Barry Lopez THE REDISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA

The first few short chapters of this small book address the
exploitative single mindedness that Christopher Columbus’
“discovery” of North America transported across the Atlantic
and that defined the terms of engagement with the new land
and its inhabitants. Lopez proposes that our existence here,
on this continent, is marked by this first encounter and little
has been done to alter the course as it was set back then, over
500 years ago. He defines the relationship as one in which
“instead of an encounter with ‘the other’ in which we proposed
certain ideas, proposals based on assumptions of equality,
respectfully tendered, our encounters were distinguished by
a stern, relentless imposition of ideas – religious, economic,
and social ideas we deemed superior if not unimpeachable.” (17)

Aside from locating us aboard Columbus’ ship as it neared
the “new world”, Lopez has us imagine what it might have been
like to have been a crew member, a common person, aboard
the ship. Someone employed to support the discovery and
exploitation, yet someone not directly rewarded for his actions
and in turn exploited because of his social status. The author
asks us to imagine the new world, its new life forms, its new
landscape with its inhabitants; and he asks us to imagine how
one faced with such novelty and beauty might remain blind
to it.

Reading on, Lopez takes us into a closer consideration of the
results of the voyage of discovery and the subsequent
settlement of the new world. Once we are brought into closer
proximity to the context he proposes, Lopez further asks us to
reconsider a series of vocabulary words the meaning of which
seems to have been lost or altered to support the erasure of
historical memory. The words include imagination, time, wealth,
residence, habitation, community, local knowledge, along with
the names of plants, animals, peoples, their localities, languages
and cultural traditions. All of these terms gravitate around what
we might come to consider as “a sense of place”, or querencia.
Querencia “refers to a place on the ground where one feels secure,
a place from which one’s strength of character is drawn. It comes
from the verb querer, to desire, but this verb also carries the sense
of accepting a challenge, as in a game.” (39) Finally, given this
definition, this term, this term of reference and residence we must
ask ourselves if we in fact feel secure in the place in which we
have come to rest, if we can call this place our own and, if we
in fact feel the slightest sense of discomfort there, are we up to
the challenge that it offers to make it a better place.