To gain such remarkable influence, the concept of wilderness had to become loaded with some of the deepest core values of the culture that created and idealized it: it had to become sacred. This possibility had been present in wilderness even in the days when it had been a place of spiritual danger and moral temptation. If Satan was there, then so was Christ, who had found angels as well as wild beasts during His sojourn in the desert. In the wilderness the boundaries between human and nonhuman, between natural and supernatural, had always seemed less certain than elsewhere.

Whatever value it might have arose solely from the possibility that it might be “reclaimed” and turned toward human ends—planted as a garden, say, or a city upon a hill. (7) In its raw state, it had little or nothing to offer civilized men and women.

Its connotations were anything but positive, and the emotion one was most likely to feel in its presence was “bewilderment” or terror. (2)

Remember the feelings of such moments, and you will know as well as I do that you were in the presence of something irreducibly nonhuman, something profoundly Other than yourself Wilderness is made of that too.

But is it? The more one knows of its peculiar history, the more one realizes that wilderness is not quite what it seems. Far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation—indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history. It is not a pristine sanctuary where the last remnant of an untouched, endangered, but still transcendent nature can for at least a little while longer be encountered without the contaminating taint of civilization. Instead, it’s a product of that civilization, and could hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made. Wilderness hides its unnaturalness behind a mask that is all the more beguiling because it seems so natural. As we gaze into the mirror it holds up for us, we too easily imagine that what we behold is Nature when in fact we see the reflection of our own unexamined longings and desires. For this reason, we mistake ourselves when we suppose that wilderness can be the solution to our culture’s problematic relationships with the nonhuman world, for wilderness is itself no small part of the problem.

Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well asphysically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how manyfoggy days there are in his life? I trust that we shall be moreimaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and moreethereal, as our sky

Sir Francis Head, an English traveler and a Governor-General ofCanada, tells us that "in both the northern and southernhemispheres of the New World, Nature has not only outlined herworks on a larger scale, but has painted the whole picture withbrighter and more costly colors than she used in delineating andin beautifying the Old World.... The heavens of America appearinfinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, the coldis intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter thethunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind isstronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, therivers longer, the forests bigger, the plains broader." Thisstatement will do at least to set against Buffon's account ofthis part of the world and its productions.

We would fain take that walk, never yettaken by us through this actual world, which is perfectlysymbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interiorand ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult tochoose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly inour idea.

have felt as if I hadcommitted some sin to be atoned for,

When sometimes Iam reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in theirshops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too,sitting with crossed legs, so many of them--as if the legs weremade to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon--I think thatthey deserve some credit for not having all committed suicidelong ago.

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless Ispend four hours a day at least--and it is commonly more thanthat--sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields,absolutely free from all worldly engagements

Some of my townsmen, it is true, can rememberand have described to me some walks which they took ten yearsago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for halfan hour in the woods;

If you are ready to leave father and mother,and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and neversee them again--if you have paid your debts, and made your will,and settled all your affairs, and are a free man--then you areready for a walk.

People sometimes imagine that wildness can survive in small or simplified pieces. It cannot.

Religious people might say, It’s like a soul. Network scientists might say, It’s anemergent property

belaboring

As Mo unier said, the person is not something one can stud y and p rovid e for; he issomething one struggles for. But unless he also struggles for himself, unless he knowsthat there is a struggle, he is going to be just what the planners think he is.

The dogfish is concealed in the sa me sym bolic pack age as the son net. But thedogfish suffers an a dditional loss. As a consequence of this double deprivation, theSarah Lawrence student who scores A in zoology is apt to know very little about adogfish. She is twice removed from the dogfish, once by the symbolic complex bywhich the dogfish is concealed, once again by the spoliation of the dogfish by theorywhich renders it invisible. Through no fault of zoology instructors, it is nevertheless afact that the zoology lab orato ry at Sarah Lawrenc e Co llege is one of the few places inthe world where it is all but impossible to see a dogfish.

(The educatoris well aware that something is wrong, that there is a fatal gap between the student’slearning and the student’s life: the stud ent reads the p oem , appears to understand it,and gives all the answers. But what does he recall if he should happen to read aShakespeare sonne t twenty years later? Do es he recall the p oem or do es he recall thesmell of the page and the smell of Miss Hawkins?

He would only have been anxious at seeingthings get so out of hand.

T he co nsumer is content to receive an ex perience just as ithas been presented to him by theorists and planners. The reader may also be con tent tojudge life by whether it has or has not been formulated by those who know and writeabout life.

I am afraid this is no t the case at all. It is true that the y longed for their ethno logistfriend, but it was for an entirely different reason. T hey wanted him, not to share theirexperiences but to certify their experience as genuine

Yet they are never without the sense of missing something.Although Taxco and C uernavaca are interesting and picturesque as advertised, they fallshort of “it.” What do the couple have in mind by “it”? W hat do they really hope for?W hat sort of experience could they have in Mexico so that upon their return, theywould feel that “it” had happened?

or example, after a lifetime of avoiding the beatentrack and guided tours, a man may deliberately seek out the most beaten track o f all,the most commonp lace tour imaginable: he may visit the canyon by a Greyhound tourin the company of a party from Terre Haute—just as a man who has lived in New Yorkall his life may visit the Statue of Liberty.

It may be recovered by leaving the beaten track. The tourist leaves the tour, campsin the back country.

A counterinfluence is at work, how ever, and itwould be nearer the truth to say that if the place is seen b y a million sightseers, a singlesightseer does not receive value P but a millionth part of value P.

Bright Angel Lodge

Garcia Lope z de Cárdenas