34 FOREST OUTINGS 



mountain climbing as a sport, nature study, and winter sports; and last of 

 all, enjoyment of the wilderness — from which America had so recently been 

 wrought. 



Today, Americans in general exhibit a restless interest in forest hunting, 

 fishing, camping, picnicking, mountain climbing, hiking, nonprofessional 

 study of wildlife and geology, nonprofessional collecting, riding, swimming, 

 boating, exploring the wilderness, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and 

 auto touring. 



The range of the list suggests that no one of these diversions is in any 

 real sense in competition with the other. The dyed-in-the-wool deep-sea 

 fisherman may well have a lofty scorn for those anglers whose delight is to 

 beguile 10-inch trout from a willow-shaded brook. The devotee of ocean 

 swimming quite possibly regards the wilderness lover as mildly, if harm- 

 lessly, insane. The confirmed deer hunter, accustomed to arduous work in 

 following his favorite sport, may recognize with broad charity but little 

 interest that the, to him, passive and purposeless sport of boating does have 

 an appeal to many. 



Yet all these forms of recreation, when practiced in the forest, have 

 common characteristics. Like the forest, they are in sharp outward contrast 

 to the usual environments of life — as different from them as the electric 

 stove in the steam-heated city apartment is from the open campfire at the 

 edge of the lake. They have the inner aspect of naturalness, freshness, sim- 

 plicity, cleanliness, and a more or less primitive quality, in equally sharp 

 contrast to the artificiality, monotony, elaborateness, and sophistication of 

 the city. 



All these things belong to the forest. They are in tone with it and insepa- 

 rable from it. They remove man from the dominance of artificial patterns 

 and schedules and bring relaxation and leisure. There he need encounter 

 no time clocks to punch, no trains to catch, no jostling, no elbowing, no 

 narrow walls and fetid air, no split-second dashing from one pressure task 

 to the next. Forest outings offer full play for a while to any choice of occu- 

 pation. Humans may seek adventure in their own way and on their own 

 terms — hunt, shin up a mountain, or loaf — and thereby capture a sense of 

 freedom personally. They are removed from the necessity to meet business 



