The Wilderness Ideal and its Influence on Human Heritage: A Case Study from Glacier National Park, U.S.A

Donnelly, Peggy

The expulsion of human populations from wilderness areas is a common practice throughout the world. Influenced by the wilderness ideal, that espouses non-human landscapes, national parks and protected areas have endeavoured to create wilderness landscapes through human exclusion.In recent years, the issue of human exclusion has become widely debated as the global community begins to question the promotion of wilderness at the expense of human heritage and human rights. While the concept of wilderness within national parks has been much discussed, little attention has been paid to how the concept of wilderness has affected the perception and management of human heritage in North American national parks. Glacier National Park was the chosen setting for this case study because it is representative of similar parks in North America created through the practice of human exclusion. In assessing Glacier Park’s treatment of archaeological heritage, I examined how the wilderness concept and subsequent exclusion of resident peoples has affected human heritage. In this assessment of Glacier Park and other examples of human exclusion from the United States and Africa, the objectives of this study were to examine how the concept of wilderness has affected human heritage and to explore the debate surrounding human exclusion and its relevance within the twenty-first century. This examination also sought to explore how a better inclusion of human heritage would enrich and not detract from our understandings of these landscapes. The findings of the case study revealed that the perpetuation of the wilderness ideal in Glacier Park has negatively affected perceptions and management of its archaeological resources, thus providing insight into the treatment of archaeological heritage of similar parks. The overall results of this study have indicated that both historic and modern-day exclusions significantly affect human heritage, negatively impacting living communities as well as the archaeological heritage of a space. At the root of these issues lies the wilderness ideal, predicated upon the separation of culture and nature. Research objectives: To examine how the concept of ‘wilderness’ has affected human heritage; 2. To examine how the exclusion of human heritage from ‘wilderness’ areas has affected the perception and management of archaeological resources in national parks; 3.To explore the debate surrounding human exclusion and its relevance within the 21st century; 4.To explore how the inclusion of human heritage within ‘wilderness’ areas would enrich and not detract from our understandings of these landscapes.

The Wilderness Ideal and its Influence on Human Heritage: A Case Study from Glacier National Park, U.S.A

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