Guides to sustainable connections? Exploring human–nature relationships among wilderness travel leaders

Abstract

This paper explores and critically interprets the role wilderness travel may play in fostering environmental sustainability. The paper draws upon two qualitative studies that sought to understand human–nature relationships as experienced by different groups of wilderness travel leaders in Canada. According to leaders involved in the studies, wilderness experience enhances emotional connections to nature and encourages a desire to foster similar nature connections among others (i.e. the campers/clients of wilderness trips). However, our interpretations show that leaders’ perceptions of wilderness are varied and ambiguous, and that the priority given to ‘experience’ may help to re-inscribe dominant discourses in which nature and culture are dichotomized. The paper discusses these complexities and sheds light on the potential of wilderness experience to contribute to the individual and social transformations that environmental sustainability calls for.

Keywords:

• wilderness leaders
• human–nature relationships
• experience
• outdoor learning

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the research participants for their contributions, David Fennell and Connie Russell for mentoring the research reported, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. The first and second listed authors contributed equally as co-lead authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bryan S.R. Grimwood

Bryan S.R. Grimwood is an assistant professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His research and teaching interests span fields of outdoor and experiential education, tourism and leisure.

Alexa Haberer

Alexa Haberer is an outdoor, experiential and environmental educator living in Thunder Bay, Ontario. In 2012 she completed her MEd at Lakehead University.

Maria Legault

Maria Legault recently completed a Master’s of Environmental Studies in the Tourism Policy and Planning programme at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Her current research examines sense of place along hiking trails in Southwestern Ontario.