Question

What is the significance of dunbar's discovery of the garbage dump near the fort?

Answer 1

That our Western Industrial Civilization is not as civilized, with regards to the respect and the conservation of nature as the Indians will reveal to be later in the novel/film. Dumbar discovers that the pond's water is being polluted by the rotting carcasses of several deer that have been shot for unknown reasons by the former military occupants of the fort. Since their carcasses still have all their meat and their skins, Dumbar sees no valid utilitarian reason for their shooting. The spectator immediately knows that there were shot for sport and that instead of cleaning up their mess, the people who shot them threw then into the pond where they contaminated the water. There are also several types of trash all around the pond. It is evident that not only do these people waste valuable and finite resources (the wood, the animals), they have a blatant and absolute disregard and disrespect for nature as they contaminate the pond and do not even eat the meat or take the skin from the animals that they have shot. Later this kind of toxic behavior will be contrasted later in the film with the behavior of the Native Americans who only kill animals that threaten them or that they need meat for meals and skin for clothing from.