The Q is a place where I enjoy the illusion of wilderness.   If I can find a route where I can paddle for a few days and see nobody, then it's close enough to a wilderness for me. 

Nevertheless, I am well aware that many feet have trod the ground I walk up there...except maybe on my Memory Lane boondoggle  ...and thus my passage is eased.  There is comfort in a path because one can reasonably expect that all those who made the path eventually got to where they were going. 

Wilderness begins when one steps off the path and makes one's own way in the world.  Yet even so, eventually one hopes to rejoin a path which leads one back to what drove the desire to leave the path in the first place.  When that path is rejoined, wilderness is at an end.

Not all paths are on land and not all paths are even in the physical world.  Turns out wilderness is a rather portable concept after all, if one knows the trick of how to find it regardless of one's current physical location. 

Most of the time, I prefer the illusion of wilderness over true wilderness.  True wilderness is a dangerous place indeed, and I have responsibilities in the non-wilderness that I do not take lightly.

Snow dog that is enlightening indeed-Zen quality Me thinks that I can ponder this for awhile...Thanks and Kudos!

Even on arctic river trips you'll find active river gauges, firerings, abandoned cabins, trashed canoes, monuments built to people who died, old fishing lodges, prospector's staked claims,,,,,it all tells a history,,,doesn't ruin the experience for me,,,,take the same place in Q but visit it on the last edge of the paddling season and it's wilderness, or go solo instead of with a group.

Mother nature holds the cards, just think of Katrina. But I guess it's any place I see nature has done most of the work and is slowly reclaiming what was done by man. I don't mind finding old logging ruins and such,,,,hate the TP flowers growing on overused campsites though. Not really hung up on some utopian concept of wilderness,,,heck you can't even go to the moon without seeing footprints. Put me in the S_D state of mind,,, I can pretend for a while.

TP flowers, fishing line, bandaids, wet wipe wrapers, plastic candy wrappers, map and compass, paddle, fish hooks, tent stakes, para cord, tin foil, half burnt watermelon rind, etc, etc, etc These are just some of the things that the boy and I found on our last trip.  Stuff that torques me...but then I can see the Oaks between Swamp and Sag. and I think that it's really neat-they are there because they were planted by people the same ones that left there "graffiti" that we oogle over and books are written about. "Wilderness" is about perspective...it is interesting to hear the perspectives on this thing. I am sure that I would oogle over hunting blinds and the like in the far north...Maybe it is just the "GROSS" factor...TP flowers are gross...but there is nothing like sitting down in the appropriate place , after that morning cup, listening to the sparrows doing their northern serenade...the relief....the woods and water....just a different perspective. Pond water anyone, its filtered?

Watch for poison ivy! A friend made a terrible mistake a few years back.

Tim