What is Wilderness?

            To me, wilderness is both a place and a state of mind.  I think of wild places I’ve visited – in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and in Utah’s Bryce Canyon – and I get a feeling of peacefulness and spaciousness.  I think in earlier times in America wilderness also represented opportunity, a blank slate, a chance to make a new start in a new place.

            The root word “wild” connotes to me an untamed spirit of nature unconfined by human technology and restrictions.  It also makes me think of innocence, pristine and uncorrupted.  In addition, there’s a connotation of unpredictability, and possibly danger (e.g., a wild animal).

            I believe wilderness areas are extremely valuable, in fact priceless!  These lands, and the plants and animals who live there, need to be protected and preserved for their own sake, as well as for future generations of human beings.  It’s important to do this for both ecological and spiritual reasons (and I believe that science and faith are not mutually exclusive).

            I feel that Sylvy, the main character in A White Heron, definitely did the right thing in keeping the location of the heron’s nest a secret.  When she was tempted to reveal it to the ornithologist I kept thinking, “No!  Don’t do it!  Don’t do it!”  It would have been a betrayal of the wild animals’ trust in Sylvy, a betrayal of the wild woods that she had grown to love and, it seems to me, a betrayal of her own soul.