Wilderness History | Woods Journal

Rewilding America

Is it good to turn an inhabited place back into the wilderness when people are already taking residence in the place? This was a question asked by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the 1970s when they impounded the Caesar Creek Valley. The Army Corps flooded out the town of New Burlington in Clinton County, Ohio, displacing residents and forcing them to move into surrounding townships and cities. New Burlington had almost 150 years of history by the time it was put out of operations in 1971. People lost their lively hoods, their way of making money, and all for it to become a place of wanting and fancies for Daytonians and Cincinnatians?

John Baskin authored a book called New Burlington: The Life and Death of an American Village published in 1976. He spent a year collecting letters, diary entries, and records of the lives people lived in the township before the Army Corps flooded it. When people were told to move out of their homes, they were heartbroken and outraged. Why should they move to create a reservoir for flood control? It was the death of a vibrant rural community for an eventual place of recreation. Imagine being told to leave everything you loved in a year’s time just for them to come in and flood everything out.

The history of this ghost town spans from 1839 to 1971. In that time people went and fought in the Civil War and both World Wars. They watched Hailes Comet pass in the 1910’s had telephone wires installed and had a public gathering of people to watch electricity come on in their town for the very first time. Generations of families lived and made livelihoods in the town of New Burlington. It was not fair. The farmlands were made to be flooded in the springs so crops could grow tall by harvest time. So much history was lost by the Army Corps flooding of the New Burlington. Trying to find resources for this paper was nearly impossible. After John Baskin wrote about the town in 1976, little else was recorded about the families of the township and with time any newspaper clippings and works about the town were lost to history.

Caesar’s Creek State Park is now a wonderful place for recreation for Ohio residents. There are many recreational trails for hiking, biking, and horseback riding. The lake is well suited for small watercraft, swimming, and fishing (with a permit of course). There are even places within the State Park where people can hunt for fossils and take them home if the fossils fit into that palm of one’s hand. People camp on the designated camping grounds, along the lakeshore and within the forests during the summers. They also visit the centers to learn about the wildlife that are being brought back to the area since 1971. In 50 years, the Army Corp of Engineers was able to turn this town into a refuge of wilderness in Southeastern Ohio.

Another place where the Rewilding of America happened was Isle Royale, an island in Lake Superior off the coast of Michigan. The island was originally a mining, fishing, and logging operation. It was a resort getaway off the coast of Michigan where people could find refuge from the modern-day struggles of life and reconnect with nature. However, with it becoming a national Park in 1921, people were forced off the land to let nature re-stake its claim. Yet again, people had to move out of their homes and livelihoods all for man himself to be a visitor “who does not remain.”

Something funny about how Isle Royale is classed is that the island is seen as recreational nature. Unlike Caesar’s Creek State Park, Isle Royale was made into a park for recreation only. It used to be a place just for work. In the pre-written historic times, the Native Americans would mine Isle Royale for copper and in the 1830’s it was used for commercial fishing. Caesar’s Creek was used for farmland. Both had great uses in the eyes of America, giving much needed resources to a country just one-hundred years old. However, America deemed different uses for these parcels of land.

When most of the residents of these places were forced to leave, it gave the wilderness time to heal and regrow. Animals started to seek refuge where humans once lived. One place where it was very prevalent was the trees of Isle Royale. The white pines of the region were growing in plenty, and the trees which were logged and used at timber were also coming back in droves. It appealed to the tourists who turned it into a National Park, and they wanted to protect the beauty of the land from any exploitation in the future. They wanted to preserve the wilderness of Isle Royale for our future generations. At this time in other parts of Northern Michigan, ninety percent of the forests had been logged and used as resources. To come onto Isle Royale and see its beauty made the tourists and its residents feel as if they had a true piece of American Wilderness.

In the lore of America. It was often given to settlers that they would be coming into contact of untouched land that was ripe for the taking. It was like a piece of fruit dangling off the low hanging branches of a tree: ready to fall into the awaiting hands of a child. There was a sense of wonder of what America could become with all its splendor and limitless wealth. This narrative often ignored the people who already lived in the United States before it was founded. The Indigenous people of the Americas were, and still are, its caretakers. They have many practices conservators are now using to help preserve the forests of the United States. One example is burning the brush before it can build up and cause major wildfires. The government used to ban controlled burns, but now it is an accepted practice amongst foresters to help manage land well.

An aspect of Rewilding America is to reintroduce populations to a wilderness space that used to live there. An example of this is the wolves that lived on Isle Royale and the Yellowstone Wolves. On the brink of extinction in the United States. Grey Wolves we reintroduced into both parks by the National Park Service. Some would say it is a bad idea to “mess with the wilderness” because it will heal itself. Others believe it is the responsibility of humanity to reintroduce missing keystone species into an environment they were once in. Without the Grey Wolves acting as keystone species for both Yellowstone and Isle Royale, the food chain hierarchy would have fallen into disarray. With Isle Royale, the moose would have overtaken the island and eaten all of the low-lying vegetation. This would have caused massive erosion of the coastlines of the island and made it harder for other species on the island to find food.

In the case of Yellowstone, bringing back the Grey Wolves brought the elk population down. By putting a check on the elk population, the aspen trees were able to grow. With the growth of the aspen tree population, beavers were able to harvest more aspen wood to build more dams and raise their population. Bringing back this keystone species caused a ripple effect amongst so many groups of the Yellowstone population. Even today, things are coming back into focus and in pictures of Yellowstone before the reintroduction of wolves to now, there is a vibrant change. More vegetation is growing, leading to less soil erosion, and letting the wilderness beautify itself and heal.

Overall, while its terrible to think of what could have been for the islands and towns taken back by the United States Government and returned to wilderness, something good can still come of it. Nonhuman species are able to thrive in these environments without much intervention by human hand. Putting things back into balance will let humanity one day reuse the resources they are building up now for future generations.

Rewilding America gives humanity time to reflect on how badly they damage the wilderness and what steps they can take to become better stewards to the land America uses. It is about rethinking the colonist’s mindset of “I own this land, and I can do whatever I want with it,” and instead looking into a more communal thought process of “I am apart of a larger community of people, creatures, and plants who all want to live.” Humans do need to play their part in returning land to the wilderness. It lets humanity take responsibility for the harm they have caused on the environment and build a better tomorrow. To turn a place back into the wilderness and its natural state lets nature heal itself of the wounds’ humanity has given it. To rewild is to heal, even if it means losing the history of what a place used to be.

Works Cited

Baldwin, Amalia Tholen. Becoming Wilderness: Nature, History, and the Making of Isle Royale National Park. Isle Royale & Keweenaw Parks Association, 2011.

Baskin, John. New Burlington: The Life and Death of an American Village. Norton, 2000. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/newburlingtonlif00bask. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.

“Caesar Creek State Park Campground | Ohio Department of Natural Resources” Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, 2024, ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/caesar-creek-state-park-campground.

“Isle Royale National Park.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 12 Sept. 2024, www.nps.gov/isro/index.htm.

Kemmet, Slade, director. Wolves of Isle Royale: The Quest for Survival, National Geographic Society, 15 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS-4IsDg7mA. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.

Louisville District Public Affairs. “Caesar Creek Lake.” Great Lakes and Ohio River Division, United States Army Corps of Engineers, 10 Jan. 2024, www.lrd.usace.army.mil/Mission/Projects/Article/3641187/caesar-creek-lake/.

United States Geological Survey. “Caesar Creek.” Geographic Names Information Systems, United States Department of the Interior, 12 July 1979, https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/gaz-record/1066625. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.

United States Geological Survey. “New Burlington.” Geographic Names Information Systems, United States Department of the Interior, 12 July 1979, https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/gaz-record/1056447. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.