What Stalks the Wilderness?
Wild Places and Spooky Sightings
A guest article by Jon of Knights of Dissent.
There are few remaining primary forests in Western Europe. In fact, nearly all woodlands on the European continent (outside of Russia) have been cultivated, settled, and manipulated to suit human needs. Ecologists refer to these cultivated woodlands as secondary forests. Some secondary forests are intentionally cultivated game preserves, such as Sherwood Forest in England. Primary forests, on the other hand, emerge through natural processes. Seeds carried by wind settle and grow trees, which in turn creates a wind barrier, allowing for more seeds to accumulate and grow. The ecosystem of primary forests is not influenced by human activity. These forests are primeval and wild.
The United States has lost a substantial portion of its primary forest. However, approximately 25.7 percent of American forest cover (257 million acres) was still classified as primary as of 2005. Compare this to the mere 3.5 million acres remaining in Europe.
Spooks Innawoods
Ecological figures aside, American forests feel different. European tourists often remark that the forests in America have an antediluvian eeriness about them. The wildness of American forests creates a distinct sense of danger and mystery. An immigrant from India on Twitter recently commented that the forests in North America were likely demonic, as they had not been subject to Christian exorcism as European forests had.
The American forest is a pagan and primordial creature. It is not to be trifled with. The creatures found in American wilderness can be dangerous and unpredictable, requiring immense swaths of hunting and foraging ground in order to prosper.
This menacing enigma of American forests has captured the public imagination. Author and former police officer David Paulides has made a career highlighting the many missing persons cases associated with the National Park system.
The Spiritual Importance of Wild Places
But what is my point in saying this? American forests are certainly beautiful and can be dangerous if one is unprepared. The disappearances, strange sightings, general sibylline aura of the woods probably have perfectly mundane explanations. However, this rationalization misses the point. The very mystery and felt danger of the woods is part of the American psyche.
This was recently illustrated to me in a conversation with a half-blood Crow Indian. He told me solemnly, and as a matter of fact, about an entity known as “The Deer Woman.” This spirit, he said, would seduce and feed on unwary men who ventured too far into the forest alone. He claimed to have heard The Deer Woman several times as a young man. Once, it mimicked a woman in distress, calling for help. Another time, in a secluded patch of Montana forest more than fifty miles from the nearest town, he heard it mimic a crying baby, luring him further into the dense pine woods.
The existence of The Deer Woman and countless other spirits of the wilderness was perfectly normal to this Crow. He did not see his experiences as something strange, but an integral part of life. All cultures have some sort of superstition attached to nature, but what sets America apart is that our wild places have not been tamed. Our nature spirits have not been banished. Our Pan is not yet dead. Even committed atheist Jack London could not help but notice it. His materialist presuppositions forced him to deanthropocentrise the acute spiritual feeling by deflecting it onto noble dogs, but it is clear throughout his writing.
It may be this same sense of spiritual wildness that has redirected the efforts of the political left away from the conservation of wilderness towards the more palatable causes of carbon control and climate justice. The American forest is ancient, unforgiving — reactionary, perhaps? The forest is the last refuge of their enemies. Those who are willing to flee to the woods, willing to be embraced by the twisting, cold hands of the forest — they are a danger to be feared above all.
So, what stalks the wilderness? What sort of cryptic entities prowl amongst the pines? What sort of thaumaturgy guards the undiscovered sepulchers of our Indian forebears? Perhaps it is better to ask how much of the wilderness lives in your own soul, biding its time…
 | A guest post by
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It is not that Europe's remaining forests are tame, but rather that they are not bestial in comparison. The American wilds demand a hardiness of body and fortitude of spirit whether your one or one hundred miles deep. The remaining European forests, due to the much longer amount of recorded history of man living beside and within them, have a degree of familiarity that makes them feel less antagonistic and more whimsical.
Or a different way - Europe has strong-armed the forest into coexistence, leaving but a small stronghold of mystic wildland. America's farmers, cowboys and mountain men have left the wilds unblemished, preferring to live as a defiant, unbowed neighbor.
As a 10th generation American who has spent much time in Western and Central Europe, I both agree and disagree with your premise. I've backpacked in the National Parks in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and the great national parks here in the South like the Great Smoky Mountains (the latter being much closer to the "wilderness" of Western Europe" than the truly untamed wilds of the Mountain West). I've also travelled through and spent time backpacking in Sumava National Forest in the Czech Republic, Snowdonia in Wales, and the Peaks District in the Old World.
I found the forests of Europe to have a particular enchanting nature that seemed absent in most of the wilds of North America. Precisely because they have been, in large part, inhabited, cultivated, and shaped by man. Men have lived, died, killed, fought, and been buried in most of the forests in Western/Central Europe. All of the tiny footpaths that connect sleepy little villages to one another that run through the forests make me call to mind Tolkien or Beatrix Potter or even Milne. They seem to be more "alive" in that way. It's hard to find said footpaths in Central Europe that aren't littered with wayside shrines devoted to Our Lord Jesus Christ or one of His saints. The humanity, and the prescience of Christianity therein, makes them a comforting place as you alluded to—rather than one of hostility—though they are almost always "spooky" in the dickensian sense of the term.
Most of the truly remote NA forests I've spent time are as you've described here. They've never felt to me as familiar places of comfort (the forests of the Appalachian highlands being an exception for me), but an alien realm full of hostility and pain. This is something I miss about the forests of Europe, as tame as they may be in the 21st century. The wilds of Russia may be a bit of both.