Lots of Forests    Three-quarters. A little more than three-quarters of West Virginia's 15.4 million acres of land are forested and timberland accounts for 60 percent of the total land area in 48 of the state's 55 counties.  The state, in terms of percentage, is the third-most-forested among the 50 states.

     Eastern wilderness: the Hudson River school. The Catskill Mountains of New York were a haven for early landscape painters, including Thomas Cole. His1826 "Falls of Kaaterskill" remains a splendid example of the Hudson River school of artists. Between 1820 and 1875 they refined the vocabulary and mechanics of the relationship between humans and the wild. Art was to be contemplated and purchased.

     If wilderness could be framed in a painting, on the ground it could be enjoyed and controlled. Spirituality and pragmatic use. A duality evolved that some vistas were worthier of protection than others.

     Wilderness frontier. As the western part of colonial Virginia, what is now West Virginia was a wilderness frontier. For all Americans the idea and ideal of frontier are important and are part of the American psyche. One might call frontier an American archetype, to borrow a concept from the noted psychotherapist Carl Jung.  

     Frederick Jackson Turner is the historian best known for defining the influence of the frontier on Americans. The push westward in the 1800s, in his view, helped shape the American character. Individualism, nationalism, mobility, and egalitarianism were the traits most influenced by migration westward.

     At the end of the nineteenth century Turner proclaimed a closing of the frontier. This was more psychological closure than actual. He thought Americans would have to undergo a painful transition from a perception of America as a land of endless boundaries, to one which had limitations and boundaries.

     The idea of limits evoked the principle of protection of wilderness. Even pre-Turner conservation had emerged. In 1865 Yosemite became the first preserve removed from the public domain. In 1872 Yellowstone became the first National Park. In 1878 John Wesley Powell called for more systematic planning and conservation of natural resources. In 1891 the first Forest Reseve System was created. The Sierra Club was formed a year later.

     Congress passed the Forest Management Act in 1897, opening the forests to timber-cutting, mining, and grazing. A polarized view of public resources -- conservation versus preservation -- emerged. In 1905 the Forest Reserves were transferred to the new domain of the Forest Service.

     Wilderness ideal. Wilderness appeals to something deep within us human beings. We may describe the attraction, indeed - the need, to experience wilderness in various ways. But it's something we feel. A friend once said, "Don't give up everything wild." She was referring to the inner need rather than to nature, although the latter stimulates the former.

     There are many benefits to preserving wilderness: biological diversity, scientific value, watersheds, life support systems, historic and cultural values, spiritual and aesthetic values, refuge, recreation, education.

     Wilderness Act (1964). In time, industrialization, highways, surburbs, resource extraction, and pollution led modern wilderness pioneeers to seek strong federal protection for wilderness areas. The nation's first wilderness statute was signed by President Johnson in 1964. It protected 54 wilderness areas (9.1 million acres).

     Prohibited in these areas are: new mining claims; road building, logging, and similar commercial uses; non-emergency mechanized transport; new dams, reservoirs or power lines.

     There is eloquence in the statute's definition of wilderness: "A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor who does not remain."

     Wilderness designation can only be given or changed by an act of Congress. Thus, some degree of permanency comes with the designation.

     Eastern Wilderness Act (1975). Due to the Forest Services' narrow interpretation of "wilderness," in the ten years after enactment of theWilderness Act, no wilderness areas had received statutory protection. Correction came in 1975 and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy was a major contributor to that success.

     Wilderness areas in West Virginia. Currently we are blessed with six protected wlderness areas.

     Cranberry Wilderness (35,864 acres). Elevations range from 2,400 feet to 4,600 feet. The area contains the entire drainage of the Middle Fork of the Williams River and the North Fork of the Cranberry River. Hardwoods dominate as do black bears.

     Dolly Sods Wilderness (10,215 acres). An unusual area where the red spruce forest burned and is now known for its extensive rocky plains, upland bogs, and sweeping vistas. Hardwoods and laurel thickets are at lower elevations. At higher elevations one encounters groves of wind-stunted red spruce, heath barrens where azaleas, mountain laurels, rhododendron, and blueberries grow.

     Otter Creek Wilderness (20,000 acres). The area lies in a natural bowl between Shavers Mountain and McGowan Mountain. It is covered with second-growth forest, dense thickets of rhododendron and mountain laurel along the streams, and a variety of mosses elsewhere. Spruces are at upper levels and hardwoods at lower levels. Lots of trails.

     Laurel Fork North Wilderness (6,055 acres). Also, Laurel Fork South Wilderness (5,997 acres).  These separate areas straddle the Laurel Fork of the Cheat River. An almost continuous forest cover is dominated by hardwoods broken by grassy meadows along Laurel Fork. Heavy snows and pleasant summers.

     Mountain Lake Wilderness in the Jefferson National Forest (2,721 acres of a total of 11,035 acres).  Most of this area is in Virginia and Mountain Lake is the only natural body of water in western Virginia. The highland plateau rests squarely on the Eastern Continental Divide. There are isolated stands of virgin spruce and hemlock within a typical Appalachian hardwood forest. War Spur Overlook yields a panoramic view.

     The future. One idea is to close the gaps between presently designated wilderness areas without regard to state borders. Form a long chain of core blocks of public forest linked by means of newly dedicated wildlands not necessarily in public ownership. Expand the protected ecosystem.  
Last updated on Tuesday, September 11, 2001