On Wilderness: Voices from Maine

Wilderness is central to the image of Maine most of us carry in our minds. And our history, from the time of the earliest native peoples to the present, is rooted in it. This vast forestland with its intricate network of remote lakes and streams is still a legendary place for maine people, who remain captivated by its mystique, its seeming timelessness, and the resourcefulness needed to survive in it?despite the fact that little of our ancestral wilderness is left; for today?s reality is a cut-over, industrial forest containing only pockets of the virgin stands of timber that so excited the lumber barons of old.More than forty writers, poets, artists, and photographers in this extraordinary collection raise their voices for wilderness. They bear witness to the central role it plays in Maine, its importance to our understanding of nature, to our sense of who we are in the world, to our very souls, if you will. And some of them devote some practical thinking to how we might recover and nurture wilderness in the future.At this time of major changes in land ownership in the north woods and of development pressures and sprawl threatening the rural landscape of southern and central Maine, these voices for wilderness?Phyllis Austin, Chris Ayers, Kate Barnes, Franklin Burroughs, Dean Bennett, Margaret Campbell, Robert M. Chute, John Cole, Alexandra S.B. Conover, Garrett Conover, Bob Cummings, Bill Curtsinger, Charles FitzGerald, Frank Graham, Jr., Bernd Henreich, J. Thomas R. Higgins, Malcolm L. Hunter, Jr., Christopher Huntington, Lloyd C. Irland, Robert Kimber, Mitch Lansky, Gary Lawless, Jon Lund, Jon Luoma, Bunny McBride, John McKeith, Scott Perry, Marguerite Robichaux, Neil Rolde, Jym St. Pierre, Robert Shetterly, Susan Hand Shetterly, Greg Shute, Bill SIlliker, Jr., Jerry Stelmok, Karin Tilberg, Diana D. Tyler, Neil Welliver, and Kent W. Wommack?could not be more relevant.