When I first landed on the West Coast of the United States in 2007, I was most impressed not by the world-class San Diego Zoo, or by the controversy over Dolphin Bay, but by la Jolla's seashore and seeing dolphins' dorsal fins haunting the waves. Living in the city for so long, I almost forgot that wild animals do not exist only in documentaries, or are kept in captivity in zoos and aquariums, but coexist with us in the same time and space, in the mountains, in the forest, in the sea. At this time, the North American continent has long been unable to see the passenger pigeons that cover the sky, nor can we see the galloping American bison herd encountered by the little plum in "The Soul Returner", but when seeing a group of dolphins in the wild, the touch felt, and the connection between man and other life and nature, may be common. This is probably the "Aha!" that I decided to pursue a conservation role in a few years later. "One of moments.
In the past two years, I have driven some places in the United States, except for the national parks that are often on the to-do-list (far from the goal of walking through 59 national parks...). There are also some relatively unpopular, broadly defined "wildernesses." Before graduating from undergraduate, I tried to travel all the provinces of China (but in the end I was still missing Guizhou, Macau and Taiwan...). It's more like a sense of accomplishment, and now it's relatively more purposeful, like going to The Apostle Islands at minus 20 degrees to see the ice caves, going to Outer Banks in North Carolina to see wild horses, going to Florida's Crystal River to snorkel with West Indian manatees, etc., or going to Alabama to find endangered American cranes.
Why go to the wilderness? In fact, it is a very simple private play and enjoyment. But since you are engaged in related work, you can also list something else -
In 1964, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed the famous Conservation of the Wilderness Act to give future generations a "glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning." The bill defines wilderness as "an area where the land and its communities of life are free from human interference," a definition that is certainly limited. Man is part of the dynamic biosphere, and from a historical perspective, even the American West and Alaska more than 50 years ago did not have a fully pristine, uninhabited, "uninhibited" virgin land, let alone in today's Anthropocene.
There has been a lot of discussion about wilderness, a very American word; how wilderness is more appropriately translated, how to define "wilderness", and how to discuss the relationship between humans and nature can also be discussed at length. But from a hobbyist's and half-professional point of view, I'm absolutely convinced that wilderness in a broad sense is more important now than ever. As a relative concept, whether it is seen as a spiritual image and belonging, or as a wildness area of the nature of an actual protected area, the existence of the wilderness shows that we recognize that the world is still beyond our understanding and that its value is beyond our exploitation. More than a hundred years ago, Thoreau said that "in wildness is the preservation of the world," which Leopold changed decades later to "The salvation of the world in the wild."
（In wildness is the salvation of the world）。
That's probably what it means.
But at the end of the day, the most immediate reason for preferring to go to wilderness in North America is that they're still there. Through images and narratives, you can understand and love nature and all living things in it, but to truly experience the connection between man and nature, the power of approaching the wilderness (rather than walking in) is irreplaceable.
I don't understand anything else, so I can only put a dot map... After the estimation of the geographical location to write, I hope you like ...
Alabama, an American crane that mingles with dune cranes
Arizona, Antelope Valley
Sunset over Yosemite, California
In Florida, the awakened manatee is rewarded with a set of tumbling movements
Michigan, the autumn colors of the Upper Peninsula Porcupine Mountain
Minnesota. Starry sky on the shores of Lake Superior
New York, Niagara Falls, 19th century as a representative of the American Romantic "sublime" landscape
Blue Ridge, North Carolina, in the autumn sunset
Perseid meteor in Virginia, Sinado National Park
Wisconsin, the completely frozen Lake Superior, and the most unique ice cave on the shores of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
P.S. People often ask, how do you play outside all the time? How do you have time to go to so many places? But I really just used holidays and weekends... Also, there aren't a lot of places... The most important states I want to go to have not yet been there.
North American roadtrip route recorded by Google Earth
Plus a train trip on the California Zephyr full of surprises
All text and pictures in this column
All are provided by the point consultant Stan Kang
Remember to follow me Oh look forward to a fantastic trip once a week without leaving home
The world is so big, click to take you to see