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Rich, Rob

Natural Resources

2010

MS

"Split Rock" now sits in the waters of Lake Champlain, apparently divided from the easternmost edge of New York's Adirondack Park. Complex geological forces created this place long before its prominence as a landmark for native and European people. Yet as nature and culture have collided over the centuries, this point, the mountain above it, and the encompassed landscape have become worthy of its name. Physical, ecological, and cultural layers of the land have met distinctive limits within its unique geography and have inspired my appreciation for its psychological and structural boundaries. This thesis engaged these boundaries perceived in mind and on mountain, and explored the possibilities of their meanings.
With landscape natural history and ecocritical theory as guiding foundations for this creative arts thesis, I wrote four "essays of place" looking at the various interactions shaping the Split Rock landscape. Informed by a summer of close landscape observations, interviews, and contextual readings, my essays used both research and reflection to convey a personal account of how geographical and ecological thought related to the theme of boundaries in this place. Ultimately, my writing looked across, beneath, and above the boundaries discussed in this project to convey a message of hope, awareness, and responsibility for the connections that make the Split Rock landscape whole.