Thesis (M.S.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2007. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jian-yi Liu. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-116).

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Includes bibliography. / The aim of the present study is to produce, and to begin to illustrate the use of, a theoretical model by which varying attitudes to, and experiences of, wilderness may be understood. A classical Jungian developmental framework is utilised for these purposes. The paper begins with brief definitions of the concepts pertinent to this work followed by a fairly comprehensive summary of Neumann's developmental model. The author's model, constructed on this theoretical basis, is then outlined and applied at a mythological level to the attitudes to wilderness manifest in the Judaeo - Christian religions. In the discussion, indications are given as to how the model might be applied at individual and cultural levels. One person's experience of wilderness is interpreted within the context of the theory followed by a brief discussion on the use of the model in informing therapeutic wilderness programming. Traditional North American Indian and contemporary Western attitudes towards wilderness are then briefly interpreted. It is concluded that this paper illustrates the usefulness of a Jungian model in understanding wilderness experience. Within the context of this framework, the value of a developmental perspective is noted.

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User fees for federal Wilderness have been suggested as a way to reduce deficit spending on Wilderness recreation and supplement decreasing management budgets. This study examines the users of Linville Gorge Wilderness, a federal free area, and Grandfather Mountain Backcountry, a nearby private fee area, to determine if fees would exclude any socioeconomic or other user group who presently uses wilderness and determine if fees are acceptable to users. The study compares users' socioeconomic characteristics and travel cost demand functions and analyzes attitudes towards fees to determine the extent to which fees are likely to change use behavior. No difference is found in the socioeconomic characteristics of the users of the fee and the free area, suggesting fees excluding any for federal Wilderness are equitable, not excluding any socioeconomic group currently using Wilderness. The trip demand functions of the travel cost models for the two areas are statistically the same, suggesting users are making the same economic decision when visiting each area. Fees are found to be acceptable to users if Wilderness will deteriorate without fees and fee revenues are spent on Wilderness management. Users suggest about $25 for an annual Wilderness permit and about two dollars for a daily fee as reasonable amounts. Most users say the fee at Grandfather Mountain does not influence their decision to visit, suggesting fees will not greatly affect demand at federal Wilderness. The site demand function for Linville Gorge predicts a large decrease in demand, but this is common to most travel cost models and does not usually prove true. Further research of the travel cost model and the administrative feasibility of suggested fee levels is recommended. / M.S.

Few wildlife-associated recreation models have examined the contributions of wildlife to recreation experiences. In this study, a mail questionnaire was used to examine the wildlife experiences enjoyed by hunters, birders, environmentalists, wildlife professionals, and forestry professionals. In addition, the study also compared the surveyed groups' socioeconomic characteristics, recreation activities, and organizational affiliations, as well as their perceptions concerning approaches to wildlife management, habitat issues, and the social values attributed to wildlife. While responses often differed according to populations, the surveyed groups enjoyed many of the same wildlife watching experiences and, if they hunted, many of the same hunting experiences. The subjects' outdoor recreation activities and organizational affiliations suggested that the populations' interests in wildlife varied according to primary/secondary- and consumptive/nonconsumptive-orientation. Groups sometimes viewed the social values attributed to wildlife differently, but ecological value of wildlife and the value of wildlife to the enjoyment of future generations were important to all groups surveyed. The social values important to subjects personally sometimes differed from the values they believed justified tax expenditures. Generally, both professional groups agreed with use of five wildlife management approaches, but viewed forest habitat issues differently. The user groups were divided about the use of hunting and timber harvesting to help manage some wildlife species and about the adequacy of forest lands in the Southeast U.S. to meet the needs of some species. The professional groups had similar socioeconomic backgrounds. User groups varied according to age, sex, community type, education, and occupation; however, the user groups had similar household incomes. / Master of Science

Graduates of the Wilderness Education Association (W.E.A.) were surveyed by mail to investigate the effects of their certification on safety, ecological impact, and curriculum standardization of their subsequent leadership activities. Self-reports showed a slight, but not statistically significant, decrease in the number of post- W.E.A. course evacuations and rescues. Graduates reported a moderate W.E.A. influence on their accident records, and knowledge of W.E.A. standard safety practices was low. W.E.A.'s reported influence on the ecological impact of current outdoor leadership activities was stronger than its influence on safety, but graduates revealed only a moderate level of knowledge about ethical use practices. Graduates reported implementing a mean of 4.54 out of 16 W.E.A. curriculum areas into current programs. Thirty-three and one-half percent of the graduates reported not implementing any curriculum areas into current programs. W.E.A. graduates indicated that the course had the greatest influence on the implementation of their outdoor education curriculum areas which had previously not been highly standardized. Implications for certification of outdoor leaders are discussed. / Master of Science

The purpose of this research was to provide an understanding of past efforts to predict recreation choice behavior. Additionally, from this past research in recreation and in the fields of psychology and consumer behavior, a lexicographic semi-order model was selected and tested for applicability in approximating recreation site choices. Testinq this model required initial work in deciding upon physical, social, and managerial attributes of a recreation site which may be relevant to a choice decision. A framework was developed to analyze the multitude of studies dealing with recreation site attributes. Using a microcomputer based data collection instrument in a laboratory situation, the lexicographic semi-order choice model was found to be successful in predicting the elimination of alternatives from a choice set. There was a negative relationship between the level of experience an individual had in backcountry use in the Southern Appalachians and the specificity with which they perceived attributes of the resource. The lexicographic semi-order choice model appears to be a feasible format for developing microcomputer-based decision aids for backcountry recreation site selection. / Ph. D.

Social contact norms are used by managers to establish standards for regulating visitation of wilderness areas so that visitors can attain adequate experiences of solitude. This study expanded on current conceptions of social contact norms to provide a theoretical and empirical basis for understanding how such norms are formed. Using person perception, stereotyping, and socialization theory and the concept of cognitive schemata, a conceptual framework was built to explain how visitors come to judge certain groups as appropriate or inappropriate in a wilderness area. Seven research hypotheses were proposed and tested using a database consisting of responses to a mail questionnaire survey of 800 permit requestors and 95 interviews with visitors at Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness, Arizona. The first hypothesis, that wilderness visitors would regard some types of groups as appropriate and other types of groups as inappropriate in the wilderness area, was supported. Norms for encountering 13 types of groups were estimated from written questions and drawings, and paired picture comparisons allowed ranking of six types of groups. Encounters with lone hikers, small groups, medium-sized groups, birdwatchers, youth groups, school classes, and rangers were considered more appropriate than encounters with hunters, horseback riders, packstock users, and nude bathers. Logit and multinomial logit models were used to test the six remaining hypotheses, which concerned the influences of socialization and other processes on development of social contact norms. To test the hypotheses, norms for encountering six types for groups were predicted from demographic and other variables. The results indicated that norms for encountering small groups were not affected by social class or race; affiliation with a small group during a wilderness visit was associated with a dislike of large groups, membership in a conservation organization had no such association; members of conservation organizations preferred fewer encounters with hunters; membership in a conservation organization also prompted the respondents to dislike encounters with horseback riders; females, older visitors, and people with children disliked encountering nude bathers; and inexperienced and less self-reliant visitors enjoyed encounters with rangers. Theoretical, managerial, and social implications of these results were then discussed.

Wilderness landscape, a setting common in Romantic literature and painting, is generally overlooked in the art of the Middle Ages. While the medieval garden and the city are well mapped, the medieval wilderness remains relatively trackless. Yet the use of setting to represent interior experience may be traced back to the Neo-Platonic use of space and movement to define spiritual development. Separating themselves as far as possible from the material world, such writers as Origen and Plotinus avoided use of representational detail in their spatial models; however, both the visual artists and the authors who adopted the Neo-Platonic paradigm, elaborated their emotional spaces with the details of the classical locus amoenus and of the exegetical desert, while retaining the philosophical concern with spiritual transition. Analysis of wilderness as an image for spiritual and emotional transition in medieval literature and art relates the texts to an iconographic tradition which, along with motifs of city and garden, provides a spatial representation of interior progress, as the medieval dialectic process provides a paradigm for intellectual resolution. Such an analysis relates the motif to the core of medieval intellectual experience, and further suggests significant connections between medieval and modern narratives in regard to the representation of interior experience. The Divine Comedy and related Continental texts employ both classical and exegetical sources in the representation of psychological transition and spiritual conversion. Similar techniques are also apparent in English texts such as Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon elegies, in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, and Troilus and Criseyde, and in the northern English The Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. These literary texts, further, include both ideas and techniques which are analogous to those of visual arts, where frescos and altarpieces show the wilderness as metaphor for transition, and where manuscript illuminations relate this visual concept to texts. Thus, the wilderness as a landscape of personal crisis becomes in the Middle Ages a significant part of the representation of interior experience in painting and in literature.