New relationships with wilderness

I grew up in urban China, and to me wilderness was an enchanting yet elusive concept. Although I traveled extensively in China to remote locations, studied leisure and recreation management at Pennsylvania State University at the doctoral level, and taught recreation management at the University of Montana, backcountry camping is simply not a common practice among Chinese people and was not part of my relationship with nature. As a result, I did not know what to expect before my first wilderness trip in 2007. I recently visited the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in the north woods of Minnesota. This five-day wilderness canoe trip was my first time camping and cooking outside, my first time canoeing, my first time fishing, and my first time seeing many of the wildlife species I encountered.