outdoor recreation offers one of the only ways for the average person to do that in a healthy, constructive way, and we are currently blowing it. Instead of being extractive, we need to make outdoor recreation restorative - for our lands, our communities and for ourselves.

We can do better.

So how do we go about shifting outdoor recreation away from being an extractive activity to a restorative one? The answer may be surprisingly straightforward and simple, but before we go there, we need to have a good understanding of how we ended up here in the first place.

Enjoying the views of Tla-O-Qui-Aht Nations finest peaks.

Origins of the Mindset.

Selfishness is nothing new to the human species, and evolutionarily speaking, it has its merits for securing safety and stability for survival. However, these all these sports I’m talking about require a certain level of privilege in order to partake, where that safety and stability is already secured, and thus that evolutionary drive for selfishness looks for other areas to be fulfilled. In taking a broader view and looking at how this toxic mentality has developed in the world of outdoor sports, its pretty easy to see the uniformity of it across nearly all aspects of ‘developed’ global north societies. The same forces that drive us to selfishly pursue these activities are the same ones that drive bankers on wall street to buy low and sell high, real estate conglomerates to consolidate the marketplace, and the CEO’s of big oil to lobby for more business and control the energy market, and these forces are the hallmarks of western civilisation that shape our collective worldview.

The first, is that of normalized consumption. In the consumer capitalist society in which we live, generations of privatized businesses and marketers have perfected the art of creating demand to support consumerism that we in the west were all raised in. This normalization of not only consumption but overconsumption has generated a sense of urgency throughout society, where one consumes more, more, more without ever stopping to think of why they consume in the first place. The constant flood of the market with new gadgets and gizmos and a plethora of choice leaves one constantly unhappy, never content, and in a perpetual state of chasing the newest greatest thing to maybe one day hopefully feel satisfied…yet it never comes. This is the same drive that we are subject to when we stand on top of that line - it doesn’t matter how many great lines we’ve had in the past, how much better the conditions were however many days ago, at that point, all you want is more. One more to try and fill the quota, to be happy for a moment, but never satisfied for long.

This is the same mindset that keeps us longing for the newest gear every season, the gimmick of better tech that will make whatever aspect of the sports we enjoy .0000001% more efficient, easier or more fun. The same gear gets rebranded in a different colorway or graphic every year, and when new models do come out they’re on strategically planned periods that align with consumer trends and are usually just an older product tweaked by a few millimeters. There is a psychological addiction known to develop in consumers, where we seek the newest of a thing, even if the revolutionary ‘tech’ that it features is a purely fabricated marketing ploy - it doesn’t have to necessarily be better, as long as it’s newer. As we move towards more ‘tech’-forward outdoor equipment, natural fibers and materials are seen as inefficient, heavy or wasteful. Thus, they are replaced with plastics, composites and materials that require lots of energy input to create and are largely derived from those intensive highly-destructive resource extraction methods such as fossil fuel extraction and mining we mentioned earlier. Often these materials are laced with things like PFSAs, or forever chemicals that cause all sorts of long term health issues for humans, or they breakdown to create microplastics which end up in our balls, ovaries and brains, and have impacts on ourselves and our ecosystems that are far beyond our understanding at this point in time. This also fails to consider the end of the products lifecycle, which is ultimately a landfill. Not built for easy repair, reuse, repurposing or recycling, they are doomed to fill space in a hole in the ground where they continue to leach toxins into our waterways for centuries to come. All for the sake of shaving 1/2 an ounce of weight during a climb, or to descend .0000000002 mph faster? Not sure the juice is worth the squeeze, if you ask me.

In its never ending efforts to continue to increase profits for those with capital, this system thrives on the perpetual consumption of disposable goods and experiences. As such, it continually offers us new goods that make our existing ones feel inferior, while promising that these new goods will also bring us better experiences than those old silly ones we have in our memory bank. And so, we pursue more and consume more without even thinking about it.

The second factor here is a bit more complicated, and deeply sinister. See, this capitalist machine has not only shaped our normalized participation in overconsumption, it has also helped shaped a very colonial mindset that is required for it to function. Many great minds have dedicated thousands of books to the subject, which we don’t have time for here, so I’ll summarize this briefly: Capitalism requires endless growth in order to function, and when growth becomes stagnant, systems begin to fail. In the capitalist pursuit of ever-growing profits, it endlessly seeks new materials, resources or objects that can become enclosed and thus made to generate profit for the capitalists - taking public goods, resources or spaces and privatizing them. The resource market needs to continually expand its reach to obtain more and more to fuel the machine in order to keep it operating. This has historically justified (and continues to do so) the expansion of empires to colonize new lands in order to obtain cheaper resources, materials and labor as to maintain power through the displacement and enslavement of the native peoples of those lands. We don’t need to go into too much depth here, but basically all modern colonization across the globe has been and is currently based on the manufactured demand for goods and resources that continues to fuel overconsumption beyond the true needs of the people in order to generate profit for the capitalist class. Since the capitalist class are those with wealth whom control the means of production through finite resources, it’s easy to see how their sole motivation for continuing is the selfish need for more profit, for more ‘growth’. Colonisation is a selfish pursuit by capitalists in order to maintain or gain power, and this colonial mindset is still prevalent in our culture today.

The ego-driven pursuit of selfish goals that claim ownership of things or titles is a very conquistadorian, colonial construct. The idea of being the first to explore an area and be able to name it after oneself is the historical context in which this exists, but its still present today in pursuits to bag peaks, surf the biggest wave, or to hold records for highest number of arbitrary goals met, speed, time, distance, etc. The industry at large still celebrates and promotes the wild, borderline reckless accomplishments of an individual above any truly inclusive or community lead pursuits, in part because that is what our culture has learned to celebrate. We don’t celebrate the team that worked hard to create something revolutionary or win, we celebrate its leader, the quarterback, the president or CEO. All of these ideas are rooted in a colonial mindset of ownership over something or accolades as a means of feeding one’s ego, and ultimately point back to the deep irony of it all.

Every conquered peak, forded river, discovered and named hillside anywhere on Turtle Island through the process of colonisation is a complete and utter farce. These were never untouched, unexplored wild lands - they are stolen lands. Lands that someone has always lived on, its just that this someone also happens to be that unconsidered externality that extraction and capitalism tend to leave out of their stories. These lands were stolen from Indigenous peoples who have lived amongst them since time immemorial, often through very violent acts of oppression and the forceful removal of those people. A vast majority of every river, peak, trail, hillside, lake, etc.’s name that you know was created in an effort to erase the history of the original inhabitants of these lands, to enclose them into the new privatized domain by renaming them after colonial figures through the exploration of these lands, and every time you refer to one of those names, you are continuing to uphold that legacy of colonisation.

Mount Rainier. Mount Hood. Mount Meager. Mount Garibaldi. Mount Adder.

Chesterman Beach. Cox Bay. Canon Beach. Shortsands Beach.

The Columbia River. The Fraser River. The Strait of Georgia.

Again, this all may sound blunt and harsh, but its the reality we find ourselves in today and if we are to truly move forward, then it is important to reckon with what got us to where we are today.

At the heart of this dramatic global transition is a drastic difference in worldviews between the colonizers and the native inhabitants of these lands. I’ll paint in broad strokes here for the sake of brevity, but want to recognize that there are many nuances between different groups, communities, nations, and cultures, and that these broad strokes will without a doubt miss some of the fine details inherit in each.

Generally, colonisation of any kind requires a unifying worldview of its peoples to justify its actions, and in the form of ‘modern’ colonisation that has occurred over the past millennia, that worldview has been united by some form of monotheistic religion. In the west, that is primarily a form of christianity. Though scriptures and varying sects may disagree, one of the fundamental capitalist influences on religion used to justify colonisation was the removal of ‘god’ from the earth. As opposed to many pagan, eastern or Indigenous worldviews in which ‘god’ exists in living and non-living things here on earth, these monotheistic religions insist that god and the heavens exist elsewhere on earth, up in the sky, and that everything on earth exists solely for mans uses. By removing ‘god’ from things here on earth, it allowed for the reduction of them from little bits of ‘god’ to mere objects, or resources, to be used by man for however he pleased - to benefit the capitalists.

Note: I’m intentionally using the patriarchal terms of ‘man’ and ‘he’ in this section over more universal pronouns to echo the sentiments instilled within these religions, and deliberately not capitalising ‘god’ as a means of reducing hierarchy of assumed importance.

With ‘god’ no longer present on the earth, man was free to conquer and claim new resources as his own as a means of ‘manifesting his destiny’ to one day get into heaven in the afterlife. The high-horse of religious ego this created also led to the separation and othering of peoples. All too often, the wealthy white men were the ‘chosen ones’, while women, poor peoples, black, brown, indigenous and people of colour were inferior or even savages, which aided in further justifying their oppression and enslavement. The idea of ‘nature’ hadn’t existed in the way it does today prior to this development, and was used as a way of ‘othering’ things beyond the human world, separating the two entirely in an anthropocentric attempt to put man and his ridiculous ego at the pinnacle of existence.

Religion defined the worldview of colonization, as the othering of different human-people and non-human people from those with wealth and power operating in the pursuit of their own selfish desires was used to justify the actions taken in an effort to enclose more resources within a capitalist system through the conquering of lands and removal its original inhabitants. However, in many ways, this colonial worldview is fundamentally at odds with many Indigenous worldviews.

For starters, many Indigenous worldviews have little to no separation between this world we inhabit and the spirit world, or ‘god’. Many creation stories originate from this world and highlight the concept not of human-people being ‘favoured’ or ‘privileged’ children of a ‘god’, but rather being the youngest and most incapable kin of all other life here. In these creation stories, human people are often regarded as bald, clawless, defenceless, fragile little critters that need the support, guidance, and tools provided by every other non-human person in order to survive. It is inherently rooted in a place of humility rather than one of superiority, and as such requires reciprocity in order to survive. Things aren’t taken from the ‘natural world’ simply to fulfill a consumerist desire, but instead to fulfill a true need, and when they are utilized it is through reciprocal relationship and respect for the other. Permission is asked for and granted by the other, with gifts given to those that offer their fruit, bark, wood, hides or meat, and special care taken to not disrupt or over-harvest as to ensure its longevity and ability to provide for all the other non-human people whom rely on it.

Wealth is measured not in how much one could personally accumulate, but in how much they can share and provide to others - this is the origins of the colonially adopted holiday of thanksgiving. The wealthiest chiefs and nations are praised not for how much they have as individuals, but for the potlatches and ceremonies they hold where others invited from near and far are fed and housed for weeks of celebration and gratitude. That is true wealth, and yet our society instead glorifies those who cache it for themselves. Can you imagine if we lived in a society where oligarchs like elon musk equally divided and distributed their wealth for all to enjoy instead of for them to hoard and use for personal political gains?

In these worldviews, wealth is measured in how well one is able to take care of others. This applied not only to the human people in your community through feeding and housing them, but to the non-human people who lived on these lands as well. Other beings, spirits, shapeshifters, or kami, were kept happy and honoured, with a deep understanding that any wealth or ability to provide came from the land itself. Us human people are dependant for sustenance and provisions on the functioning of healthy ecosystems, of vibrant and diverse food webs, of resilient populations that are able to succeed and ebb and flow with the dynamics of the seasons over thousands of years. The landscape wasn’t viewed merely as ‘a playground’ for one to use and extract their own personal happiness from, it was a living breathing entity. They are hunting grounds, foraging areas, sacred spaces with rich story, culture and connection to that went beyond ones personal enjoyment.
They are home.

These worldviews recognize that humans are a part of these ecosystems, kin to everything in creation from Cedar to Raven to Blackbear to the tiniest of Ants, and as a fellow sibling it is our duty to honour, respect and care for their well-being in addition to ours. These lands, waters, plants, and animals aren’t merely resources, they are family. The idea of ‘nature’ does not exist in many of these worldviews because they recognize that there is no nature, no otherness, no separation between the human world and another. We are all ‘nature’, and yet nature does not exist - it is a colonially created construct that serves to separate us human people from where we come from and what we rely on to survive as fellow lifeforms on this planet.

Ultimately, these Indigenous worldviews are built not only on respect and reciprocity, but relationship. They form intricate, long lasting relationships with that which western society has othered, and it is these relationships that foster community, generate wealth, and create long-lasting lives of fulfillment and happiness among these lands that we all share.

Perhaps within this worldview lies the solutions to our extractive tendencies we experience in outdoor recreation. Maybe in learning how to build respect and reciprocity through our relationships, we can ditch this crappy toxic relationship we’re currently in, and work to create a better one.

Leading a group on a nature tour on Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation Lands

Let’s do better.

There are multiple things we can all do to help course correct the path outdoor recreation is on away from an extractive activities towards restorative ones. In response to all I’ve outlined above, I’ve come up with a list that is by no means exhaustive of ideas and ways that we all can reframe our mindset around these activities to create a more wholistic, sustainable and grounded approach. I say ‘we all’ here, because I too and complicit in many of the things I’ve talked about. Yes, I am a hypocrite that is by no means perfect, and have been raised in the same western trains of thought as you likely have been, and thus suffer from the same attachments and desires to rip a sick pow line all to myself. Its great, I love it…but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvement, and that we are all need to be accountable for doing better.

That said, if you have any thoughts and ideas about way to untangle the colonial capitalist mindset that is so entrenched in our experiences in the outdoors, please feel free to chime in on the comments below!

Respect

The first step to reframing our relationship to outdoor recreation comes with respect - for this moment, each other, our things, and ourselves.

Acknowledging how and why this moment we exist in came to be, and all of the painful, difficult and uncomfortable truths that come with that, is likely one of the most important forms of respect we can begin to cultivate. Wherever on Turtle Island you may be reading this from, you are on stolen land. The original inhabitants were forcefully and violent removed from the lands you’re standing on so that things could be renamed and claimed under a new colonial capitalist society that we still exist in today. Learning the names of those peoples, their cultures, their traditions, is a great way to begin healing this wound. There are many incredible resources online that can guide you to learning the original Indigenous place names around you which you can start using in your daily life to show respect for those places and the peoples that have stewarded them since time immemorial. Call her Tahoma instead of Mt Rainier, Nch'ḵay̓ instead of Mt Garibaldi, Čahayis instead of Cox Bay.

Respect the communities that exist in and en route to wherever you’re recreating by not speeding through them, blasting loud music, littering or driving recklessly. In many rural areas, it may seem more spacious than life in a city, but the roadways are still lined with peoples driveways and homes whose dogs and children play in their front yard. Whether it be though Glacier or Mount Currie - slow down, be safe, be respectful.

Respect the things that you own, and the things you purchase. Buy things made ethically from natural fibers and non-toxic ingredients wherever you can, and take care of them. When they break or are damaged, repair them before you even think about replacing them. Make it last as long as possible, and when it is time to retire it, find a way to give it new life as something else, or pass it on to someone who may have better use for it. The more we work to respect the things we have, the energy it took to get them into our possession, and treat them better, the more we can begin to dismantle the consumption culture we exist in that creates so many problems.

Lastly, respect yourself. Go easy on yourself, be grateful, and appreciative for what you have. Practicing mindfulness and gratitude for the good lines, waves, or runs that you do get adds more value and appreciation for them, and will reduce the anxiety or drive around hoarding more of it. It may also be helpful to do something different, switch things up! When we do one activity for so long, our skill levels evolve to a nearly-obsessive level that creates pressure to perform and push ourselves, and takes the fun out of it. I grew up skiing, and it sort of lost its allure after working in the industry for so long, and I lost the spark of energy and passion that I once had going outside. A couple years ago, I got pieced together a snowboard kit from old gear friends had given me, and all of a sudden being a beginner again brings a whole new level of appreciation and fun! Something that I used to straight-line down without even thinking on skis is now a legitimate challenge as I find myself on the learning curve again, and that variety has increased my appreciation for the time I get to spend outside partaking in these activities. With gratitude for what you have, the hacks and slashes that have white-roomed you in a frothy frenzy of stoke, the more you’ll be able to share the wealth of those experiences with others so that they too can experience it, and you’ll form stronger communities built from humility instead of competition.

Reciprocity

Creating reciprocal practices that don’t simply ‘give back’ to the lands and communities who make outdoor recreation possible, but instead generate authentic and mutual support for one another are another key part of this shift.

Support your local community by buying trail snacks from a local grocer, gas from a small town station, gear from a local shop instead of an online retailer, and dining at family owned restaurants instead of chains when passing through. By supporting local small businesses, you are fostering reciprocal relationships with those who live there and whom rely on you, creating resilient local economies around outdoor recreation that help everyone. When you shop big online retailers for the best sale deal, order bulk from amazon, or eat at mcdonalds, you are giving your money (and power) to the capitalist oligarchs who drive mindless consumption and extraction. The reason things are so cheap from those big companies, again, is because they have conveniently ignored the hidden costs or impacts of their activities on a global scale and passed them onto someone else, whereas the slightly higher cost at smaller businesses supports those people and that community directly. Pay the difference to do better.

Generate reciprocity by supporting local NGO’s: restoration organizations that work in the watersheds you play in, organizations who maintain the trails, those that work to provide more equal access to the outdoors for a more diverse community, or anything else. Fiscal support is always appreciated by these organisations, but better yet, volunteer whenever and wherever you can. Get your feet on the ground and hands in the dirt to create reciprocity for the enjoyment these lands provide you with by taking care and stewarding them. Take a day off surfing to pick up trash on the beach instead, or if you see a tree with crushed roots on your favourite hike, contact and get involved with the local trail crew to help build a boardwalk to insulate and protect them from further damage. Instead of purely focusing on getting the most enjoyment for yourself in these outdoor activities, look around and see where you can get involved to make things better for everyone and everything else.

Use your voice to advocate and stand up for the lands that you recreate on against forces that they can’t protect themselves against. Advocate for better forestry practices that includes recreational, social, spiritual and community values as part of their management plan, not just more clearcutting. Advocate for and support restoration practices that help correct negative impacts of human activity in the past to create healthy ecosystems for us all. Engage in and support efforts to conserve areas from resource extraction or development, whether or not those efforts result in more access to outdoor recreation. Non-human people need places to call home too, and part of building reciprocity for these spaces is looking after their well-being even when it doesn’t necessarily offer you anything in return, just as you would help your own family member, because they too are family.

Relationship

Finally, working to create relationships with these spaces and places beyond the self-serving extractive mindset is one of the most powerful ways you can help to shift the narrative.

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks of asking permission from plants before plucking their berries, and listening to whether or not they are willing to offer them. In the same way, we could start asking the mountain for permission to ride a certain line, or a bent tree to use it as a pillow or air. We could ask the rock permission to climb before ascending and marking it up with sweaty palms and chalk. We could ask the wave for permission to drop in and shatter the beautiful arc of its glassy face with our boards. While asking might seem silly or foolish, whether it be under your breath or just in your head, it is a great way to shift your relationship to these places and begin seeing them as active, fluid, living entities which deserve our respect and honour. The second part of asking is also listening for an answer, to recognize that sometimes that wave just wants to break on its own, the rock prefers to slumber a bit longer, or the snow is doing just fine stacking up silently, and that we must go elsewhere at that moment. Boundaries define relationships, and it’s alright for these forces to make their boundaries known, even if its not what you want.

Consider your relationship to others, regardless of its depth. You might have a handful of really great friends who love your company, but if you’re cold, entitled, jaded or grumpy to people you don’t know in the lineup, then you’re still an asshole. Respect the fact that everyone is there perhaps for different reasons, but all born out of the same love for the outdoors, and that no one person is better or more important than another. Create relationships with folks based on that common ground whether or not you’re at the same skill level or have the same objectives, because the nature of those relationships determines the type of culture within that sport. If everyone is hyper-fixated on themselves in a consumptive, ‘take take take’ mentality, then that will breed a toxically competitive culture. All it takes, in its basic form, is being patient and understanding with others, and that simple action can have ripple effects which changes the way everyone behaves.

Deepen your relationships by engaging beyond just the sport you partake in. If you have a favourite pillow line or area you ride in the winter, go back for a hike to visit in the summer or fall. Get to know the rocks that form those shelves, the trees that endure in the cracks to form the pillows, create a longstanding relationship with them over the years that goes beyond just your extractive shredding of it. In a similar vein to the asking for permission, I’ve recently been offering gratitudes to places, matriarch trees, or prominent features I’ve come to know well on the trails I travel. Simply expressing gratitude, whether in your head or aloud, to certain beings, formations or places, for allowing your safe passage and enjoyment can be an easy way to retrain your mind to think in a more interconnected, present and respectful way that furthers your relationships with the lands on which you play.

Deepening these relationships goes for human people too - get to know folks on and off the hill or trail, get dinner and drinks with them, be open and form bonds. A lot of the relationships I’ve observed in the outdoor worlds, especially between men, tend to be ones of boisterous machismo that rarely breaks the surface, and in those worlds a lot of mental health issues are often hidden deep within or behind a facade that uses these outdoor activities to mask deep pain and trauma. We all have highs and lows, and without strong community outside of these activities, people may have a hard time finding others to turn to during those lows. By taking your relationships both with the lands and the people you enjoy them with to a deeper level, you create added layers of richness and connection that builds stronger communities that uplift all it’s members.

Sunset party waves in yuułuʔiłʔath waters

Restorative Activities Over Extractive Ones.

Getting outside and participating in recreational activities is a great thing that gets folks out forming connections to these lands, and I truly believe we need more of that in this world. However, the manner in which we’re doing it is also important to consider, because if in our haste to recreate we destroy that which provides enjoyment, then whats the point?

Whenever I find myself overwhelmed with the weight of change needed in the world, I find myself hearing the words of an old idol, co-worker and friend who passed away some years ago.

“It’s not about doing less, it’s about doing more” - JP Auclair

JP’s words ring as true as ever here. It’s not about ‘not recreating’ or doing it less, neither is it necessarily about recreating more, but instead doing more when we recreate outdoors. It’s about doing it better. As daunting and overwhelming as all these thoughts may be, and as easy as it may be to ignore them and carry on the status quo, unless we start doing more as individuals to better the way that we interact with one another and these landscapes that we recreate on, we will never be able to do better as a species within this world we all share.

Being aware of our shortcomings and how this problem came to be is the first uncomfortable step in this process. However, the small, thoughtful, and mindful actions we take moving forward are both simple to implement and gather momentum the more we practice, and it is here where transformation can occur in ways that ultimately generates more happiness. Overtime, we can shift the relationships we have and those we create with other human and non-human people through reciprocity and respect, and redirect our current path of outdoor recreation from being an extractive activity, into one that restores our lands, our ecosystems, our communities, and ourselves.