September 20, 2000

The Spaces In Between

“These voids, the depopulated areas being vacated, are the reservoirs of the natural, cultural, and historical resources of our nation. More important, these resources remain near the surface, unspoiled by the needs of an urban population to transform the past into a palatable form for the present.”

August, through no premeditation, became Fermata’s Great Plains month. I traveled from the edge of the Caprock in the Texas Panhandle to the Badlands of North Dakota. More important than the limits of my ventures were the spaces in between.

For years I have been nagged by a thought that struggled to find a context for expression. You’ve had them; an idea that hovers around you like a mosquito that snuck into your bedroom moments before you turned off the lights. Seven Great Plains states in thirty days finally crystallized what had been disconnected particles of conjecture into a single, coherent concept. After an exceptionally long pregnancy I finally gave birth.

Often I am asked about the nature of my work. Friends and family frequently ask the dreaded question (now, just what do you do for a living?), to be followed by the equally feared follow-up (and they actually PAY you to do that?). Yes, our firm is involved in tourism.

No, we do not develop golf courses, theme parks, time-share lodging, casinos, or beach resorts. We cannot book a flight through Fermata; in fact, our clients rarely have an airport nearby. A city to us is a community substantial enough to support a Chinese restaurant. Starbucks? Give me a break. You will learn far more listening to the farmers in the corner coffee shop and gas station ("no normal person would get into farming; in fact, no abnormal one either").

As these wanderings during August ultimately revealed, we in Fermata are fascinated by the spaces in between. Consider Fermata’s home state of Texas for a moment. Name five destinations in our state. San Antonio (the River Walk, the Alamo)? Dallas (the television series and November 22, 1963 guaranteed their celebrity status)? Austin (live music and a presidential candidate)? Even if you are a nature traveler, what do you know about Texas beyond Big Bend National Park, the Lower Rio Grande Valley (a stretch), and perhaps Galveston and Corpus Christi?

Texas has 254 counties, each with its own unique ambience and appeal. But most of these counties, and the communities and lands they contain, are only spaces in between the giant city-states where most of us now choose to live. As Texas becomes increasingly urbanized (with approximately 85% of us now urbanites), rural communities are struggling for their very survival. The continued drought in Texas is poised above many Texas ranchers like Damocles Sword. Rural Texas, like most of rural America, is about to dry up and blow away. And with its demise, so passes much of the cultural, historical, and natural heritage that has served as the foundation for our country.

Forget Texas. Follow my August forays to Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming (Kansas is on the list for November). What do you know about Nebraska? Football and corn. South Dakota? Mount Rushmore. North Dakota? Fargo (the movie) and Mount Rushmore (you would be amazed by how frequently that mistake is made).

Disney has yet to construct its next virtual reality in any of these states. In Nebraska, the third largest city in the state is Tom Osborne Memorial Stadium in Lincoln when the Cornhuskers play at home. Pierre, South Dakota, is perhaps the most charming state capital in the U.S. (with quaint residential neighborhoods extending to the edge of the capitol grounds), but most of us would pronounce the name with two syllables rather than the one ("Peer’) that is correct.

My travels have exposed a gaping hole in my early education. Either I slept through American History (after all, in Texas tradition my history teacher also coached football) or our educational system is so obsessed with high tech skills that we have forgotten what we need to teach our children to be good citizens. A responsibility of citizenship is being an informed voter, and you will not be an informed voter until you understand the spaces in between.

So what do I do for a living? What is Fermata’s raison d’etre? Simple. We are spellbound, even obsessed, with these spaces in between. These voids, the depopulated areas being vacated, are the reservoirs of the natural, cultural, and historical resources of our nation. More important, these resources remain near the surface, unspoiled by the needs of an urban population to transform the past into a palatable form for the present.

Nowhere is this heritage more evident than in the Great Plains, and nowhere are the threats to rural America so obvious. Review the map developed by the U.S. Census Bureau at the following URL:

http://www.census.gov/geo/www/mapGallery/images/density90.jpg

Notice the predominance of black voids between the rare population centers that illuminate the heart of our nation between the Mississippi and the Pacific Coast. This is where Fermata mined this summer, digging for the remaining unspoiled landscapes. This is where we searched for the real, rather than the virtual (What a curious notion, this "virtual" reality. What could more surreal than reality itself?).

More importantly, since we work in countries other than the U.S., we find the same forces at work throughout the world. In Latin America, for example, the cities continue to expand (been to Mexico City lately?) while the rural communities struggle for their very existence. Experiential tourism allows these communities to diversify their economies, and offers a chance for survival. In this sense, resource-based tourism is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

So I now am prepared for the next interrogation regarding our work, bolstered by a summer of small towns and open lands. Look for us in the interstices between the suffocating clusters of humanity. Our work concerns the spaces in between.

For a blow-by-blow account of our summer forays, read The Trail of the Bison on our World Nature Trails website. Seth has compiled a fascinating account of the spaces in between as we explored the trail of the bison, beginning at the southern tip of the High Plains in the Texas Panhandle and ending near the Canadian border in North Dakota. Be sure to read this report of our adventures, and look for future Trips du Jours as we uncover the spaces in between.

Trip du Jour, September 20, 2000
The Spaces in Between
by Ted Eubanks

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