The elemental simplicities of wilderness travel were thrills. They represented complete freedom to make mistakes. The wilderness gave those rewards and penalties, for wise and foolish acts against which civilization has built a thousand buffers.

If the land mechanism as a whole is good then every part is good, whether we understand it or not.

For us in the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.

Land is not merely soil, it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals.

What more delightful avocation than to take a piece of land and by cautious experimentation to prove how it works. What more substantial service to conservation than to practice it on one's own land?

Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.

If we lose our wilderness, we have nothing left worth fighting for.