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Show JANUARY WESTERN WOMAN Susan And 1996 The Tixier Great Old (Too-shay) Broads for Wilderness By Kris Edwards he was a word on the page. I didn’t know her, had never met her and I couldn’t pronounce her name. Susan Tixier. I had succeeded to some of her duties at the small, regional environorganization, where I had mental recently started working. Much of my first week was spent reviewing her files and correspondence, her letters. You might think that reading through a predecessor's papers. in < new job would rival the ennui of the August you spent creosoting your parent’s fence posts in a field the size of Jupiter. But it turned out not to be the life-threatening tedium I had expected. Her letters were, I came to believe, her personality on the page. They were conversant, I felt as though she were speaking to me. The rush and swirl and flow of her words told me how she felt, what she thought, believed, what I felt. When she writes about the redrock country of Utah, it’s a tactile, sensuous, implosion of words, feelings, sentences and thoughts. It is in her and it comes into you, just by reading the words. x I learned that she had helped lead The oCéans; once..--_, el ee endless source of protein and food are coming closer and closer to becoming fished out and are more polluted than I go silent and wait. She curls herself into the ball of the chair, in my office, in what I'm imagining might once have been her office. She looks off, then looks right back at me. “Public land,” she says, “is unique- One great old broad, Susan Tixier, enjoying the wilderness. environment. But we haven't done it alone. Our ever before All things being relative, the United partners in the battle to keep you informed are our advertisers. They States has been the shining example taking the of the allow us to bring you news and features that allow you to stay informed. water, the plants, the animals and the future. But now the — so-called Republican Revolution desires to undo In turn, we hope that you will support our advertisers. It's the only way we know to some of the things that have allowed this country to keep its land beautiful. keep the free-flow of information com- care of land, the air, ing. @ The Clean Water, Clean Air and Endangered Species Acts — hallmarks of the movement to Nature healthy — are Washington D.C. Republican-dominated to undo these keep under And Mother attack in if the Congress protections fails outright, they will cut off funding for their oversight. Dirty water and dirty air are convenient for polluting corporations who want to make short-term profits. But had and this thinking prevailed in the ‘60s ‘70s and 80s, dozens and dozens of species would have become extinct G E Witnit T What now has survived is this period happening is so shocking in for anyone quite Congress in tune with the natural world, as to be disbelieved. What is more disheartening is Cc: 12 ISSUES ” To this Tixier replies: “We like to walk. We don’t like roads — we don’t mM OF to_____ appress__. in this country that survive to this day. It is worth noting that corporate America well. locks out all but a minority of the pub- °% Become One With “The High Altitude Alternative” Photo by Steve Griffin canyons helped incite the type of interest and support for the wilderness of Southern Utah that had never before been tapped and organized. I knew that while she was at SUWA, the organization grew from a couple of thousand to ten thousand members. I knew the budget had increased from tens of thousands to half a million dollars. As president of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Susan organized a month-long “Broadwalk” for Southern Utah wilderness. In a series of hikes across the Colorado Plateau, the “Broads” as they call themselves raised awareness about the magnificence of the country, the political and commercial threats to its existence and what the average citizen can do to help keep the wildlands wild. As part of the Broadwalk, they hiked, they camped, they talked, they met with BLM officials. Some of what the Great Old Broads do is in response to Orrin Hatch’s pronouncement that: “Wilderness is such an exclusionary and restrictive designation that it effectively the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, where I now work, for seven years. She had served on the board of innumerable environmental organizations. She had, in 1989, founded the Great Old Broads for Wilderness, I learned how to pronounce her name: Tixier (too-shay, accent on the shay). I knew that she, through her words and her actions and h--passion for the | Mmportant tOOr wue.. -serving our mountain lifestyle and our even like trails. We don’t want maps. We want wilderness!” When I talk to Susan about the Great Old Broads, I tell her I know she started the group in 1989. They now have 1,000 members, some of whom Ae are men, some of whom are not yet 45. | know they're used to be no dues: «We've paid our dues,” Susan said. But now away Subscribe and Get me | THISGITISFR your issues delivered = ooxess__—— ssues ariel = for $25 you get a T shirt and a Renewal Renewz is optionalal. So I tell her I want to talk to her about her feelings on wilderness, on public lands. I know it's hard to articunewsletter. sletter. late, I tell her, at least it’s hard CHECKO Vit PAGE 4 for me. ly American.” She goes on: “It encompasses the finest elements of what democracy and America are all about. To hike on the land, to go into the wilderness, you don’t have to pay a fee, you don’t have to have qualifications.” She draws herself up, stretches her spine, continues: “It is solace, hope, joy. It defines despair, fear. When you are at your darkest, when there is no one, nothing, when you think you can sink no lower, it is there. You can go to it, for relief, for comfort, it is just there. you may never use it, you may never go, but you know it is there.” “Everybody knows this,” she says. “Jim Hansen?” I ask. “Everyone.” She is clear and firm. Completely unequivocal. Wi we know and what we do are two different things, Susan explains. We get tied up with our political affiliations, our jobs, our self-created identities, we get lost in these social conditions. But, she assures me, “The wilderness is in everyone. It’s as natural as taking a leak.” “You go with a cowboy, they love the sunset, they love the land. My dad was geologic engineer,” she tells me. “He loved the land. Nothing was prettier to him than the sight of a mine in the wilderness.” She has a sign on her wall at home: “Free your mind, your ass will follow.” “When we as a society feel safe and secure, we'll go outside, into the wild, we'll be free,” she says. As we are Speaking, a friend of hers enters the room, a former colleague, someone she has fought beside in many wilderness battles. He is leaving, with dread, to return to Washington. They hold each other, they talk about climbing. He wants to take his kayak to Washington. After he leaves, she turns back to me. “He would die for the outdoors, for the wilderness.” Her eyes fill momentarily with tears. “People who love the wilderness are more connected. They love people more, they love animals more, they are more gentle.” “Wilderness,” she says, “gives not a sense of isolation, but a sense of participation.” For more information on The Great Old Broads, write to: PO. Box 4921, Missoula, MT, 59806-4921 @ |