by Christy Karras
The Salt Lake Tribune
SUNDANCE RESORT - At a panel discussion on people and the environment here last weekend, the Sundance Executive Director sat back and smiled as panelists got into a heated discussion over whether human beings are ordained stewards of the natural world and whether the natural world is a role model humans should follow.
Paleontologist Robert Bakker referred to the Bible and said human beings should be stewards of the Earth, and that nature itself is full of waste and cruelty. Robert Watson, an environmental scientist, shot back, "To think that we're the apex of some creation is grotesquely egotistical."
Looking on, the Director was downright gleeful, despite - or maybe because of - the disagreement. "I don't think there's enough of conversations like this," he said.
The panel discussion was one of several events at Sundance Resort on Saturday that heralded the opening of the resort's new Nature Center. The center was organized by the North Fork Preservation Alliance, the resort's conservation arm, to educate visitors about the natural world and the canyon ecosystem in particular. The center will host events that include hikes, children's camps, wildlife programs and lectures.
The center itself is in a yurt near other Sundance buildings. The room contains pictures and information about the canyon; it will also be the meeting place for activities.
"One of the things I'm really excited about is that this type of programming is really needed down here in the Utah County area," said Julie Mack, who heads the preservation alliance.
Earlier Saturday, Bakker entertained a group of children, displaying his hand-drawn posters of dinosaurs and pointing out the differences among them. "We do 'Law & Order' with dinosaurs," he said, describing his work looking at fossil sites to determine what dinosaurs ate, what they looked like and how they acted. He compared the nodosaur's shoulder spikes with Dorothy Lamour's puffy sleeves, said one family of large dinosaurs were "great parents, but dumb as sticks" and pointed out that duckbills couldn't bowl because they had no thumbs. Bakker also reminded the audience of Utah's rich paleontological history.
Later, kids dissected owl pellets, looking for partially digested evidence of what the owls had eaten, and did crafts while their parents listened to the panel discussion.
At a dedication ceremony and reception Saturday night, Story Musgrave, the only astronaut to fly on all five space shuttles, showed slides of the Earth from space.
Sundance hopes to bring in more scientists of this caliber, in the same way that its other workshops and lecture series bring in eminent authors, playwrights and filmmakers. "Sundance has an obligation to broaden the dialogue of storytelling," the Director said. "It's so much more than independent film . . . I think there's an extraordinary balance between art and nature."