On this day, 4 August 1990, the term “Two-Spirit”, for Indigenous people “who embody diverse (or non-normative) sexualities, genders, gender roles, and/or gender expressions”, was adopted at the 3rd Annual Gathering of Native American Gays and Lesbians being held near Beausejour, Manitoba, Canada. Teacher, counselor, administrator, mentor and elder, Dr. Myra Laramee (First Nations Cree) brought the term to a sharing circle of 80 Indigenous LGBT+ people from across North America at the 1990 Gathering, and it was quickly adopted. As Harlan Pruden, the Managing Editor of the Two-Spirit Journal, put it: “[Two-Spirit evokes] the time before the harshness of colonisation where many, not all, First Peoples had traditions and ways that were non-binary, where some Nations had 3, 4, 5, 6, or even 7+ different genders and these genders were not only accepted and honoured but also had distinct roles within their respective Nations. Today, we would generally refer to these individuals as Two-Spirit.”
Pictured: Two-Spirit Diné couple https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1492385374279941/?type=3
Awh, I always thought they were so pretty and had no idea they could be harmful
Can someone transcribe this? The water is really loud.
“Hey everybody! Here we are in the southern Appalachian mountains. We have a pristine Montane stream ecosystem, as you can see all around us here. I thought I’d make an educational video this morning. It involves this practice right here [gestures to rock pile]. As our national parks and national forests fall victim to human pressure, more than ever, this is something we’re seeing more and more of. Hopefully we can make this video go viral. This stream, as you can see around us right here, is a breeding ground for North America’s largest salamander, the Eastern hellbender. They can get up to 2.5-3 feet long. It’s part of our natural heritage in the eastern United States. When people do this right here - what they consider to be art - they’re actually destroying the breeding ground for the Eastern hellbender salamander. The Eastern hellbender will use flat rocks such as these to make nesting sites in these streams. So here’s what I would like everybody to do. If you care about our Montane stream freshwater ecosystems like this one around us here, when you see something like this, this is what I recommend doing: [kicks down rock pile]. Take the rocks, throw them back into the stream. The Eastern hellbender utilizes rocks like this. It actually feels pretty good to do this! [walks to other pile] This is not actually art, okay? This is destruction of our freshwater ecosystems. So I would like to encourage everyone: when you see this [gestures to second rock pile], do this! [kicks pile] I’d like to return our streams to their natural state for the organisms that live here. Thanks, and have a good day.”
Fantastic! Yes! They’re very harmful to many ecosystems and should never be considered art!
BUT
If you see one of these rock piles on an established trail, do NOT for the love of god kick it over. In places where a trail forks or moves over features like talus fields, trail crews sometimes build cairns to mark the trail where spray painted blazes can’t be used or would be easily missed (e.g. on rocks that commonly become wet, painted blazes are harder to see).
There are multiple takeaways here:
1) Making cairns yourself is BAD. Don’t do it.
2) Cairns are not ever properly used in rivers.
3) If you see a cairn on a trail, LEAVE IT. If it does need to be removed, the trail crews working for the National Forest Service/NPS/AMC/whatever or Rangers will remove it when they do trail work.
If you only ever read one post of mine, please make it this one. YESTERDAY my mom and I were hiking in the Pemigewasset Wilderness of New Hampshire, and on the trail we hiked there was a fork with half marked by a cairn so hikers knew to go the right way to pick up the blazed trail. If someone had removed that we probably would have been fine because there was an old logging road on the other side eventually leading to the road going through the notch, but elsewhere that could have killed us. It’s very easy to get lost in wilderness, and no matter how prepared or experienced you are it can prove fatal.
TL;DR, please note this statement by the National Park Service.
(I am aware this statement specifically is from NPS, but this goes for your National Forests, State Forests, etc as well.)
Photo tax:
A good cairn, built by a trail crew to mark the trail ascent over open face granite on the Baldface Loop over North and South Baldface in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I took this when we summited in 2018.
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