Perspectives on Wilderness: Re-examining the Value of Extended Wilderness Experiences

This paper presents results from the final phase of a ten-year research program dealing with the dynamics and the impacts of wilderness experiences. Although these data are from participants in shorter trips than those reported on previously, questionnaire data indicate that responses to the different trips were similar, and that responses from participants of different ages and sexes were also similar. Theoretical issues which emerged from earlier analyses of participants' journals are also re-examined in light of the current data. These earlier results had suggested that an individual's growing perceptual understanding of the surrounding wilderness environment was connected to a wide range of personal insights as well as other psychological benefits. Results from the current data concur with this finding. Furthermore, contrary to alternative hypotheses, feelings of control over the environment were not evident either in the original data or in the current participants' journals. These data suggest that an alternative stance, described as feeling 'at one with' or 'part o f the environment, is more frequent and is generalized to nonwilderness surroundings. Other categories of individual response which complement this non-dominant environmental orientation are also documented in the current data.