Latest / Follow the Leighder / Religion, Extremism, and the Myth of the American West | Betsy Gaines Quammen
Transcript
- Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, howdy folks, and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and I am so excited to welcome Betsy Gaines Quamman from Bozeman, Montana into the studio with us today. Welcome, Betsy. Betsy Gaines Quamman: my gosh, it's so good to be here. Hi, Leigh It's great to see you again. And I'm really excited to talk to you. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Folks, I I I've met with Betsy before, but we got to meet in person recently at a conference, the One Green Thing Eco Anxiety Conference in Bozeman a few weeks ago. That was fantastic. Betsy is an author, which really focusing on public lands, which is what we're gonna be talking about today, her her book that's coming out in September, but also public lands policy. We'll we'll touch on God and then public lands in the American West. We'll talk about wolves a little bit. we're just gonna have some fun because really Betsy is is a treasure trove of of information. You know, she's a historian and an award-winning writer. She's fascinated by how cultural views shape relationships to landscape, and of course, she loves a good ghost story. Betsy Gaines Quamman: Ha ha ha Leigh/@followtheleighder: Betsy received a PhD from Montana State University, where she studied religion history and the philosophy of science. Her dissertation focused on Mormon history and the roots of armed public land conflicts in the United States. You have been in the New York Times and the New York Daily News, the History News Network, and then, of course, your books, This Haunted Land, coming out in September, American Zion and True West. I mean, very well accomplished. Very well read, very well educated, and now you are turning to write and educate inform folks all about the West out here. I know that you have your your husband's also a writer and you've got your dogs and your cat and your your lanky rescue python, but have you always been Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yes. Leigh/@followtheleighder: a sort of Western writer or a lands writer, or kind of walk us through how you took on this this study. Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah, it's kind of a circuitous route. I started out in conservation and was very, very interested in the way people viewed landscape through their cultural lenses. And my work centered in the American West it but I also worked in Mongolia and Bhutan and Africa and actually Kenya and and so I was was really trying to as a conservationist understand how various cultures related to landscape, what was important to them. I didn't want to be a white lady saying, let's do it you know, this way. I I really wanted to hear how people perceived lands within their own worldview and That's how I started to really understand what was happening in the West in terms of conflict over land. So after working in Mongolia for about eight years and working with religious leaders, I turned to look at how the Sage Rush Rush Rebellion or these kind of early public land conflicts. might have been influenced through a different cultural lens and how conservationists are kind of informed by Thorovian ideas and Resonian ideas, sort of the the sort of spiritual transcendentalist ideas. And this is, you know, how the modern conservation movement kind of came out of those early thought processes. and then I looked at how some of the people involved in the Sage Rush Rebellion and Clive and Bundy, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who was involved in an armed standoff in 2014, and his sons were involved in the takeover of the Oregon Wildlife Refuge in 2016. and I applied this kind of thinking, how religious views inform ideas on landscape, and and started to really look at how Mormonism became a part of land use conflict in the West. So that that's a really long answer to your question, but it really did come from looking at Buddhist worldviews, as well as, you know, I I studied Jewish worldviews, Christian worldviews, Islamic worldviews and how they really shape relationship to land. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. And and I've seen that in in some of my work abroad as well. the the spiritual relationship with the land and eco theology and of course folks, you know, sh I I just mentioned that Betsy has her PhD and has studied religion. and then of course I have my theology masters. So it's definitely open to to spirituality, but you don't necessarily have to. You can be totally secular out in the woods. and I I find what is dangerous, of course, about spirituality and and lands is that of course the argument can be warped into kind of what you cover with American Zion, where where folks believe that they have claim to the land because of God. Can you kind of talk about that in your book a little bit and how Godly claims to land of shape the West. Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's manifest destiny. in terms of what I was looking at, it it's really interesting because having worked with Christian groups on conservation, I really saw a lot of people look at Genesis as a call to steward the land. And, you know, God created the land or excuse the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and it was good. And that is something that really informed many of the Christian activists that I was working with, which was was very, very different than the way the Bundis interpreted Genesis. They really emphasized dominion. they they looked at developing land as a way to please the eye of God, which was more of a an LDS idea that that utilization of land pleases the eye of God, not just wildness. And you know, having gone and seen them speak a number of times and and truly believing that conservationists were evil because they believed the land should accommodate other species besides humans. that was I think a a really interesting juxtaposition to to have you know seen people who really interpret the bible as as as a a source to to take care of god's creation versus people using the bible to validate what they term is a religious war in fighting for use of public lands in this case With the Bundes, it was illegally grazing cows in the Mojave Desert. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hmm. Yes. And and like you said, Manifest Destiny, I mean, that's Indian boarding schools and reservations taking over of the lands. Absolutely all in the name of God. So much of it was you know, Christian. So I am curious then. I mean, if you talk about the the twistedness that folks have used on Christianity and public lands, in your book, this haunted land, do you start to look at some of these lands, some of the bloodshed, some of the the lives that have been lost here? Can and then of course these these ghosts, can you talk about your your book and the research you have had to do in order to prepare for it? Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah, I I think that I was ready to I I s my first two books really did look at extremism, religious extremism, Christian nationalism, and some of the issues that are so that that are really shaping the political landscape today. And I wanted to do something more fun. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Betsy Gaines Quamman: and I love ghost stories. I love ghost stories. And and so I thought I will write a book on ghost stories. I've lived in haunted houses. I totally believe in ghosts. I know that's something that people have asked me, like, what's the difference between believing in ghosts and believing in conspiracy theories? You've talked about conspiracy theories being toxic. Why aren't ghost stories and They're n they're not. I mean, you're not if somebody believes in ghosts, you're you're not condemning them. You're not saying, you know, there's a deep state. I mean, it it's not about taking down anyway, it's it's actually kind of about the powerless. Like ghosts and the people who are dead are powerless, whereas conspiracy theories are about building power. and tearing down institutions. I've thought a lot about it that because people have asked me so much about it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Betsy Gaines Quamman: So, but I found that when I started doing ghost stories, there are so many stories around trauma that have to do with the building of America. So I I did look at Indian boarding schools, a haunted Indian boarding school, and I did look at ghost stories around the Underground Railroad I looked at a ghost I looked at the ghost of the ivory-billed woodpecker. People keep seeing it, but it's very likely extinct. I I looked at ghost stories around dams. There are there are all these stories about men being buried in the cement in Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee, and and then kind of looked at how the West is being haunted by the scarcity of water and that these actions have come back. you know, to haunt us the these big dam projects. So I I look at ghosts metaphorically and literally, because again I believe in them. but but there's a lot in this book that that really does talk about America as a haunted land and that we continue to be unsettled by not addressing our past. and I just I'll I this is a very long answer to your question. but but I did feel like at a time when this administration is trying to whitewash history, it's really important to understand just what happened in order to build this country. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I I am just so frustrated every time I see this administration post anything related to Teddy Roosevelt, you know, just living here in Montana and what he did for the parks and conservations and conservation and starting the forest and fire services. Like that just there's so much history. And Timothy Egan wrote the big burn. It's all about Teddy Roosevelt's legacy with with the fire services and why that is so important. And and here we are like cutting folks and rolling back regulations and they're just posting about Teddy as if that wasn't Teddy's legacy. And it it breaks my heart. Betsy Gaines Quamman: Well, and it's interesting. Teddy was pretty complicated when it came to indigenous issues. he did he he did have a a really important role in the conservation in the United States. the conserv the conservation of public lands. but I think that what's been most shocking to me is that the Department of Homeland Security has posted image after image after image of manifest destiny picture, you know, sort of Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Betsy Gaines Quamman: white white homesteaders going out and settling the land. And again, like pushing this narrative of white people settling. And and I think this administration has has really had a a very not dog whistle. I mean this has been overtly white supremacists and and it gets to what you're talking about, the images that we're seeing you know, celebrating Manifest Destiny and trying to compare themselves with t Teddy Roosevelt, they're they're so misleading and and and pretty pretty dangerous. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Dangerous, misleading. And like you said, I mean, yes, let's not put Teddy on a pedestal and between indigenous and and and also Filipino and did a did a lot of harm. Did a lot of harm. Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: but it is when you when you look at these regulations that these wrote that they're rolling back and just piecing off and selling off the land, it just it hurts. And it hurts Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: When a lot of folks don't understand how critical the West is to the United States, either for farming, for ag, or even like having our own quote unquote miniature I'm using this lightly, like Amazon rainforest and what we like provide with all that protected land and what that value brings to our environment and the atmosphere and the ecosystems and all this stuff, of course. It's not the same scale as Amazon rainforest. I'm just saying it's like massive swaths of land that do Betsy Gaines Quamman: Well, like the the American Serengeti. I mean, it it is it is very it's so essential. and this is not just Westerners, as you well know, public land belongs to every American. This is our land. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Our land, it benefits all of us. And yeah, and if you don't see it or if you don't use it, you don't have a relationship with it, like it kind of you're just not gonna think about it and you're just gonna say, you know, why not? There's plenty of it, and that's the thing Betsy Gaines Quamman: Mm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: that you can't make more of is land. So Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah. Yeah. I I I absolutely. And it it is funny because I I mean the the history of conservation is fraught. I mean, there there is this history of conservationists putting this mythology onto land saying it's unpeopled, where we know it's indigenous land. This is not the Western land is not unpeopled land. It's the it's land that indigenous people have had as their homeland for Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Betsy Gaines Quamman: for since time immemorial. So that's that's something that I do think that there has been some history to the conservation movement that hasn't been inclusive. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm. Betsy Gaines Quamman: that said, I think that, you know, as you said, the West is should be understood by Americans. It's so important. and our public lands, I mean it's it's if you've never set foot on public land, which you probably have, I mean, you know, because there's public land scattered throughout Leigh/@followtheleighder: Never. Betsy Gaines Quamman: the United States, mainly in the West. But you know, these are places where we have carbon sinks, we have our water, we have our wildlife. Like, like these Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Betsy Gaines Quamman: places are so important to to the world. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Amen. Absolutely. As you've been doing your research, particularly out west, what are some of the stories of of you know, so I generally speaking, I'm assuming my audience knows that the treaties weren't respected by the US government between indigenous nations or tribes. Can you share with us a little bit about what that looked like for folks who haven't like thought more deeply about that? Like how when we say that the treaties were not honored and respected with Native Americans, like what did that look like? Cause it sounds like it could go a lot of different ways. Betsy Gaines Quamman: my God. I mean it it looked like I mean it led to massacres, it led to stolen land, it it treaties continued to push people out of their their homes. And as Western expansion happened, indigenous populations were more and more sort of forced into smaller, less productive areas so that white people could settle the land. And there there are it's a heartbreaking history. I mean you know I I write about in my last book which is coming out in September the this haunted land so my most recent book I guess about the Cheyenne and Arapaho people who the the sh northern Cheyenne came up to Montana, the Southern Cheyenne are in Oklahoma. And I talk about their history and this these broken treaties and the the murders that happened you know the cavalry killing people during the Bear Creek massacre. And they were put onto the what is now The Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal land. And this I talk about an Indian boarding school that was there, the Concho boarding school. And it's famously haunted. I go through it in in the book. It's a little bit more complicated than that. There were two concho boarding schools. There were actually a few boarding schools within this this reservation, and one is a one still is a derelict. Building. It's just walls. And I write about this incredible. he's actually Navajo Creek in Yuchi. And he was an accountant for the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribe. And he was a graffiti artist. And so he ended up going through the files and painting the faces of Arapaho and Cheyenne people on the walls of this derelict. Bro boarding school as an act of resistance. So he's Leigh/@followtheleighder: Wow. Betsy Gaines Quamman: the one who was telling me the ghost stories. And then I was featuring him in his defiance. And it's absolutely, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Wow. Betsy Gaines Quamman: he's the most he's such a cool guy. And he he thought, you know, I'm gonna use this as my canvas to to defy this legacy and and to put these beautiful faces up. And it's absolutely it, it's a stunning series of murals. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. When you go and exp I'm Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah, that was a fun one. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ha I have to ask, if you're touring these haunted places, are you scared? How are you doing this? Betsy Gaines Quamman: Ha ha ha Leigh/@followtheleighder: What's it like to go visit? Betsy Gaines Quamman: scared. I I I love ghost stories, but I'm scared of ghosts. I start my I start my book at the Hemingway house where Ernest Hemingway took his life. And I I I don't want to give too much away, but I was haunted there. That was that was an experience where I actually I was a writer in residence there for two weeks And I had to move out for a couple of days because I had something so startling happen to me. And and I so I tell the story in the first chapter, and it's really funny because I I was telling this incredibly curmudgeonly archivist in Butte, Montana, about the Hemingway house in Ketchum, Idaho. And I told him my ghost story. And he and I said I had I moved out 'cause I was so scared and he got so mad at me and he said, You had a ghost come and visit you and you moved out. Are you have to listen to ghosts? And that's when I got the idea for the ghost book, like you know, how how I would be listening to ghosts. Like this is this is my role, this is my job. What are ghosts telling me? And and so as I move through the book, I I really try to I mean, I I talk about folklore, I talk about mythology, I talk about America's sort of love affair with horror, I talk about satanic panic. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, love it. Betsy Gaines Quamman: And but I but what I'm doing is listening to ghosts. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And they can tell us so much, so much. I do I do enjoy and appreciate reading ancestral theology or ancestral rituals and practices. even though these are not necessarily the ghosts that you're talking about, but reconnecting with the ghosts that are of our bloodline or just like even close friends, and things like that. I Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah, and just to your point, I talk about a folklorist who is asked all the time, she collects ghost stories. She's at Utah State and she gets asked by her students all the time, Do you believe in ghosts? And she says, Yeah, I believe in ghosts. It's in our DNA. And I think that's really I mean, we're walking around with our ancestors. So You know, how do we honor them? How do we tell their stories? How do we acknowledge their trauma? How do we acknowledge the trauma that they maybe inflicted on others? Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Absolutely. Mm. Beautiful. Beautiful. When you do any sort of going into these haunted spaces, do you have a ritual? Do you how do you cleanse or how do you process? How do you not take it home with you, maybe? I mean I guess you have to because you're gonna write about it, but but what do you what does it look like to to wrestle with these places because you're not just going as a tourist, like you're seeing layers of history and that's really cool, but also really dark. Can be. Betsy Gaines Quamman: You know, I think writing is so cathartic. I I really feel like by doing my best to tell a story and be careful with my characters. I mean, I do talk about s I talk about suicide. I t I talk about murder, I talk about sexual assault. and I and I talk about enslavement. I mean there there are some very heavy issues that I talk about in this book. And I make a point to remember everybody I'm talking about was a person and had a life and that they were bigger than their tragedy, that they were that and I want that to be reflected in the way I present them. And so if I had a ritual and this actually and I have another answer to this question too. I think that By by writing and doing the best I possibly could to represent the people I'm writing about and to be as careful with them as possible, was my way of dealing with with their story. And I hope that with each story, I really try to honor them. So that was my ritual. But the other thing that I talk about at the end of the book is my dad died when I was writing the book. And I realized that we at least I didn't have a kind of ritual to process his death. And I I didn't I didn't grow up with a tradition and I am Buddhist and and had taken my my vows in in Mongolia actually. And I had Buddhist monks in Mongolia and in the United States who took me through ritual and and the period of Bardo when we were praying for him every day. And I explore in the last chapter how Americans there I mean there are there certainly are rituals that people have, but but many people are disconnected from the rituals around Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Betsy Gaines Quamman: death because we don't think about death enough and what it means and how it impacts us. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm. Betsy Gaines Quamman: and so so I really spend the last chapter talking about what what why ritual is so important and I I spend some time at the day of the dead at a day of the dead celebration in mesilla nexico with my sister which was really amazing and and i thought that that was an incredibly cool celebration because it's layers of it's layers of culture it it's Aztec it is Celtic it is Catholic It is Spanish, it is American, it it's it's Latino, it's it's Mexican, it's I mean it's just like it's so Leigh/@followtheleighder: I didn't know that. Betsy Gaines Quamman: yeah, it's really fascinating because this this holiday had had so many components going into it and it's still being reinvented. today in in various celebrations and ceremonies in the United States. So it's it's Leigh/@followtheleighder: Beautiful. Betsy Gaines Quamman: a it's a cool it was a cool exploration after writing about America as a haunted land to wind up memorializing my dad or thinking about my dad within a celebration that incorporated such a syncretism of cultures. Leigh/@followtheleighder: How I liked what you brought up about ritual because it's not just you that lacked a ritual. I that is a very American I mean you you hit the nail right on the head. We just don't we don't have a ritual for anything. And I even see that on the military chaplaincy side where we just like bring folks home from war, but we don't have like a a warrior to citizen. ceremony type thing. We have like a lot of medical outprocessing out outprocessing and things like that. And I don't I don't know what a warrior to citizen ceremony would look like anyway. But I'm just saying we don't have clear thresholds really very often when people need markers of identity or like different changes of environment that are very, very real. And death is one of those things. That is a massive existential relationship, I mean, that you went through again with the backdrop of your book. You're talking about mortality a lot. You're talking about Dia de los Muertos and being able to see ancestors in in in such a cultural, diverse way. have you taken on like more rituals since then? Like or do you have like maybe like a shrine for your father? what is what is your relationship look like with the dead, not just in honoring their stories in your writing, but in your personal life, if you don't mind me asking. Betsy Gaines Quamman: No, I don't mind at all. I do have a shrine. I have a a really beautiful shrine in my living room, which is a a carved series of Buddhas. It's it's very old and it's it's really it it's very beautiful. And and so that's where we did prayers for my dad. but I've also Done a couple of other things with my sister. we've gone and scattered his ashes in various places, places that were important to him. and that has been really wonderful. And we've taken trips together to go to various places. And and we just finished up, it was the year anniversary of his death. and so we did more prayers commemorating him. a a year later and that has felt really good. and I mean these are kind of dumb things, but well, they're not. I mean, I have his voicemails. I I listen to his voice. I I look at his pictures. of course I talk a lot about him with my sister. But yeah, I mean I think I think it's really important to know And and then you know, again, I'm speaking from a personal you know, my personal perspective. He was so important in our life. And when he le he he was killed in a car accident. So it was, you know, I talked to him that morning. and then he was del Leigh/@followtheleighder: Sorry. Betsy Gaines Quamman: he was delivering meals on wheels. Like he he was such a cool guy. And he was taken so suddenly. and so it's really important for me. every day to to touch base with him. I'm gonna get kind of teary-eyed, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Hmm. Betsy Gaines Quamman: but yeah, I I mean he was the center of our family. Like he was the Sunday dinner guy. and we would all go over to his house and yeah I mean I talked to him at least once a day. He lived 10 minutes from me and I now have to drive past the place where he was hit, which is really hard. So it's really important to keep him in my life and to remember how incredibly vital and funny and loving he was, you know, and not to just be like, well, that happened, you know, dad's gone. I mean, I I I and I think that's how I feel about our history. Like it's really important to remember things and not whitewash things. And I mean, I I think that I was very rattled when I saw this executive order to start to take down signs that talked about Indian boat boarding schools, to take down signs at you know, again, public land, public public parks to take down the sign or the picture of the man who had been so brutally beaten that his back was completely scarred. This was a man who'd been formerly enslaved and and that those were being taken down at public places. we can't forget the past, both the good and the bad. We have to remember it. It it's too vital to our to our lives and and to, you know, our culture and to our landscape. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Amen. And if well, thank you so much for Betsy Gaines Quamman: Mm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: sharing that with me. That was that was beautiful. And I hope that listeners feel inspired to to have that shrine, to have that ritual, to call that sibling or that other friend who who experienced the grief and loss and and have something because it is meaningful and it gives us It gives us a chance to to to have sacred spaces, which of course I'm always inviting folks, please, like more sacred space into your life and and so attending to what has come before us is is so spiritual and again Having an ancestral or some sort of grief ritual does not commit you to any religion or any theology outside of what it looks like and is is best for you. And of course if you do adapt other pro adopt other practices, make sure you're respectful and responsible with those those practices. Because like I said, we're ritually starved. Go ahead. Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah, I I yeah, and I think that's really important that, you know, it's it you're not culturally appropriating that you are talking to people and understanding if you are borrowing rituals, that it's not cultural theft, that it's genuine interest in in how other cultures proceed and and to to really not make it like a new agey woo-woo thing, but to but to really understand where other cultures are coming from. And I have a question for you because I I've thought about this with the with the book, because I'm coming off writing about extremism and January sixth and some of the the roots of the insurrection that I found in the West. I have wondered and I and I ponder this in in this new book too. If because we're detached from ritual, because we're detached, and I'm talking about Europeans, like the the set settlers who have come, not indigenous people, but but that because there are those of us who left you know Europe, our ancestors did, and severed ties with families and with traditions and rituals, could Some of this need that some people have that that they they are feeling a disconnect be turned into a dangerous hyper patriotism. And and I started to think about that in the book. Like, is that why there's such a interest in whitewashing history that we don't want to come to terms with the fact that the building of America had some dark chapters and that and that it does become i ritual and tradition becomes replaced with hyper patriotism. And I wondered if that's something that you've ever thought about. Leigh/@followtheleighder: yeah, absolutely. Like when, yeah, like you're saying, all of our ancestors were Christianized and colonized at some point up the ancestral ladder. and we did when so many of us quote unquote came over from Europe and I'm speaking specifically as white Christians, what that means. we did leave behind a lot of rituals. One that's really important to me that I'd put on your radar if I can find the book. was talking about how particularly women's healthcare, like doula or like midwifery, mid being a midwife, like there were schools for that back in Europe. And then when we got over here, that opportunity to have this blank slate of patriarchal control and controlling what it means to be an American and morality and all this. And the American Medical Association determines that women don't know what they're talking about when it comes to childbirth for the first time in like human history that like there is legal, like not even I mean, there's obviously men's healthcare, but I mean just like in terms of like women are being separated from the ritual of birth. that's massive. And now it's been commercialized and it's healthcareized and masculine, you know, now we're here. But I think about stuff like that too. Like, yes, there's the the pagan rituals and like the things we take like spiritually, but fundamentally also this whitewashing changed European women's birth standards, practices, rituals, relationships. There was whole, like I said, trainings and institutions because why else would men be in that space? That's not their space. Like and but that's Again, that that's that American Medical Association. That is that we're standardizing everything and it's white men, whatever white men means, throw away your rituals. It's just science. Believe us, we know what we're talking about. We're learned doctors. And yeah, a lot of a lot of harm. then and that's again just one practice. But I mean, yeah, when when you think about You know, the the Irish here in in Montana are fun. They tend to hold it down and and and really be proud. But a lot of folks like I mean, we just have national holidays that are, you know, again, they lean Christian, but there's just so many faiths, so many practices and yeah, it's It's such a a hyper patriotism and it's a hyperstandardization too. It's like, Nope, this is who we are, this is the box. And Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah. Yeah. Christian nationalism, which we've seen a great rise in, is fascinating in the sense that it's a way to conflate or you know, yeah, maybe conflate God and country so that you're not worshiping idols when you worship America. And and so, you know, again, as somebody who studies American history, studies Western history. and is totally in love with history, I do see a danger in not staring clear-eyed at our past. and and to say that c talking about some of our trauma is anti-American doesn't make any sense to me at all because it is American. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It's and it's dangerous too, because as you know, like this isn't the first time Americans have had to deal with big bad corporations or religion or anything like that. I mean, even just like this Christian nationalism in public lands. I mean, listening to you and Mike Phillips at the panel talk about wolves and what's going on with all the different regulations and it's it's so ungodly. And it it's so upsetting to everyone else who A either identifies as a quote unquote progressive Christian or someone who just like is cool with Jesus and is watching a whole other group make it not look the same Jesus that they may have known and maybe aren't practicing religion at all. And it's just it's and then it's of course they're just stomping on everyone. Like there's just so many different layers of like pervertedness and Anyway, I'm just mm. Betsy Gaines Quamman: No, and I think that you know, and that comes too from wor European worldview. I mean, when you look at what's happening with wolves on public lands, it is not scientific. These these quotas that they're putting out to kill huge percentages of Western populations of wolves is not science. And wolves I wolves rarely attack livestock. I just read a statistic that said livestock has killed 70 times as much by weather events as they are by predation of wolves. But these ideas were taken, brought to this country by Europeans who grew up with fairy tales of wolves pretending to be grandmothers and eating little Red Riding Hood. And they were people who came with, you know, they were pastorialists. So they they came with this vicious hatred of wolves. And you can trace that back to the Bible as well. That, you know, it's a a wolf in sheep clothing, cl sheep's clothing, it was a false prophet. And so when settlers came to the United States, they had these incredible wolf hunting campaigns, these these wolf slaughter campaigns. because they came with old world views. And it, you know, it is it's it's funny and yeah and you I'm sure I bet you and I could talk about this stuff forever because when you s look at things through a l religious lens, you see it everywhere. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Everywhere. Yeah. absolutely. And I I was not aware of the the wolf slaughter that you're talking about coming over. I mean, it makes sense. I it completely make I mean it's like doesn't even surprise me, but I'm like, yeah, I bet there was a wolf slaughter done by Christians. Why not? Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Buffalo, wolves, anybody. Just like, Betsy Gaines Quamman: Exactly. Yeah. They were clearing the land for cows and and sheep. and they yeah, they had bounties on wolves. I mean, that yeah, they wiped them out. That's why when Mike and I at the one green thing were talking, Mike was responsible for bringing wolves back to Montana because there weren't any left. they were starting to disperse. I mean, they they actually wolves are really resilient and they were starting to move into places. that they had been as historically wiped out. But he was in charge of the wolf reintroduction project in Yellowstone National Park in the nineties. and that's when wolves really started to come back i i in terms of government sponsored programs to reintroduce them. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Well, that yeah. Thank you to to again for your passion. Like just talking about I mean, and we should be angry. We should be looking at history straight in the face so that we can learn what is coming. Cause these guys will keep doing it. Like they did it, I mean, they that it again, Teddy Roosevelt's got his got his flaws, but Teddy emerged for a reason. And like those patterns will continue to happen. And I'm so thankful for your voice. I'm so thankful for your mind. You're out here sharing it with the world and a world that's pretty hostile to women, smart women sharing their knowledge. But for my listeners who are excited, can you please tell us where can we find you, follow you, and learn more about you? Betsy Gaines Quamman: Yes. first of all, this has been really great. I I love talking to you. I mean, I I knew I was gonna love you when we first started talking, and I do. I just I've so enjoyed Leigh/@followtheleighder: back at you. Betsy Gaines Quamman: getting to spend time with you. I am at BetsyGainsQuamen dot com. That's my s website. I'm on Betsy GainesQuamen on Instagram and Facebook. and I am gonna be touring this fall and spring and I have a partial list of dates up on my it's gonna be going up on my website. I have it up on Facebook and Instagram right now. So anybody who wants to see where I'm going to be speaking, you can you can find that calendar and this haunted land is gonna be out in September and you can you can find it anywhere. I prefer independent bookstores, but it is on Amazon too. But everybody find your favorite independent bookstore if you're interested in the book. It and and even if you're not, find it because bookstores are awesome. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes, they are. Absolutely. Well, Betsy, you are that was absolutely thank you for coming on today. You are a joy. I have so much love for you. I cannot wait to have you back when your book is launched and and we can we can talk more about your adventures touring it. And I'm sure you're gonna be exposed to more haunted sites because you've you've opened the portal now, Betsy. You're in. Betsy Gaines Quamman: I know, I know. I'm hearing so many ghost stories and that's been super fun. Everybody has a good ghost story, so Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. yeah. yeah. absolutely. Yeah, that. Well, folks, y'all heard it here. Thank you so much for again joining me, Betsy. You've been terrific. guys, let me know what y'all thought about this in the comments. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe, you know the drill. This has been another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Lee Larson. And until next time, see ya.