Metronatural: Inventing and Taming Nature in Seattle - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 98

seems to be lacking in industrialized societies. A signifi cant problem with
this story is that Chief Seattle never uttered these infl uential words; the
“Chief Seattle Speech” is a product of American screenwriter Ted Perry,
who was hired by the Southern Baptist Radio and Television Commission
in the 1970s to draft a script for an environmental documentary. Perry's
words refl ect the 1970s agenda of the Club of Rome environmental group
rather than the beliefs of late nineteenth-century Native Americans of the
Pacifi c Northwest. 41 Yet the myth of Chief Seattle continues to inform the
environmental rhetoric of the region, defi ning a landscape ethic supposedly
rooted in local Native American philosophy. Furthermore, it is well known
that Native American populations, including Chief Seattle's tribes, drasti-
cally altered the landscape of Seattle and the Pacifi c Northwest region,
particularly through fi re management techniques. 42 Early Anglo visitors
were struck not by the Native American reverence for the land but rather
by the amount of damage they infl icted upon it. 43 This observation is not
meant to suggest that the landscape alterations of Native Americans were
equivalent to subsequent activities by Anglos in the Pacifi c Northwest but
instead to acknowledge that the landscape encountered by the fi rst Anglo
settlers was far from virgin.
Geographic narratives are particularly important for framing the ben-
efi ts and drawbacks of particular places while promoting normative ideals
for how residents should relate to their material surroundings. 44 The ideol-
ogy of Seattle as a place where humans and nature can coexist in harmony
is one that continues to this day. One need only look to the homegrown
outdoor recreation companies such as REI and Eddie Bauer; the popularity
of outdoor pursuits such as hiking, camping, and skiing; the aforemen-
tioned Metronatural campaign of the Seattle Convention and Visitors
Bureau; or any tourist guidebook to recognize that nature pervades and
defi nes the city. This reputation is due not only to the physical landscape
but also to the various stories that have been told and retold by residents,
urban boosters, tourism proponents, and visitors since the city's founding.
Nye argues that “people tell stories in order to make sense of their world,
and some of the most frequently repeated narratives contain a society's
basic assumptions about its relationship to the environment.” 45 The stories
that Seattleites told and continue to tell about nature are part and parcel
of Seattle's standing as a city in the Promised Land.
Improving the Promised Land
The logging and milling of “big nature” in the land surrounding Seattle
created a small industrial town by the late nineteenth century. 46 However,