What is real wilderness?

[alexboyprin]

How far would you need to be in the forest to consider yourself "far from civilization"?
Me, i would say about 100 km away from the nearest road,clearcut,seismic line,mine,airport etc with no access except by foot.
Are there there still places like that in BC? Looking at Google earth, i cannot seem to find them.

I welcome your comments.
alexboy

[Deaddog]

not sure if you mean 100 km as the crow fly's but any place out of dease lake east and the tuchodi/muskwa area is definetly wilderness....I suggest those that want that experience go to those areas and try it....that said....more than a day's hike away from a road is pretty much wilderness for me.. DD

[elkeater]

the granby park north of grnd forks is a grizzley bear reserve and it has no roads or clear cuts that i can see on google earth. im going to check it out this summer

[Hank Hunter]

:-D Downtown eastside :icon_frow

[Foxton Gundogs]

Far? I figure about 2 days on horseback beyond the roads is about right.

[nolimits]

I am not quit sure what that question has to do with hunting Lower mainland?????

[Jelvis]

Real wilderness is any where away from home up any fsr into the bush, but it's ok to have a truck and camper to live in with a lap top and a phone when not on the ridges.

[pappy]

Anywhere I don't see lights, campfires or hear traffic.

[peashooter]

It would take me the entire hunting season to get 100kms from any road, cutblock, or what have you.

[CanuckShooter]

Just when you think you've found true wilderness, land untouched by man...you'll look down and there will be some spent brass or an old budweiser can in the moss.......to get as close as possible to wilderness you'll have to head north...way up north.

[steel_ram]

Somewhere there is no obvious evidence of humans. No lights, no roads, no noise. Not to many places you aren't going to here some equipment working off in the distance or a quad putting away, generators blazing, music cranked or jets flying overhead, but we can pretend.

[Mr. Dean]

Me, i would say about 100 km away from the nearest road,clearcut,seismic line,mine,airport etc with no access except by foot.


After you hike your 100k, take a picture and post it here; I'd like to know what it looks like.

[demlake]

I don't think there is any wilderness, as you're looking for.

The helicopter means you can get most anywhere in the province in a few hours.

That said, I've been dropped off by a helicopter in the middle of winter a couple times, and it felt like the wilderness, even if I was only a few kilometres from the nearest plowed road.

That niggling feeling that if it doesn't come back, you're going to be dealing with something you haven't had to deal with before.

[hellojello74]

dont forget just about every square inch of this province has guiding territories or traplines and so on, I thought about it for a while and have been up north quite a bit, nothing like thinking your all alone only to find a cabin or such, no roads but airstrips and the such.
and a 100k is an awfully long ways to be away from the nearest "neighbor/help" in an emergency

[alexboyprin]

...yes...that's my point. it kind of a sinking feeling to walk very far in the forest just to find out many other people have been there before. i wonder if there is such a thing as complete wilderness place left in canada? I mean; on tv, like national geographic programs there always make canada appear wild but, from what i can see on google earth, every places have been altered,logged,surveyed etc. once, i was 20 km in the forest in my truck with a friend and he said: "we are far from civilization". I did not feel the same because, a man can cover 20 kms by walking i only 5 hours or so. At 5 hours away "from civilization" i am not scare of being lost at all!

[Bow Walker]

Some years ago I was up in the back of an active logging area on the Northern part of the Island. We based out hunting from the logging camp. Our buddy took us out to where the surveyors were stringing lines for new roads. We parked the truck and hiked in to the end of the surveyor's lines. Then we hike further in for another couple of hours.

We ended up in some country that it was very likely that no one had seen for hundreds of years - if ever. First-growth timber, very little under growth and totally beautiful.

Mr. Dean - it looked much like any other valley - just no garbage left behind by a-holes.

[dana]

Heck, I just happen to live near one of the biggest Wilderness Areas in the southern end of the province known as Wells Gray Provincial Park. Very very little development in a vast wilderness. Just happens that Wells Gray butts up to Cariboo Mountains Provincial Park to make it an absolutely huge area, all of which you would call WILDERNESS. Numerous areas like this in BC. You need to get a map and start exploring.

[hellojello74]

I was thinking about this last night, there are lots of places that may have seen people but there are lots of places where one can go and truly feel alone, and know that it if something happens it is by only my own efforts that I would survive. So ya there are defiantly places to go where you will most likely not see a single soul, especially if you don't go during hunting season. That's when most of the back country is accessed in my opinion

[Paulyman]

What most don't realise is that there are places like that in the lower mainland places you go like the lake I hiked into last summer and was probably the only person to spend any time there last year.

[The Hermit]

I always get that wilderness feeling paddling a quiet river or lake in remote areas, and when up in the alpine. It doesn't matter in the least to me that others have been there before me as long as it inspires me then I appreciate this awesome (and I mean that in the true meaning of the word - to be held in awe) Country. Standing lakeside 20 minutes outside of Yellowknife, a top a mountain in the Rockies... I'm a big picture guy, love scenery.

[835]

I . It doesn't matter in the least to me that others have been there before me as long as it inspires me then I appreciate this awesome .


Yep me too. Wilderness starts when i get somewhere i can hunt or fish. Who cares if someone has been there. If you spend too much time thinking like you are you may spoil the time you have in the forrest wherever it may be.

When you look out over something some where and say to your self "OMG thats cool" you are in the wilderness.

[Walksalot]

Real wilderness is any piece of real estate off the beaten path. Once you loose sight of a cut block or road you are in wilderness, after that it is simply ones own comfort zone as to how far they go into the wilderness. Realistically the farther one goes into the wilderness in a hunting situation the further the pack out. I suspect any animal shot 100 kilometers from a road would be classed as a long pack out, especially if it took a person several trips to get the whole animal out.

[Movingdirt]

I have great success hunting on or near highways, roads and well travelled rivers in B.C. It's wilderness to me. Most game I ever see is close to civilization and low elevation river valleys where the food is plentiful.

[budismyhorse]

some pretty darn good responses here already.......

In my opinion, real wilderness is more of a state of mind or an individual comfort zone. Some hunters, and there are lots of them, won't venture off the road because deep down that road ties them to civilization. To them, at the furthest point they can drive and then walk a km after that.......is real wilderness. ....to each his own.

Look at the RV Army that heads to the kootenays each year........as soon as the tires hit a dirt road.....they are out of their element and if you asked them, most would say they are in the wilderness.

For me, I just need to feel out there and ALONE. It could be a 10 km or float plane lake 75km from the nearest road and as long as no one else is around, it feels right. After a week or two in the bush when you see that first person or camp on the way back to the truck, and that "feeling" sort of washes out of you.......the time spent up until that moment was in real wilderness......IMHO.

I think the OP doesn't really have much experience in the bush, but when he steps away from google earth and explores a few places (and his own limits) he'll "get it". ;)

[Bow Walker]

some pretty darn good responses here already.......

In my opinion, real wilderness is more of a state of mind........
Yup. I've been in a "wildrness state of mind" while hiking with my two dogs up in the Sooke Potholes Park - off the Goose Trail.

Lots of people up there, but if you can get away, off the trail and into some quiet areas......well, then you're in a wilderness state of mind.

Peaceful, quiet, and re-energizing.

[troutseeker]

Real wilderness... I dated her for 18 months in Comox a long time ago, should have married that girl...

[SimilkameenSlayer]

somewhere man has not built/constructed/touched, for as far as the eye can see all around, from a mountain top.

[pg83]

You will be hard pressed to find an area untouched by man anywhere on this planet. Canada is way ahead of most countries with this, but even here it is difficult. I have been lucky enough to travel extensively in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut and can honestly say I have been places where I was hundreds of kilometers from any form of road. I think you will be spending an awful long time on google earth looking for such a place in British Columbia, but that does not mean there are not amazing wilderness retreats throughout our province. Like many others have stated already, get a few kilometers off of a road and you are in real wilderness. British Columbia is a very special place and the more I have traveled throughout this planet, the more I realize it.

[dana]

Again, using Wells Gray Provincial Park and Cariboo Mountains Provincial Park as an example, that is 760,000 ha's of WILDERNESS. To put it in terms you might understand, 760 square kms. How long do ya think it would take ya to hike that???? And this in the south central part of the province, an area you'd think would have been developed by now. And like I said already, there are tons of areas just like this all over this province. Get off the computer and get out and explore a little.

[blackbart]

I've been lucky enough to lay boot tracks in many remote locations. To me a real sign of wilderness is when the critters you are looking for look at you in a confused way - as if to signal that they have not seen a human before. You just don't get this kind of reaction when they are used to running into people.

Those that have experienced this animal behaviour will know what I am talking about.

[Darksith]

760,000 ha's of WILDERNESS. To put it in terms you might understand, 760 square kms.
7600kms actually, so a chunk of land roughly 87kms x 87kms

[littleheelers]

I've been lucky enough to lay boot tracks in many remote locations. To me a real sign of wilderness is when the critters you are looking for look at you in a confused way - as if to signal that they have not seen a human before. You just don't get this kind of reaction when they are used to running into people.

Those that have experienced this animal behaviour will know what I am talking about.

This.

I get really cranky if I don't find these spots.

[dana]

7600kms actually, so a chunk of land roughly 87kms x 87kms
Sorry, forgot a zero. While 87 kms x 87 kms on a map might not seem like much, putting yourself on the ground is totally different. Maps are flat. Mountains ain't. Maps are horizontal distance not slope distance. Plunk yourself down in the middel of that 760000 ha's and you will feel very very small. While a road on a map might only be 50 kms from ya, climbing up and down that slope distance between you and that road will equate to a hell of a lot further than 50 kms. ;) This thread reminds me of that old couple from BC that got lost in NV. GPS told the guy the nearest town was closer than walking back the way he came. It didn't tell him he had to climb up over a mountain in the dead of winter. If you think you have to be 100 kms at any dirrection from any human development to really experience wilderness, you haven't lived life.

[moose2]

To me its all about location if I climb a mountain for five hours and sit down to have my lunch chances are because of the height I will be looking back at the road I left. Then I turn 180 degrees and all I see now are mountains as far as I can see , and hopefully a band of rams. To me this is wilderness even if I know the hiway or road may only be 10 km away or even less. Unless its the new world record I wouldn,t want to carry a ram 100km just to feel i was in the wildness.
Mike

[M.Dean]

Real wildness to me is trying to find the Freeway on a Friday afternoon when you get out of class in Burnaby! It's 4;00pm, every person on earth knows your scared shitless, your trying to merge onto some road thats got traffic backed up for 35 miles,and there going 110 K's a hour, and you came to a stop!!! Sweat is running into your eyes, your hands are soaked and trembling on the steering wheel, and the 500 cars behind you are honking and screaming at you like your a leper!!! You want to put the car in park and run!!! But, what do you do??? You use the 3 second rule down there, you close your eyes, count to 3 and hit the gas!!! Breaks are squealing, you smell burnt rubber, and there's more smoke drifting from under neath the line of cars, reminds you of the time you burnt the barn down!!! You did it!!! Your in traffic now, you just another one of the half a million guys trying to get home, when suddenly you see a road sign up a head, it say's " Ferry Terminal 10 K's a head"!!! It hits you like a 220 grn solid point hitting a White Tail Doe, your going the wrong F***'ing Way!!! Don't laugh, I did just that!!!

[Bow Walker]

Real wilderness is a state of mind. It could be right in Stanley Park or it could be up on Grouse Mtn. It's a state of mind.

Go somewhere quiet and close your eyes. Now you're in the Real Wilderness.

[NaStY]

Wilderness for me is when Ive walked for a couple hrs in the woods with no one around. Being able to just sit there and breath clean air and hear nothing but whats going on in the woods.


The best times are when I can do that with my kids.....

[Jelvis]

Wilderness means any where you are out in the woods with wild animals around the area in good numbers. If it's getting dark and your in the bush, your in the wilds.
Now you got a minor problem. It's getting dark I'm in the bush and the animals are coming out to play.
How wild can it get in that scenario? Wild night in the wilds just a few k from a small town near you. lol.
Jel .. If there are wild animals creeping around not far away .. your in the wilds silly ..

[gibblewabble]

I've been lucky enough to lay boot tracks in many remote locations. To me a real sign of wilderness is when the critters you are looking for look at you in a confused way - as if to signal that they have not seen a human before. You just don't get this kind of reaction when they are used to running into people.

Those that have experienced this animal behaviour will know what I am talking about.

I have seen that look before and agree that it would be a good measure of being in wilderness.

[Walksalot]

You may think you are in an wilderness area until you find a mountain bike trail. Some of these trails are built by energetic persons.

[demlake]

Less and less wilderness every day.

They're shutting down the Zoo pub in Fort St. James.

[elkdom]

REAL wilderness is where you wipe your ARSE with a big handful of thick GREEN MOSS,,,

instead of using some of a roll of the toilet paper you carry in your car,,,,,,,,:twisted:,

[Iron Glove]

Real wilderness is a state of mind. It could be right in Stanley Park or it could be up on Grouse Mtn. It's a state of mind.

Go somewhere quiet and close your eyes. Now you're in the Real Wilderness.

Well said.
Wilderness is all relative. After a day at work downtown, a walk up the Lynn might be wilderness. After a week at the cabin, wilderness is a whole different thing.

[HarryToolips]

^^^^dunno about that....if you hike in some provincial parks or old growth forests, alpine/sub alpine etc that are rarely touched by man, one can find wilderness, as in it's wild, it's barely effected by modern day mankind...I wouldn't say hunting or fishing counts as affecting said wilderness, because hunting and fishing is what mankind has done our whole existence...if your in the bush, and far enough away from a truck that you'd be in trouble if something happened, I'd say your in wilderness..