Out of Bounds

Yesterday, Lynne cheered the recent Michigan State Supreme Court ruling making it legal for people to walk across privately owned Great Lakes beachfront land below the high water mark. It's a development worth celebrating, as is any occasion that extends people's rights to freely wander across the land. In oceanfront areas, the right to walk on beaches has always been recognized, and I wondered why it was prohibted here, in a state that likes to bill itself as "America's Third Coast."

I've often been a little confused in my notions about private property, thanks to my childhood years. I grew up in an area with lots of undeveloped forests and fields, all privately owned, but pretty much open to anyone who wanted to walk, hunt, fish, snowmobile, or cycle in them. A few landowners took the trouble to chase away trespassers, but they were exceptions. The neighborhood kids referred only to their parcels as "private property," even though none of the was truly in public ownership. Usually if we ran into landowners, we would just make polite small talk with them; it never felt like being "caught."

From those experiences, I came away feeling entitled to enter pretty much any piece of property that wasn't visibly occupied by humans. In my early 20s, I would ignore No Tresspassing signs on land where I fished, climb across fences if something on the other side caught my interest, or access streams through yards of cabins that seemed to be unoccupied. Fortunately, my attitude changed before I incurred any fines or jail time. No particular epiphany about this, but I gradually realized that tresspassers stir up a lot of ill will among people who, as fellow outdoorspersons in many cases, ought to be their allies.

And honestly, there is a generous amount of access to most places I like to fish, and an abundance of public land in Michigan to wander. I often have conflicted feelings about my country, but the availability (if not necessarily the management) of public land is a source of unalloyed national pride. Few things make our celebrated freedom seem more tangible to me than being able to go anywhere I like in a national or state forest to walk, fish, gather, or just sit and watch the world going on. On that score, we stand head and shoulders over Old Europe.

Or at least that's a common perception. Public land is far scarcer in Europe than in the US, but private land there is decidedly less private. In many parts of Europe, one may walk across any piece of land as long as one does not damage it. This sort of access has a long history, but recently, several countries (Scotland, for instance), have explicitly affirmed this priveledge. Sweden goes even further , permitting people to gather berries or even camp temporarily on privately owned land, provided they do not intrude directly on the privacy of the owners (in other words, don't set up your tent in front of someone's picture window). Visiting there would be a regression to my childhood! Until we consider fishing, of course. Trout fishing especially can become an expensive proposition in Europe since one usually must lease a section of a trout stream to fish (though there are exceptions).

Given the predilections of mine that inspired this blog, I guess I'd prefer the US system, where public land is abundant, fishing and hunting on it is free, and your favorite public parcels are unlikely, desipte any other injuries they suffer, to be converted into subdivisions or golf courses. In Europe, you have more room to move, but less assurance that room will remain as you like it, and less room for us plebians to wave a rod at some trout. Of course, Canada has even larger freely accessible public holdings. Plenty of trout water. A more Shupac-friendly political culture. Hmmm...