I've shared writings on the gift economy of nature by Robin Wall Kimmerer before. Between her and the takedown of modern economists by David Graeber, I've found some hope to keep me going.
I planted a Serviceberry last year and tasted its berries. My small contribution to the gift economy.
I saw an American Kestrel on my bike ride at Black Run Preserve. This land had been used for an airport, there's a gas line running through it, and a former sewer drain. But it's back to nature, and home to many animals now. The Pinelands Preservation Alliance recently purchased an adjacent lot that will add 835 acres to the preserve that includes the headwaters. This land had been owned by a family for years and unused because of environmental regulation. Rather than sue to allow development, they sold to the alliance. This is a good change, as a nearby development wiped out the endangered rattlesnake population and had the temerity to name itself after the creatures it destroyed.
The history of a piece of land can be a great story.
I very much enjoyed North Woods by Daniel Mason, a novel set in the wilds of western Massachusetts, from the 1600s to the future. The novel could have only been improved by starting earlier. It was daring for a literary novel, not having the usual “hangups” regarding genre, as Colson Whitehead calls them. It ranges between many characters who visit the same woods and live there.
Mason leaves just enough mystery and doesn't struggle to explain the story. It's mildly fantastical and wonderful throughout. The only undaring choice was to begin with colonialism in a land that is half a billion years old, with mountains older than trees. But a book has to begin somewhere, and the story follows a written history found in the margins of a book in the first cabin built on the land. Petroglyphs might also have served this purpose. It made me roll my eyes at the acknowledgements where he mentions that it was written on Mohican ancestral land. There are some mention on native Americans in the early part of the story but they are scenery, not characters.
I still enjoyed the book and recommend it. I mention this disappointment only to affirm the difficulty in changing the course of a long standing propagandic narrative, that this land was “discovered” or rightly taken, and not stolen. You can be daring with the structure of the novel, but don't mess with myth.