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How Much Wilderness In North America?


Guest elderwine

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The amount of wilderness here on Vancouver Island,BC, is absolutely incredible. If ever something' seemed endless...it is when looking' out at the vastness of the wilderness here. Truly incredible, an sure is easy on the eyes.

Pat...

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Great thread guys. I'm also from the UK - Isle of Man to be exact, so we're talking seriously small in comparison. The vastness of the North American Wilderness is not too unlike trying to comprehend the size of the universe for me. I've flown over North America and I recall blink staring down in awe at just how sparse it is.

My question, are there likely to be sizeable areas of land, forest, mountain that haven't even been sighted by man yet?

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SSR Team

My question, are there likely to be sizeable areas of land, forest, mountain that haven't even been sighted by man yet?

Peace & love fellow UK Person..;)

I don't know about not sighted, obviously everything is mapped..

There are areas of course that are incredibly remote, even in the US ( Alaska especially ) but much more so Canada i'd say..

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Guest RedRatSnake

My question, are there likely to be sizable areas of land, forest, mountain that haven't even been sighted by man yet?

Hi

Next time you fly over the US just look for places that don't have a Dunkin' Donuts and that's were people don't live and most likely won't until there is one every 1/4 mile, hope this helps ~

Tim :lol:

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Great thread guys. I'm also from the UK - Isle of Man to be exact, so we're talking seriously small in comparison. The vastness of the North American Wilderness is not too unlike trying to comprehend the size of the universe for me. I've flown over North America and I recall blink staring down in awe at just how sparse it is.

My question, are there likely to be sizeable areas of land, forest, mountain that haven't even been sighted by man yet?

Figboot,

I can't say man hasn't stepped in all the areas, but still, it is as wild as it gets if you ask me. I think there are areas...man may have not yet stepped upon.

Pat...

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The amount of wilderness here on Vancouver Island,BC, is absolutely incredible. If ever something' seemed endless...it is when looking' out at the vastness of the wilderness here. Truly incredible, an sure is easy on the eyes.

Pat...

Pat, you live in the best place in the world in my opinion. I really envy you as having been there a few times it's a place which has everything in your 12,076 square miles (bigger than Wales and slightly smaller than Northern Ireland). Especially like the scenary between Port Alberni and Tofino - awesome... Hope to back next year..

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For our friends overseas, welcome. Yes, the continental land mass of North America is vast, and the great majority of the U.S. population lives in major metropolitan areas. That leaves seemingly endless open spaces devoted to agriculture, rangeland management for grazing, mining, and forestry in which the human population density is very low, like "Gobi Desert" low. Some of these places (a tiny amount relative to the whole) really do qualify as wilderness by any definition, e.g., they may be roadless areas, may never have been logged, etc.

It's important to realize, however, that most of that "empty" land one sees when flying over the US has a rather intense history of land use and exploration. Especially east of the Mississippi River, what looks like (and is) endless tracts of forest land is in most places 2nd or even 3rd growth from repeated cycles of logging and clearing for agriculture. Pennsylvania, for example, is somewhere between 66 and 70% forested today. It supports one of the healthiest populations of black bears and a superabundance of white-tailed deer. But 100 years ago, the Keystone State was only about 25% forested. It may look like wilderness from 35,000 feet, but the history on the ground shows that not to be the case. Unlike the true wilderness forests of the world (say, in New Guinea), we haven't had a new species of vertebrate more than a few pounds in mass discovered in Pennsylvania in a very long time - like in over 200 years.

Relevant to bigfoot, wilderness is a red herring. We like to say that there's a huge land area that is unexplored or under-explored by humans, and we can always quibble about how much survey and exploration should be enough before someone hauls in a bigfoot. Meanwhile, a quick check of the BFRO spatial database of bigfoot sightings illustrates that bigfoots are in no way limited in distribution to wilderness areas.

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Guest parnassus

The US is crisscrossed by millions of miles of roads which are almost always at least every mile. Even most "wilderness" and "roadless" areas of the US are within a mile of a road. Here is a map of Colorado, perhaps our most rugged state, showing how little actual roadless ( ie not within a mile of a road) area there is. But people claim to have seen bigfoot all over the place. http://www.roadless.net/maps/roads.htm

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Guest COGrizzly

The US is crisscrossed by millions of miles of roads which are almost always at least every mile. Even most "wilderness" and "roadless" areas of the US are within a mile of a road. Here is a map of Colorado, perhaps our most rugged state, showing how little actual roadless ( ie not within a mile of a road) area there is. But people claim to have seen bigfoot all over the place. http://www.roadless.net/maps/roads.htm

One thing to keep in mind about Colorado and "roadless" areas. I can't tell you how many times I have travelled on a forest service road that I see on the map, then come to a gate across the road and its been closed - sometimes for years.

I have also been on a forest service road camping nearby and have not seen another vehicle for days.

Also should keep in mind these forest service "roads" are actually 4wd trails.

I can drop someone off in many areas of Colorado and they wont be crossing a road for 20 miles in any direction.

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Pat, you live in the best place in the world in my opinion. I really envy you as having been there a few times it's a place which has everything in your 12,076 square miles (bigger than Wales and slightly smaller than Northern Ireland). Especially like the scenary between Port Alberni and Tofino - awesome... Hope to back next year..

BOQUK,

No arguments from me, it is truly beautiful. When you were near Port Alberni, did you happen to stop at Cathedral Grove ? Ol' growth forest, man there are some nice big ol' trees to be seen. Tofino an Long Beach, nice ! There are so many incredible views between the two(an every where else :) ) Yep...awesome is bout right. Hope ya do get back to enjoy...maybe a "road cross in' " sighting' for ya, ya never know. :)

Pat...

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Even with roads, paved or dirt...the areas around are still surrounded by forest as thick as. If I recall, I think I've heard BC has 25% of the worlds rain forests. In my opinion, the wilderness here, could easily hide a population of sasquatchs. Well...not really hide, as they do get seen every now an then. :D Could the wilderness sustain a population here, I think easily. I've talked directly to a few who have seen them, one guy I'm sure wouldn't have talked to me about his sighting' if it wasn't for my sister in law. He seemed reluctant to tell me of his sighting', as if I wouldn't believe him, or perhaps some just don't talk of their sightin's. Either way, he told of seein' one while out hunting' one morning'. When we finished talking', I believe what he told me, there wasn't anythin' incredible to his sighting'. But people still talk of seein' them.

Pat...

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  • 4 weeks later...
SSR Team

I got one for you, i bumped into it in a Book i bought about Alaska recently..

The Tongass National Forest, in SE Alaska.

17 Million Acres, or 69,000km2

To give you an example of how big that is, Scotland is 78,772 km2 & West Virginia is 62,775 km2.. :D

The Tongass National Forest has approximately 4,500 Salmon Spawning Rivers & Streams. In the UK,England has 606 major Rivers, with only 26 Rivers in Scotland that actually flow into the Sea.

Outside of Juneau, the Alaska State Capital which is in the Forests boundaries, there are approximately 40,000 people that also live within the Forest Boundaries in 30 other small Communities.

It is our Planet's largest remaining Temperate Rainforest.

Though its land area is huge, about 40% of the Tongass is composed of wetlands, snow, ice, rock, and non-forest vegetation, while the remaining 10 million acres (40,000 km2) are forested. About 5 million acres (20,000 km2) are considered “productive old-growthâ€, and 4,500,000 acres (18,200 km2) of those are preserved as wilderness area.

20,000km2 of Old Growth alone = the same size as Wales, 4 x the size of Northern Ireland and 350 x the size of Manhattan..

Here she is.

post-136-042823000 1317798972_thumb.jpg post-136-002932800 1317799004_thumb.jpg post-136-021505400 1317799025_thumb.jpg

post-136-070630200 1317799048_thumb.jpg post-136-082472700 1317799068_thumb.jpg post-136-051441300 1317799085_thumb.jpg

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