If you listen to City Advertising and Promotion Commission public service announcements on the Fayetteville public radio station, KUAF, Eureka Springs is a destination with dozens of miles of trails and spring-fed lakes. We are as a city bathed in natural features.
It’s true that there’s a laundry list of items that annoy those who live here, and those who visit –nothing quaint about our sidewalks, parking is always issue, and motorcycles with faux mufflers that don’t muffle.
A shifting emphasis from the tourism theme du jour, to an emphasis on enjoying (exploiting) our natural surroundings requires that we develop a plan, a strategy that we can all work toward enhancing and enjoying nature as a common goal. All city entities, governmental and non-governmental, the arts community, bikers (sans motors) and hikers out to work together to be on the same page. After all, everything in nature is connected. No sense in relying on chaos theory.
Eureka Springs is unique in that nature is completely intertwined with our civilization. Out my front door is Spring St. Out my back door is a wooded valley with a view of the hills on the other side of Main Street. Out the front door are tourists driving five miles an hour in a fifteen mile an hour zone, as novice Harley riders try to keep their rumbling rides upright.
Out the back door are grey fox, red fox, possums, raccoons, deer and armadillos. Enjoyment of nature is something we can all agree upon, whether we are engaged in hunting or fishing, hiking or mountain biking or other activities that just get us into nature, whether or not that is our actual intention. It is important that those human activities in nature are conscious and don’t have unintended consequences for nature (and ultimately humans), such as the ill-advised introduction of wild hogs for sport of the hunt. We suffer the results.
Being in nature, a simple walk in the woods soothes the soul. Nature begets art. Art begets a appreciation of nature. For myself, I look forward to returning to nature just as soon as the summer heat subsides, the ticks and chiggers stop biting and snakes go back into their winter dens. Enjoy and be aware of nature even if just looking out a window in an air-conditioned building.