Voices From The Wilderness

Annie Dillard

“I am a frayed and nibbled

 survivor in a fallen world, 

and I am getting along...

Tinker Creek, Virginia

...I am aging and eaten and have done

 my share of eating too.

 I am not washed and beautiful,

 in control of a shining world

 in which everything fits,

 but instead am wondering awed

 about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, 

whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, 

whose bloodied and scarred creatures 

are my dearest companions, 

and whose beauty bats and shines

 not in its imperfections

 but overwhelmingly in spite of them...” 

-Annie Dillard

 Walden Pond

Concord, Massachusetts

“Be yourself- 

not your idea of what

 you think somebody else's idea 

of yourself should be."

Henry David Thoreau

1817-1862

“What lies behind us 

and what lies ahead of us

 are tiny matters 

compared to what lives within us.” 

Henry David Thoreau 

Eleanor Pruitt Steward

1876-1933

 “To me, homesteading is the solution

 to all of poverty's problems,

 but I realize that temperament

 has much to do with success 

in any undertaking,

 and persons afraid of coyotes

 and work and loneliness

 had better let ranching alone.

 At the same time,

 any woman who

 can stand her own company,

 can see the beauty of a sunset,

 loves growing things

 and is willing to put in

 as much time at careful labor

 as she does over the washtub, 

will certainly succeed;

 will have independence,

 plenty to eat all the time,

 and a home of her own in the end.” 

-Eleanor Pruitt Steward 

 A Herd Of Wild Horses

Sweetwater County, Wyoming 

"Fried potatoes, onions and fish. 

You can't beat that!"

-Dick Proenneke

Alone In The Wilderness

Richard Proenneke

1916-2003

  Richard L. Proenneke National Historic Site

Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Alaska

“If I'd been afraid

  I never would have started out

 in the first place." 

-Emma Gatewood

Grandma Emma Gatewood

1887-1973

At age 67, she was the first woman to hike the 2,168 mile

Appalachian Trail, solo, from Georgia to Maine, in 1955.