The Wilderness Within Reach

To experience the wilderness is to get off the grid and away from the creature comforts, noise, and distractions of civilization. To experience the wilderness is to surrender your calendar, your agenda, and your desire for order and control to a higher power. It compels us to experience the ancient rhythms of the earth and all its creatures.

Photo by Dennis Donohue

For some of us, experiencing the wilderness is transcendent—we are changed by it; we no longer care as much about ourselves, our stuff, or our sphere of influence. We crave to return to untamed places and reconnect to these limitless sources of power and tranquility. I have experienced this feeling in some of the most unlikely places, and I never know if a walk in unfamiliar woods might lead to one of these wilderness experiences.

It was on a walk along the shores of Mille Lacs that I first realized just how wild that lake is. I was walking on the beach on the northern shore near Redding Creek with my dog, my son, and my son’s godfather when I realized that the beach is as it was a millennium ago. The wooded shoreline stretched ahead of me as far as my eye could see, unbroken by dock, yard, or cabin. To one side, the wind whispered through the woods, punctuated by the tinkling notes of a pair of purple martins. To the other side, the waves lapped at the sand, complemented by the mournful yodel of a solitary loon. The light fog shielded my senses from the shadows of civilization and shrouded the four of us in mystery. Here and there lay a piece of driftwood, a jawbone of a walleye, or the feathers of a loon—flotsam and jetsam on the shores of an ancient sea.