Meet the Rest of the World by Camping

By Earl Hunsinger

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." So wrote Henry David Thoreau to describe his experience living on the shore of Walden Pond, just south of Concord Massachusetts. Even then, in the 1840s, the idea of living as simply as possible was considered a little unusual. Thoreau himself regarded the two years he spent in the Concord woods as an experiment. How much more complicated have our lives become over the last 160 years? How much more have we separated ourselves from Nature?

Most of us today live in an artificial world. We spend our lives indoors, behind man made walls. No matter how aesthetically pleasing these may be, they are artificial, limiting our experience. To a city dweller, seeing a live cow or chicken may be as novel an experience as seeing a polar bear or wildebeest. Even his experience with trees and plants may be confined to walking down a well maintained tree lined street or strolling through a carefully planned city park.

While country dwellers may have more exposure to flora and fauna, unless they happen to be a farmer, their daily life is probably a small town reflection of the big city. We view nature through the window of our home or office, or out the window of our car on the way to work or the store. Even children have become more insulated from the natural world. In years past, children, at least those in rural areas, knew every rock and tree within a mile of their house. They were amateur scientists, studying everything from how long it took ants to find a piece of candy left in the dirt to which berries were good to eat and which were poisonous. Now, thanks to cable TV, the internet, and video games, they too live their lives indoors.

There are over 6 billion people on the earth. Yet, as reported in Science Daily some scientists estimate that there may be as many as 100 million different species of other living creatures, including insects, fish, birds, and animals. It’s ironic then that a man can consider himself worldly wise while knowing very little about the other creatures inhabiting the world, some of which may be as close as his backyard or the empty lot across the street.

It’s no wonder that species are going extinct at an alarming rate today. It’s not just that people don’t care; they don’t have enough experience to care. When you live your life indoors, what’s happening in the woods or water that you see flying by the side of the highway on your way to work simply doesn’t seem to have any relevance.

Of course, few today have the courage or circumstances to imitate Thoreau and leave it all behind for a life in the woods. Fewer still have the desire to do so. Still, we might benefit from spending a few days there. I don’t just mean benefit in an environmentally conscious way. That wouldn’t hurt. After all, like it or not, without other living things, human life would be impossible. Many though have found that spending a few hours hiking in the woods, or spending a few days camping in the woods, benefits them on a more personal level.

The American Hiking Society has information on the health benefits of hiking. These include both physical and mental benefits. While the health benefits of camping may be harder to quantify, they are similar to the express purpose of any vacation. If you want to unwind, relax, and clear your mind of the hundred sources of stress that assault you in the hectic life you have created for yourself, go camping.

Camping, at least tent camping in the woods, is life at its simplest. Your only worries are eating, sleeping, staying warm and dry, etc. With a little preparation and training, doing these things is relatively simple. Many campers have found that stripping life down to such essentials makes such simple everyday things more enjoyable. Living in the natural world rather than apart from it, even for a short time, seems to heighten the senses. The crystal clear water of a mountain stream seems to sparkle more in the sunshine. Its cold water seems more refreshing. Food seems to taste better when cooked over a campfire and eaten under a canopy of leaves. You find yourself waking with the sun, yet feeling refreshed and ready to face a new day.

Camping also allows you to meet the rest of the world, or perhaps to become reacquainted with some old friends from your childhood. You might see an eagle, feeding its young by snatching fish from a lake. Or a crayfish, going about its business in a rocky streambed. You might see a mother deer and its fawn foraging for food, or a beaver busily building a dam. The night air might be disturbed by the hoot of an owl, or the sound of a raccoon coming into your camp looking for food. As you meet these fellow citizens of our planet and observe how they live their lives, your heart rate will probably slow and you will probably find yourself becoming more and more relaxed.

So then, why not do as Thoreau did? Go to the woods. By walking through the woods on a hike, or camping in the woods, perhaps you too can learn what life in the woods has to teach.