Q2

In chapter 4 of Evan Berry’s Devoted to Nature, the book goes into detail about the increasing trend of outdoor recreations including Forestry and Mountaineering among Americans in the early 20th century. The book describes the fact that these groups had started independently from the religious organizations and were reworked into the Christian narrative by religious groups and authors of magazines, creating this “Natural Spirituality” by working in the idea of what Berry calls “weak animism” and how these people had become “Devoted to Nature”. These writers’ ideas were met with open arms by most religious organizations who helped support their narrative but tried to maintain a watchful eye over these communities that formed around the religious experience that outdoorsmanship granted them. These communities idolized the nature that they ventured, embracing the natural beauty of what they considered god’s creation. This vast support for the natural world created this correlation between patriotism and the conservation of nature by mankind. Many of these pilgrims and outdoorsmen created this culture of interconnectedness between strangers and that to be in nature was to aid others, this natural world suddenly reflected the moralities fervently taught by religious organizations. These effects last today, the surge of nature enthusiasts amount Americans, as well as several other factors affected the government into supporting the conservation of nature into its very doctrine by creating the National Parks Service and National Forest Service. The idea of camping has also heavily purveyed American culture to this day, with popular culture often giving excuse to showcase the beauty of nature and the idea of “roughing it” and forest survival as essential to the American experience.