FEATURES

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.613.2153; http://www.wilderness.net/library/documents/IJWAug06_Oreskes.pdf

My first “wilderness ” experience probably beganin Central Park when as a child I would takelong walks with my father, looking at squirrels and picking mulberries—an activity that particularly hor-rified people who thought that any food product not bought in a supermarket must be inherently unsafe. My childhood imagination served as an endless wilderness landscape in which New York City slush would morph into first expeditions to Antarctica. In those days, I wasn’t informed enough to realize that make-believe expeditions involving Scott were not the best side to be on. Later I realized there was a world and a landscape out-side of city parks; that there might be places where one could hear nothing but birds and wind and water; where one could see a night sky filled with stars; places where people didn’t occupy every corner or put their mark on every creature. And, of course, as I grew up I read Thoreau and cherished the idea— without fully understanding it—that “in wildness is the preservation of the world.” In adult years, I headed north and eventually found my way to a job with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Naturally, there was a little cultural readjustment that had to take place— but, nevertheless, after a few years I was getting paid to be a wilderness ranger. Of course, it didn’t take long for the ro-mance of the title and the reality of the job to meet in a violent A Perspective on Wilderness, the Forest Service, and Taking the Long View