nature

Why Americans Need to Believe in Bigfoot

The ‘Monster Roaming the Countryside’ Helped Lure Us Back Into Nature

Why are Americans so devoted to Bigfoot?

You can find Bigfoot everywhere. Its image adorns coffee cups, T-shirts, bumper stickers, bottle openers, and other sundries. Bigfoot is the Canadian-American version of the abominable snowman that has been in the public imagination for over 60 years. It is a curious celebrity in that the kind of phenomenon that it represents—whether exclusively cultural or also biological—has yet to be worked out. What is not in dispute is that people insist that they have seen Bigfoot, even if what “seeing” entails is not entirely …

by David Daegling |

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How Our View of National Parks Shapes American Identity

What We Seek and Find in Our Sacred Environments Reflects Our Country’s Character

Few natural regions have been photographed as often, or in such varied ways, as the American West. Many of these alluring, emotionally resonant landscapes lie within the boundaries of national …

Nature Needs Greater Diversity—In Its Human Visitors

Drawing More Non-Whites Into Parks and Natural Areas Requires Changes in Access, Staffing, Recruitment—and Narratives

by REED JOHNSON |

“Is nature only for white people?” was the deliberately provocative query that framed a Zócalo/Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County panel discussion. It was quickly dispensed with by the …

Why Americans Invented the RV

In 1915, New Creature Comforts Created by Technology Merged with the Back to Nature Movement

by Terence Young |

Zócalo’s editors are diving into our archives and throwing it back to some of our favorite pieces. This week: Before pandemic “van life,” there …

How Hawai‘i Forces Us to Redefine the Meaning of ‘Native’

An Environmental Historian Argues That Being Indigenous Is More Alchemy Than Fact

by Daniel Lewis |

I was born in the Territory of Hawai‘i, three weeks before statehood. As a kid I played in its dirt, ran around in the rain (my hometown of Hilo is …

The Photographer in the Garden

How the Camera Conveys the Ways We Cultivate Nature

Gardens are the birthplace of some of our most enduring myths and creation stories. Many religions posit the idea of a lush, sacred place where humans once dwelt in harmony …


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