Dennis McCann: In which I tell the iPod people to go take a hike

Originally published Dec. 2, 2008

If we needed any further evidence the world is going to hell in a handcart – and we don’t, of course, but it keeps on coming – check out the story in many weekend newspapers about the decline in visits to America’s national forests. (And yes, I know that makes me sound like an old fogey.)

Oh, that’s right, nobody reads newspapers anymore. (So does that.) To summarize then, top officials at the US Forest Service were quoted in the Associated Press story as saying that over the past few years visits to national forests are off 13%, which is sad enough. What’s more depressing are the reasons cited – high gas prices (at least that one is understandable), the popularity of video games and the Internet, an increasingly urban and aging population less likely to camp out, more fees for trail use, “a proliferation of noisy off-road vehicles” and the declining budget for forest recreation.

The Forest Service’s interest here is a bit self-serving, of course. By raising the issue of fewer recreation dollars they are hoping to raise support for more spending on national forests, not a bad thing by the way given how else the government spends our hard-earned dollars. But the story raised other important issues for the future: if the number of park users is declining now, what will happen to national forests in the future? In an effort to attract users will forests amend their mission? Or, as one forest researcher put it, “Is it going to be a future of hiking, or is it fancy cafes and city kinds of things? That’s what we’re trying to evaluate right now. And the information is mixed, frankly.”

Wisconsin has a stake here because of our two wonderful national forests, Chequamegon National Forest in northwestern Wisconsin and Nicolet National Forest in the northeastern corner. But the question likely applies as well to the state park system in many ways, as popular and stuffed with campers as the most popular parks are each summer weekend.

Some years ago on a circle tour of Lake Superior, my wife and I stopped in Michigan’s Tahquamenon State Park to see its iconic waterfall, and was surprised to hear a woman in the parking lot tell her waterfall-weary husband he could wait in the brew pub if he didn’t want to walk the short trail to the fall’s rim. Brew pub? Yup. It was as if Smokey the Bear had bred with the Hamm’s bear, and while I do admit to having enjoyed a tasty glass of beer after visiting the falls I would not want to see many parks citified that way.

Without going off all John Muir on you, the world needs places where city folks can go and not feel civilized. That doesn’t mean everyone should be compelled to take part in rustic camping or arduous backcountry hiking or rafting down dangerous rivers without a helmet. Leave that for the crazies, and just go take a walk in the woods. Maybe it’s better to say we all just need quiet places. In the latest issue of Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine, the publication of the state Department of Natural Resources, writer Roger Drayna told of his favorite places, not necessarily famous national parks but personal spaces – the woods beyond Pattison Falls near Superior, a certain flowage he loves or a rustic cabin in a Norway pine grove near the Michigan border. He also cited a favorite place of my own, the spot between Hurley and Ashland were the highway falls away and the first glimpse of Lake Superior’s shining Chequamegon Bay is revealed beyond the still impressive forest.

“It is one of the few places,” Drayna said, “I can sense wilderness without even raising a sweat.”
It isn’t hard to find such spots. Start with Wisconsin’s two national forests. It is a month too early for New Year’s resolutions but why not resolve here and now to get to one or both in 2009, in winter or summer. See St. Peter’s Dome in the Chequamegon National Forest near Mellen, which requires a bit of an uphill hike but rewards the effort with unparalleled views of Lake Superior. Or, for the less active, make it Morgan Falls in the same area, a 70-foot waterfall that promises to cool the hiker on a warm summer day. And those are just two possibilities out of many.

Sheesh. Wild spaces are facing competition from the Internet and video games. Here’s one more piece of advice and I’ll stop preaching. For Christmas, skip Circuit City and get your loved one a Wisconsin State Park season pass. It’s the people’s country club. Go enjoy it.

(Above, the view from St. Peter’s Dome, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources photo by Linda Parker.)