Call of the wild
By Dale Goodner | 4th November 2007
n spite of the deluge, our twenty plus year old tent held up fairly well. Never mind that there were little drips of water occasionally making their way onto our sleeping bags. For the previous two days we could hardly believe how nice and warm and sunny it had been, for October. Not any more.
Breaking camp would be interesting. Rain beat down steadily and insistently, starting just before daybreak. Daybreak? The dawn could only manage to shift the leaden sky to a slightly less oppressive shade of gloomy. Breakfast and gear packing took place inside the tent. The monsoon intensified.
My wife’s Dad had served in the Army in the European theater in WW2. He used to say (with a chuckle) that since he’d spent a good part of the war sleeping in a tent, he’d pretty much had his fill of camping. I tried to explain that I never considered my military experience to be quite the same as “camping.” Her mother wasn’t quite sure what to make of it either. “What do you do out there? Do you fish?”
Actually we don’t fish, so that narrows things down a bit. Mary got her camera out and scrolled through numerous photographs. She showed her Mom several views of autumn in the north woods. A bright red maple contrasted with a deep green hemlock, both beautifully reflected on placid water. Dark maroon carnivorous pitcher plants, surrounded by sphagnum and Labrador tea, graced a floating bog, with a backdrop of yellow tinged tamaracks. Loons drifted close to the canoe, allowing several portraits of these amazing birds, which would soon migrate south. Our tent, nestled among old growth maple and yellow birch, was framed on one side by a thin column of smoke rising from the campfire. Panoramic photos showed expansive pristine lakeshore. There was even a very nice photo of hauling gear over a portage. And finally there was a picture of torrential rain just outside the tent door. Sometimes you just gotta pay the fiddler.
We had camped in Upper Michigan this fall in a unique part of the Ottawa National Forest designated as a National Wilderness. It is strictly paddle zone. No motorized contraptions to disturb the peace. The only sounds, which pass through this forest, include such things as the whispering of pines and the ghostly cries of loons. A couple of times, however, a bothersome fly-person came buzzing over in his Cessna, reminding us that civilization is near.
Mary and I set out one day to explore and ended up visiting seven lakes, each with it’s own unique personality. Fall seemed late. Many trees were still green, while others had already completely lost their leaves. Still others were decked out with brilliant color. After a long day of paddling and portaging, I was ready for the nylon Hilton.
The attraction of wilderness camping has a lot to do with quiet evenings, but also those cool still misty mornings, when you crawl out of that warm sleeping bag at dawn and gaze across the lake’s mirror surface. The quiet is a palpable presence. Drop a coffee bag in a cup of steaming hot water as a loon’s quavering cry echoes from the distant shore. It just doesn’t get any better. Naturalist, Charles Darwin, upon visiting a wilderness in Brazil, wrote: “It is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.” I could definitely relate to Darwin.
There’s something about a Wilderness. It has a gravitational attraction that draws you. Although we live in a subdued landscape, we come from a long line of wilderness dwellers. A true wilderness experience touches something deep within us. It stirs ancient connections to the natural world. This sense of wonder is basic to what we call spiritual.
One of our most memorable wilderness canoe camping trips also ended in a pouring rain, when our college student kids were tykes. Mary held (toddler) Chris in the center of the canoe under an umbrella. Sarah paddled in the bow as a steady rain dappled the crystal clear, green tinted water. I’ll never forget the beauty and serenity of drenched and dripping hemlock and pine as we drifted by in silence.
Wilderness imparts a sense of humility. We don’t adapt this place to meet our perceived Ellen needs. Rather we adapt to ever changing conditions. Here we are not in “dominion,” but rather are visitors temporarily sharing the space with other species.
What we call wilderness is simply nature. It is protected and maintained in a state unspoiled by human impacts. Canoe travel in wilderness is a ‘recreational’ experience literally, in that it re-creates an ancient mode of travel, or way of life. Conservationist, Aldo Leopold, asserts, “Recreation is valuable in proportion to the intensity of its experiences, and to the degree to which it differs from and contrasts with workaday life.” By this yardstick, motorized recreation is well down the list.
Unfortunately outdoor activities are on the decline these days, at a time when their value is just beginning to be appreciated. Author, Richard Louv, has identified what he calls, “Nature Deficit Disorder,” in his book, “Last Child In The Woods.” This results when kids spend too much time in front of computers and TV sets. He sees it as a disconnect, and a serious and growing problem which could lead to other issues, such as attention deficit disorder.
Be a good example. Take the time to walk outdoors. Limit the time kids can spend in front of TV or computer screens. Instead of amusement parks, visit national, state, and local parks and natural areas. It is crucial that we get from virtual reality back to real reality. Nowhere is it more “real” than in a wilderness. But don’t just take my word for it. Here are just a few heart-felt reactions to the benefits of a wilderness experience:
“We deeply need the humility to know ourselves as dependent members of a great community of life, and this can indeed be one of the spiritual benefits of a wilderness experience.”Howard Zahnhiser, Author, Sigurd Olson asserts, “Wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium.”
Ellen Burns Sherman wrote, “The more civilized man becomes, the more he needs and craves a great background of forest wildness, to which he may return like a contrite prodigal from the husks of an artificial life.”
According to Wallace Stegner, “Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed;…We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.”
Naturalist John Muir states, “Wilderness is a necessity … They will see what I meant in time. There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls. Food and drink is not all. There is the spiritual. In some it is only a germ, of course, but the germ will grow.”
Finally, President Lyndon B. Johnson offers a contrast to our current administration: “If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.”