Virtual Visitors in Wild Places

I have just finished reading a wonderful history of bears and people in Yellowstone National Park, Do (Not) Feed the Bears: The Fitful History of Wildlife and Tourists in Yellowstone by Alice Wondrak Biel (click here for the publisher’s description of her book). Biel’s recounting of the story of Yellowstone’s bears “traces the evolution of their complex relationship with humans—from the creation of the first staged wildlife viewing areas to the present—and situates that relationship within the broader context of American cultural history.”

In the conclusion of her book, Biel raises an intriguing question about how new technologies, especially the Internet, might impact the future of American ideas about wilderness and nature in general. She notes that “Yellowstone National Park now counts many times more ‘virtual visitors’ via the Internet each year than visitors who actually set foot within its borders. The question remains whether, with the rise of these virtual environments, in which everything we see and experience is filtered through a technological medium, seeing the world with one’s own eyes will become more or less important, and whether people’s desires to see the natural world for themselves, and have the natural world look back, will increase or simply dissipate. Are we truly ‘of the wilderness,’ or are we not?” (page 150).

What does it mean to be “of the wilderness”? If “wilderness” means areas that are entirely free of human impact, then is it not better to visit such places only as “virtual visitors,” never actually setting foot inside wilderness borders but instead respecting its sovereignty? Yet, what lessons are lost if we never see the world with our own eyes, if we never venture out as vulnerable creatures to experience the natural world for ourselves and have the natural world look back, and perhaps strike back, at us? Can virtual visitors even begin to know the rich possibilities of experiencing natural worlds?

On the other hand, humans are thoroughly technologized beings. Our “actual experiences” of nature include layers of technology to get us there, to make our experiences possible and safe and even comfortable, to record our experiences and make them meaningful for posterity, to share and circulate and widely broadcast our interpretations of the meanings and importance of our experiences. In other words, are we ever anything more than virtual visitors?

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