The Natural Bloomington Blog

Those familiar with this still-revolutionary phrase might be perplexed by the Porter reference to Henry David Thoreau's words that helped catalyze a fundamental change in Americans' relation with nature (not in Walden but in Walking, a.k.a., "The Wild," an Atlantic Monthly essay published in 1861 from a lecture Thoreau revised and delivered between 1851 and his death in 1862). "What I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the world. ... From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind."

For we old-time nature photogs, "In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World" is the seminal book of our art form. In this monograph, published by Sierra Club Executive Director David Brower exactly 100 years after Walking, Eliot Porter -- the Ansel Adams of color nature photography -- infused Thoreau's passages with his photos. According to a 2002 Sierra Magazine piece, "In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World  revolutionized photographic book publishing by setting new standards for design and printing and proving the commercial viability of fine art photography books."

I could have titled the multimedia slide show I posted on the Natural Bloomington YouTube Channel last week "Billions of Years in a Handful of Minutes," which is effectively what I attempt to do in it. In 6 minutes 31 seconds, I trace 500 billion years of Southern Indiana's natural history -- and illustrate it with five dozen contemporary digital images from my Guide to Southern Indiana Natural Areas journey.

The show is actually called "The Southern Indiana Landscape," because It's an adaptation of the guidebook's Part 2 -- of the same name -- which has three chapters: "Sculpted by Rock, Ice and Water," "Southern Indiana Physiography" and "The Natural Regions."

This first clip details the roles rock, ice and water have played in forming the wildly diverse landscape that is Southern Indiana. I have the audio narrative and about half the images placed for the physiography section. When all three are finished, the final product will be a 15-minute show that I will combine with a talk at IU's Wylie House Museum on Oct. 20.

The Blue River didn't quite earn its name on Friday afternoon. So called for the aqua color the water assumes when levels are low, the river hue, reflected from a surface lined by lush, overgrown banks under a mid-afternoon sun, was closer to crocodile green.

But as a remote, pristine waterway that was relatively deserted on a shiftless weekday afternoon, the 90-mile long Ohio tributary did measure up to its pioneer name -- the Great Blue. With a reputation as Indiana's most beautiful -- the first designated as a state Natural, Scenic and Recreational River in 1973 -- the Blue's setting is unrivaled under any conditions.

With a couple major projects under control, I spent the afternoon exploring by wheel three stretches of the Blue's outback watershed in northern Crawford County, halfway between Hardinsburg and Milltown, a little more than an hour from home.

While not much has happened naturewise since Gary and I returned from the Ohio River waterfalls nearly three weeks ago, I captured a handful of nature shots during a Fathers Day Family Hike at Spring Mill State Park last Sunday and posted a small Photo Album. And, culminating with a return to the Indianapolis Coliseum for an afternoon of Compassion with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Saturday, life off trail has been among the more eventful in recent memory.

Spring Mill wasn't a Photo Hike per se, but I put the fam cam to good use during hikes through the Donaldson's Woods Nature Preserve and along the waterfall below Hamer Cave just upstream from the Pioneer Village. Donaldson's Woods may be only the third largest stand of virgin woods in Indiana, but I think it's the most impressive. And like the other two biggies -- Wesselman's Woods in Evansville and Pioneer Mothers a half hour south just outside Paoli -- it sports a colorful history.

The woods was known as Shawnee Cottage when the wealthy, eccentric Scotsman named George Donaldson, who was bribed out of prison by his father and put on a ship to America in the 1860s, landed in Lawrence County. That he was imprisoned and his father paid his way out is historical fact. That he was jailed for murder is a legend unproved. (I once wrote a story on Donaldson's life forTraces, the Indiana Historical Society's magazine.)