This study provides a spatial and temporal examination of land use change in a southern Illinois wilderness area. The study area is the Clear Springs and Bald Knob Wilderness areas. Land patent and Forest Service acquisition records were compiled with spatial and temporal elements of land transfers examined utilizing a geographic information system (GIS). Current wilderness recreation site impacts and opportunities for solitude conditions were inventoried. Land-cover data for 1938, 1965, 1993, and 2005 were created and analyzed utilizing a geographic information system (GIS). Results indicate that land use change and land ownership have varied both spatially and temporally. First, land ownership transfers were influenced by land costs, availability of funds and topography. Lower land costs resulted in increased land transfers. Bottomlands remained in private ownership for longer periods of time. Second, minimal developments or human improvement for visitor convenience were evident in the wilderness areas. Remote areas offer ample opportunities for wilderness visitors to seek solitude. Wilderness management efforts should continue to monitor areas on a five-year basis to capture status and trends. Third, intensity and temporal human-initiated landscapes have varied. Upland forest dominated the land cover in 1938 with some evidence of grass and croplands located predominantly on bottomlands. By 1993, grass and cropland had virtually been removed from this landscape replaced by forests. Evidence of past land use change exists on the landscape.

The Life Effectiveness of Wilderness Adventure Leaders Cory Maria Dack Southern Illinois University Carbondale Introduction The call of the wild has long been accepted as a true phenomenon by mankind. Throughout history countless scores of women and men have written novels, poems, and symphonies in-spired by the ubiquitous reach of nature. As Sigurd Olson once wrote, "Wilderness to the people... is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium" (Olson & Backes, 2001, p. 61). Eventually, musings on the powerful effects of nature branched out from the realm of artistic expression and began to take root in the domain of science and research as well. As the academic world has begun to quantify the positive benefits nature has on those who immerse themselves in the wilderness, the populace has simulta-neously looked to nature for an antidote to the ever increasing stressors of life. Wilderness adventure programs are one medium that exposes participants to the numerous benefits associated with nature, including an increase in overall life effectiveness and an increase in holistic well being. Wilderness adventure programs can be recreational, educational, developmental, or therapeutic in purpose (Hans, 2000). Programming can range from an afternoon of recreation in a city park, to a week-long stay at a summer camp, to a 45 day backpacking trip through the arctic. Whatever the level or duration of the program, participants are often attracted to wilderness adventure programming by the inherent benefits of adventure and personal growth. A vast array of nature based benefits research exists (see Brown, 1999; Ewert, 1985, 1989; Klint, 1999; Rog-genbuck & Driver, 2000; Stein & Lee, 1995). Literature concerning these benefits often focuses on researching, testing, and measuring the benefits participants receive after completing a wilderness adventure program. While most of the research has shown that participating in a wilderness adventure program increases the self-confidence, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and overall life effectiveness of participants (see Caulkins, White, & Russell, 2006; Goldenberg, McAvoy, & Klenosky, 2005; and Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards, 1997), there is a deficit of research on the benefits and outcomes that occur to those who guide or lead wilderness adventure programs. To truly understand how wilderness adventure program-ming affects the human mind, body, and spirit, there needs to be more research that focuses specifically on the outcomes experi-enced by those who lead wilderness adventure programs. Methods Research was conducted at two camps located in northern Minnesota over the course of the summer during the 2009 camp season. The two camps, Camp Vermilion and Camp Hiawatha, are church affiliated and offer week long canoe adventures, houseboat trips, and residential in-camp experiences. The proposed research was based off of the following research questions: a) Do in-camp counselors experience an increase in life effectiveness after working at a summer camp over the course of one summer? b) Is there a difference between the life effectiveness reported by first-year in-camp counselors compared to the life effectiveness reported by returning in-camp counselors? b) Is there a difference between the life effectiveness reported by female in-camp counselors compared to the life effectiveness reported by male in-camp counselors? Quantitative data was collected through the use of the Life Effectiveness Questionnaire (LEQ). The LEQ was given to the in-camp counselors at the start of the summer during staff training. At the end of the summer the LEQ was then re-administered to the same research participants. Qualitative data was assessed via a short answer questionnaire that asked open-ended questions about the experiences the research participants had while working at their respective camps. This short answer questionnaire was administered at the end of the summer with the second LEQ. Results After the research data were collected, the data were run through a series of dependent t-tests and independent t-tests. The t-tests were used to compare the scores of the pre-summer LEQs to the scores of the post-summer LEQs, the scores of first-year in-camp counselors and returning in-camp counselors, and the scores of female and male in-camp counselors. The results were as follows: The changes in the results of the pre and post-test LEQ scores were t (11) = .102, p = .102. The results of the changes in post-test LEQ scores between new wilderness adventure leaders and returning wilderness adventure leaders was t (18) = .713, p = .485. Female post-test LEQ scores and male post-test LEQ scores resulted in changes of t (18) = 1.256, p = .225. The difference between post-test and pre-test mean LEQ scores was .58 standard deviations, or, a .58 effect size. The qualitative data yielded by the short-answer questionnaires were assessed using the techniques of enumeration and constant comparison. The following themes were pulled from the self-reported answers of the research participants: Increased Self-Confidence, Spiritual Connections, Personal Changes/Growth, Awareness of Strengths/ Weaknesses, Positive Community, and a 100% Job Recommendation. Participants reported that after the summer they felt that they had experienced Increased Self-Confidence. One participant wrote, "My leadership has grown incredibly - I was encouraged to own my authority and truly lead this summer. I have watched my confidence and competence grow." Another participant reported, "On my application I wrote that I wanted to gain confidence in myself and the things I do. I believe I have gained tons more than I started with." Spiritual Connections were identified from research participants who reported, "I feel like I've discovered a deeper sense of peace," "I have grown spiritually and more confident in myself," and "I don't think I would be ready, physically, emotionally, or spiritually, for my next year of school if I wasn't here this summer." Awareness of Strengths/Weaknesses were supported by self-reported responses such as, "I am stronger! I learned this summer that in order to make myself stronger I had to be vulnerable and expose my fears and anxieties." Personal Changes/Growth were evident in a participant who reported, "This summer I pushed myself farther than before in my leadership skills...it has been tough at times, but at that time is when I have experienced the most growth." Many research participants reported that they felt like they were a member of a Positive Community. One participant reported, "I have never laughed so hard, had so much fun, yet felt so proud of [what]... we were doing at camp." Another stated, "It has been an amazing experience... seeing how a community of such random personalities can become so close and grow so much in... 9 short weeks." Lastly, one participant wrote, "I am more steady. I feel loved. I feel like there is a place I belong." After reviewing all of the short answer surveys, it was found that 100% of the research participants stated that they would recommend a job as a wilderness adventure leader to others. Participants stated that "The chance to serve in this capacity is incredible," and "I hope that others are able to have the same opportunity to work with youth and learn, teach, and experience [this] leadership position." Another participant reported, "This is the best job I could ever ask for and is an amazing experience you can't find anywhere else." And finally, while reflecting on the experience of being a wilderness adventure leader, one participant reported, "It is a life changing experience!" Discussion and Implications Although the t-tests did not yield statistically significant results, the research still yielded a moderate change in effect size (.58). The self-reported qualitative data from the post-summer surveys support the idea that there are many positive benefits to be gained from being a wilderness adventure leader. This qualitative data is important, as it shows that the research participants themselves feel very strongly that being a wilderness adventure leader leads to a variety of experienced positive benefits. The moderate effect size and the self-reported qualitative data both support a call for more research in this area. Further research of greater depth could lead to a higher effect size, as well as to greater statistical significance. Previous research also reveals a need for further research in this area. Although there is a copious amount of research on the outcomes that occur after participating in a wilderness adventure program, there is a lack of studies that focus specifically on how being part of a wilderness adventure program can benefit a wilder-ness adventure guide or leader. Hattie et al. (1997) stress an overall need for more wilderness adventure research in their meta-analysis of over 96 different studies on wilderness adventure programs. After noting the diverse multitude of results found in the different studies in their meta-analysis, the authors concluded that more re-search in all of the areas of wilderness adventure programming must be done in order to validate the necessity of the existence of outdoor programming (Hattie et al.). Only through the continuation of research in this field will wilderness educators and leaders be able to conclusively offer evidence that wilderness adventure pro-grams are a vital and important part of human development.

North America, the United States in particular, has established an unique and distinct connection to the the wildspaces outside of urban environments. The two spaces, urban and wilderness, are placed in opposition to one another in a sliding valuation scale that is based on the degradation experienced in these urban areas, due to industrialized capitalist means of production, by the inhabitants. These effects are the source of both literary and visual art protests that originate in the 19th century in both generations of the Hudson River School painters, American pastoral writing, philosophy, and photographs. These romanticized views of natural space and out interactions with natural spaces create a deeply sentimental and mythic connection to America's wilderness. This spurs the creation of the National and State Parks and Forests systems that preserve and embalm the idealistic settings for industrialized man to commune with wilderness. These spaces, however, are inherently flawed in their construction and execution. This fact began my investigation into what American society presents as natural, or in some cases, more natural, in the Parks and public lands systems and natural history museums. I argue that the three works presented in my thesis are linked to the greater American pastoral art tradition, but engage wild spaces as a means to create a critical discourse into the authenticity of the ideals established by previous authors and artists. This claim is supported historically through links in methodology and subject matter, but depart from the Romantic and Modernist systems of representation in that my work reveals the manipulated structures that construct both the parks systems and the natural history museums.

This study was conducted to examine the perceived development of the Wilderness Education Association's (WEA) 18-point curriculum by National Standards Program (NSP) course graduates. Nationally, there are no mandatory requirements to meet to become an outdoor leader or guide. Successful completion of the WEA NSP certifies the graduate as an Outdoor Leader through the WEA. Participants for this study were administered a survey requesting demographic information. The survey also consisted of a Lickert scale asking participants to what degree they perceived development of the WEA 18-point curriculum during the NSP course in which they participated. Results indicate that overall the curriculum was rated between "greatly developed" and "somewhat developed". The results also indicated that course structure might play a significant role in the development of the 18-point curriculum. While females ranked overall development the highest, there was not a statistical significant difference in the development of the WEA 18-point curriculum between males and females in this study.

The past is a statement; the future a question. Henri Cartier-Bresson provides us with an interpretation of the “now” with the decisive moment and it is through this lens that I examine the glitch. Like the street photography style that Cartier-Bresson pioneered, the glitch artist role is not to simply create, but lies in inviting and reacting to conditions that will permit art to happen. Similar to the camera’s shutter being triggered, the glitch is initialized in a moment of uncertainty by our analog selves and is revealed to be dissident code that is set free from the pristine constructs of the digital format. As the glitch is an affective event that happens in real time, or in a moment, it can be recorded, captured and documented as a breakthrough of noise separated from the signal. As a culture, we tend to filter out and defend against the noise of the glitch while keeping the myth of perfect signal alive. I would suggest that we welcome the noise as a type of natural wilderness in the machine that reveals the illusion of the digital era and blurs the lines between transcription and transcoding.

This dissertation examines male bereavement in medieval literature, expanding the current understanding of masculinity in the Middle Ages by investigating both the authenticity and affective nature of grief among aristocratic males. My focus is on the pattern of bereavement that surfaces across genres and that has most often been absorbed into studies of lovesickness, madness, the wilderness, or more formalist concerns with genre, form, and literary convention, but has seldom been discussed in its own right. This pattern consists of love, loss, grief madness and/or melancholy, wilderness lament/consolation, and synthesis and application of information gleaned from the grieving process, which is found is diverse texts from the twelfth century romance of Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain to the fifteenth century dream vision/consolatio Pearl. A focused study of how bereavement is represented through this pattern gains us a deeper understanding of medieval conceptions of emotional expression and their connections to gender and status. In other words, this project shows how the period imagines gender and status not just as something one recognizes, but also something one feels. The judgments and representations of bereavement in these texts can be explained by closely examining the writings of such religious thinkers as Augustine and Aquinas, who borrow from the neo-Platonic and Aristotelian schools of thought, respectively, and both of whom address the potential sinfulness and vanity of excessive grief and the dangers for this excess to result in sinful behavior. This latter point is also picked up in medical treatises and encyclopedic works of the Middle Ages, such as those of Avicenna and Isidore of Seville, which are also consulted in this project. The medieval philosophical and medical traditions are blended with contemporary theories of gender, authenticity, and understanding, as well as an acknowledgement of the psychoanalytic contributions of Freud and Lacan. Through these theories, I explore the capacity for the men in these texts to move beyond the social strictures of masculinity in order to more authentically grieve over the loss of their loved ones, which often constitutes a type of lack. However, my purpose is not to view losses as lack, but rather, to see them as a positive impetus to push beyond the limits of social behavior in order to realize textually various outcomes and to suggest the limitations of such socially sanctioned conventions as literary forms, language, rituals, understanding, and consolation to govern the enactment of grief.

This thesis places the values shared by recreational hikers, backpackers, kayakers, and others within the British Columbia Forest Debate in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the 1985-86 Wilderness Advisory Committee as a case study, it argues that the interpretation of the concept of “wilderness” expressed by these outdoor enthusiasts can only be understood through the study of North American consumer culture. They valued “wilderness” as a commodity, not unlike the ways that forest and mining companies did, yet also expressed environmentalist concerns about protecting “wilderness” areas from resource exploitation and overdevelopment. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

The exploitation of natural resources in British Columbia has been strongly influenced by man's attitudes towards his environment. These attitudes have evolved from the cultural and historical legacy of Europe as well as from certain unique North American characteristics. As an ultimately irreplacable resource, wilderness serves as an interesting example of man's relationship to his environment. However, this relationship is difficult to document, requiring consideration of such diverse aspects as the cultural and historical sources of wilderness attitudes; the various values placed on wilderness; the treatment of wilderness as reflected in parks policy; and an approximate knowledge of the existing distribution of wilderness in British Columbia. Attempts to integrate these can at best only provide a personal view of the overall situation, but this seems useful if there is to be progress towards the understanding of man's relationship to his environment. The North American's perception and treatment of wilderness have been significantly affected by human history generally and North American myths specifically. Only in the last seventy to eighty years has it been possible for North Americans to regard wilderness without a great deal of fear and disdain. Up until this time the wilderness was an area of the unknown where man ventured in fear of his physical and spiritual safety. With the advent of an increasingly technocratic society, wilderness has come to serve as a significantly important symbol for a growing number of people. Wilderness stands as a symbol of man's origins and of his initial role as a member of the earth community. It symbolizes a collection of goals, ideals, and values that man may pursue as alternatives to pure material achievement. Also, because it is ultimately an irreplacable resource, wilderness preservation represents the preservation of individual freedoms and the number of alternatives available to future generations. The predominantly negative attitudes towards wilderness have facilitated and encouraged its hastened removal from the North American scene. Certainly British Columbia presently possesses vast amounts of wilderness. However, given the relatively short period of time since the date of its original European settlement, the rate of wilderness depletion must be regarded as significant. In examining wilderness losses over five time periods ranging from 1923 to 1970 it was found that the greatest alienations occurred following WW II, notably on Vancouver Island and in the mainland area south of 54°. While the rates of wilderness loss in these two regions have slowed somewhat, the mainland area north of 54° is currently experiencing wilderness loss at an accelerating rate. In 1970 less than 40% of the mainland area south of 54° could be classified as wilderness. This same figure for Vancouver Island was discovered to be less than six percent. Study of the mainland area north of 54° indicated that 84% of this area was wilderness, although this figure was based on insufficient data. In light of this wilderness view for British Columbia, eight specific recommendations on preservation policies at both the Federal and Provincial levels of Government can be outlined: clarification of purposes and objectives, greater cooperation between governments, implementation of a public education program, preservation of future alternatives, a greater emphasis on long-term considerations, and a broader basis for policy decisions. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

Background: Wilderness therapy is one type of residential treatment that has been shown to successfully engage adolescents in mental health and substance use treatment. A growing body of wilderness therapy outcomes research supports this and wilderness therapy is being increasingly recognized as a legitimate intervention for adolescents experiencing challenges with mental health and substance use. Some evidence suggests that not all elements of wilderness therapy necessarily work the same for all clients. The question of client fit in wilderness therapy, or what works for whom, is one that has yet to receive much empirical attention in the literature. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how participation in one Canadian wilderness therapy program effects two outcome variables, trait emotional intelligence and readiness to change, and how client fit moderates these relationship. Specifically, this research examines: (1) changes in clients’ trait emotional intelligence from pre- to post-wilderness therapy, (2) changes in clients’ readiness to change from pre- to post-wilderness therapy, and (3) if these changes differ by pre-treatment client-level variables – sex, age, funding, digital interference in everyday life, or substance abuse severity. Methodology: Research was conducted with 48 participants ranging in age from 14 to 20 years. A longitudinal case study design was employed. Data were gathered by program staff using standardized data collection tools, modified versions of standardized tools, and administrative forms. Findings/Conclusions: Findings indicate that participation in this Canadian wilderness therapy program leads to statistically significant increases in readiness to change but not trait emotional intelligence. On average, participants who experienced interference in their everyday life due to video games or online activity before wilderness therapy had larger trait emotional intelligence change scores, while participants who experienced interference in their everyday life due to a virtual relationship had larger changes in readiness to change. None of the client-level pre-treatment variables included in this study significantly predicted increases in readiness to change following wilderness therapy. / Graduate / 2021-12-08

This series of poems documents the speaker’s experience working as a wilderness field guide for a substance abuse program in North Carolina. The poems explore what it looks like to work direct care and to hold responsibility for a group of women’s physical and emotional wellbeing. There is a secondary narrative that interrogates the speaker’s relationship to substances as well as the speaker’s father’s identity as a recovering alcoholic.