Exceptional Mountains: A Cultural History of Pacific Northwest Volcanoes by O. Alan Weltzien

Abstract

139 Reviews fied in Washington and British Columbia in the decades after the Second World War. Block’s well-researched and clearly written book constitutes a valuable contribution to the scholarly understanding of religion and secularism in the Northwest. It also raises intriguing questions about regional identity and national borders. It is accessible to readers who are familiar with religious terminology, and it should be widely read. Kevin Allen Leonard Middle Tennessee State University EXCEPTIONAL MOUNTAINS: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST VOLCANOES by O. Alan Weltzien University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 2016. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. 256 pages. $40.00, cloth. In this work, literary scholar O. Alan Weltzien surveys the many ways volcanoes have shaped culture, identities, literature, and policy in the Pacific Northwest. The book ranges over the paradoxical terrain of cities and nature, of wilderness policy and of green consumerism, arguing that volcanoes have an important, indeed an “exceptional” place in those histories (p. 4). Defining the Pacific Northwest as Washington and Oregon, he sees these volcanoes as “one palimpsest on which Northwest psychology has written itself” (p. 11). His wide-ranging cultural history allows readers to think about these important places in new ways. Weltzien begins by surveying literature about Northwest volcanoes, especially Mount Rainier. The survey takes readers across more than a century of literature, from Theodore Winthrop’s The Canoe and the Saddle (1863) to Marianne Moore’s “An Octopus” (1924) to Thomas Wolfe’s Western Journal (1938) to Denise Levertov’s “Three Ways of Looking at a Mountain” (1992) to Gary Snyder’s “Mt. St. Helens” sequence (2004). He critiques Winthrop’s notion of an “American Idea,” indicating a national consensus on identity and essence as “enduring and laughable (p. 20). Weltzien sees a Northwest identity that emerges in the late nineteenth century. In the “rhetoric of superlatives and quasi-religious conversion” surrounding Mount Rainier, he argues, writers sought to compensate for Washington’s “boondocks images” (p. 26). But he steers clear of seeing any unitary view among Northwesterners about volcanoes. While the history of climbing and tourism suggests many seek closeness to the mountain, the poet Levertov articulates a “minority opinion,” embracing the value of distance and titling one of her poems “Against Intrusion” (p. 32). Yet intrusion is at the heart of the debates on wilderness he explores. In considering those issues, he talks not only about regional identity, but also individual identity. While the ability to see Mount Rainier or Mount Hood on a clear day may provide a common experience for a wide swath of Northwesterners, the goal of climbing, hiking, and camping is something more personal. “Climbing volcanoes has always separated a self-chosen segment from the rest,” he argues (p. 97). This has intensified, he shows, as group climbs building “group affirmation” gave way to climbs with a focus on “personal achievement” (p. 101). Yet there is a paradox, wherein visitors seek “wilderness,” “self-realization,” or “personal transformation,” even as the embrace of those goals by large numbers makes their attainment ever more difficult (p. 131, 35, 37). The push for mass visitation also brings a push for amenities. Attimes,Weltziencoulddistinguishmorecarefully what separates encounters with volcanoes frombroaderencounterswithnaturallandscapes. “In the Northwest,” he states, “the evolution and codification of wilderness has derived, in large measure,fromthevisualandpsychologicaldominance of volcanoes” (p. 132). Many wilderness areas are near volcanoes or named after them; yet these struggles were of a piece with broader national calls for wilderness in landscapes with a variety of geological characters. But he is correct to point out the problematic nature of an idealization of wilderness. “Vague notions of purity, for example of a golden age sans racial or ethnic minorities, sometimes cling to this blurry nostalgia” for wilderness, Weltzien argues (p. 141). A particular way that volcanoes fit into a Northwest identity emerges in urban areas. Cities such as Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and Bend lay claim to these mountains. The 140 OHQ vol. 119, no. 1 volcanoes feature prominently in urban iconography . They serve as playgrounds for urbanites, and cities’ material forms place claims on the volcanoes. Public spaces such as Seattle’s University of Washington campus and Portland’s Council Crest Park are...