. What is in the human soul, such that we feel these urges... to hike, to roam, to hit the trails, migrate, seek a change of scene, and to "walk-about" as they say in Australia? We may not pay as much immediate attention to these impulses as people did in former times when the open land was always more visible. But I believe they are still there in modern life and may be all the more powerful because they have been driven down into the subconscious where they are unnoticed and therefore more irresistible.
. I'm not going to limit myself to any one single definition of what "nomad" means. Why don't we say it's like good art: you'll know it when you see it. So let's suppose you allow a very generous inclusion of types of nomads. When you think about it you realize that many if not most of the people of the world move all or part of their lives.
. Even in the USA this is happening just below our personal radar. An often-quoted, but somewhat inaccurate figure is that the average American moves every 7 years. The Census Bureau prefers stating that in more statistically correct ways: 1) "The average American moves 11.7 times in a lifetime." or 2) "The [annual] moving rate remained statistically unchanged from 2005 at 14 percent." or 3) "About 1 in 6 Americans move each year." Any way you slice it that's a lot of trucking around for a supposedly settled people -- and our households are not as portable as those of traditional nomads, but hey, we do it anyway!
. Whether motivated by climate, disaster, hostile action, disease or the promise of better economic situations, whether slowly over periods of years, or quickly perhaps in a matter of days or hours, we may pack up and move. When public transportation is unavailable or hindered, or our cars are out of gas, or flood waters drive us from our homes, we fall back on our human heritage: we know we can always walk away or at least walk to where transportation is.
. There are many nomadic people in the world even now. The routes they take and the rhythm of movement may be very ancient. . Here is an example from the West African country of Mali.
. The map on the left shows the caravan routes as recorded by the Roman geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus (sometimes simply called Ptolemy) circa 150 AD from a city on the Niger River, Gira Metropolis (now Timbuctou) to the oasis villages Thalibath (Taoudenni) and Capsa (Teghaza).
. On the right (not on the same scale as the left) is a modern map showing the route taken by contemporary Malian nomads through the deserts of their country. It is identical!
. Numerous people continue their ageless nomadic existence in Central Asia following the seasonal availability of natural forage for grazing by their all-important animals.
. Mongolia comes immediately to mind and thus an opportunity to connect my interest in nomads with affection for my favorite actress, Julia Roberts, an accomplished horsewoman, who adventurously lived with Mongolian nomad horse herders for a while.
. The aboriginal people of Australia say that they have always been there, never elsewhere. Folklorically they may "never" have left Australia, but they surely moved around a lot in that huge island continent. Knowledge of specific foot travel routes throughout the entire continent have been handed down orally for centuries by means of an enormous and ingenious set of songs! These tracks are thus known as their Songlines, made famous by Bruce Chatwin's eponymusly titled book. It is said that every so often aboriginal workers who might seem fully assimilated into the "Strine" (white Australian) culture would feel the strong pull of their tradition and be overcome by the urge to "walkabout". With nonchalance far beyond the adult truant sign "gone fishin' " in our culture, Chatwin says a laborer might disappear for a time, the only sign being a pile of clothes and shoes at the beginning of a trail of bare footprints.
. OK, so you want more acceptable examples of "real" nomads in the USA. How about migrant workers who follow the ripening of crops South to North and back again in an endless annual cycle. What about "snow birds" who have no chief residence anymore, just one in a cool place and one in a warm place.
. Using the radar analogy again, most Americans are not aware of the Roma people of whom nearly one million are in the USA and live a completely nomadic existence. There is an even smaller ethnic group of nomads known as Irish Travellers who may live their entire existence off the radar screen. As with the Roma most births are not recorded in official registers.
. Now a little closer to my heart: foot trails, where one finds voluntary but temporary nomads ... In later life I have taken up backpacking, a recreation requiring carrying on one's back everything needed for survival. I noted that, to my surprise, I soon felt perfectly normal, hiking and camping nightly in my tent or in leantos (trail shelters). I can confirm what others have reported: after many days of long-distance hiking, one experiences the trail as one's home. A story...
. On a day-hike up Pleasant Mountain in Maine I encountered an old wooden sign along the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (the "AT") in the middle of nowhere and thought: Boy am I deep into it. I am in the wild places and miles away from roads and civilization. When I reencountered it a month later on a multiday backpacking trip, try as I might I could not recreate the feeling of isolation that accompanied those thoughts the prior month. The Trail and its margins, at least while I'm walking, had indeed come to feel like "home."
. We are lucky to have so many long-distance hiking trails in our country. So completing the other extreme are a few rugged hikers who literally never leave the trails. Case in point is the man who -- as is the custom -- took the trail name "Nimblewill Nomad" combining his home in a mountain village in Georgia and the nomadness (pun intended) of trail life. "Nimblewill" as we call him for short, is a mild-mannered retired optometrist. He soon blossomed in a Walt Whitman-type mien and began writing and publishing trail journals and poems. Only long trails satisfy him. By combining walks on three nearly contiguous trails he invented what is now dubbed the Eastern Continental Trail: over 4500 miles of walking. Starting in Gaspé, Québec he followed the International Appalachian Trail/Sentier International des Appalaches (the "IAT/SIA"), then connected with the AT and then the Florida Trail to Everglades National Park. But he didn't stop there. He became the first person to walk this same string of trails going back North! (In trail lingo a "yo-yo" describes both such a person and the walk.) Just now he would be about 72, and as far as I know is still finding new trails to live on -- I mean backpack on!
