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As summer approaches, millions of Americans plan or take trips to state and national parks, seeking outdoor recreational opportunities across the nation. Many will head toward wilderness areas—110 million acres mostly in the West, protected by strict federal conservation rules.
When Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, it described wilderness as places that evoke mystery and wonder, “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man,” where humans themselves are visitors who do not remain. These areas present nature in its rawest form.
The law requires the federal government to protect these areas “for the permanent good of the whole people.” Wilderness areas are found in national parks, conservation land overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, national forests, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuges.
In early May 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives considered allowing the sale of federal lands in six counties in Nevada and Utah, five of which contain wilderness areas. This proposal, introduced by U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, is a departure from standard land exchanges that balance development with protection.
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Regardless of whether Americans visit their public lands or know when they have crossed a wilderness boundary, environmental historians believe everyone benefits from the existence and protection of these precious places.
This belief was eloquently articulated 65 years ago by Western writer Wallace Stegner. His eloquence helped launch the modern environmental movement and gave power to the idea that the nation’s public lands are fundamental to American identity and a cornerstone of American freedom.
Humble origins
In 1958, Congress established the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission to examine outdoor recreation in the U.S., considering both current needs and future changes. Member David E. Pesonen was asked to examine wilderness and its relationship to outdoor recreation. He wrote to Stegner for help, who later penned what became known as the Wilderness Letter.
The letter reached a national audience when published in The Washington Post on June 17, 1962, capturing the imagination of generations of Americans.
An eloquent appeal
In the letter, Stegner connected wilderness to American identity. He called it “something that has helped form our character and certainly shaped our history as a people … the challenge against which our character was formed … (and) the thing that helps make an American different from and more fortunate than other men.” Without wild places, he argued, the U.S. would be just like every overindustrialized place.
Stegner expressed little concern with how wilderness supports outdoor recreation. He didn’t care if areas once featured roads or trails. What mattered was Americans’ freedom to protect and enjoy these places. Stegner recognized that the freedom to restrain ourselves from consuming is as important as the freedom to consume.
Perhaps most importantly, he wrote, wilderness was “an intangible and spiritual resource,” giving the nation hope and excitement, landscapes good for spiritual health even if rarely visited. Without it, Americans would be less free in their own country, plagued by noise and waste.
Stegner penned the letter during a national debate about preserving wild places. If not protected, these wildlands that shaped American identity would fall to exploitative forces of capitalism. Every generation has an obligation to protect these wild places.
Stegner’s Wilderness Letter became a rallying cry for passing the Wilderness Act. Its closing sentences are his best: “We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.”
This phrase, “the geography of hope,” is Stegner’s most famous line. It represents what wilderness means: wildlands defining American character on the frontier, spaces Americans have protected, and natural places giving hope for the future.
A America’s ‘best idea’
Stegner returned to these themes in his essay “The Best Idea We Ever Had,” published in Wilderness magazine in 1983. He declared that parks are “Absolutely American, absolutely democratic,” reflecting us at our best rather than worst. Without them, millions of Americans’ lives would be poorer.
Public lands are more than just wilderness or national parks. They provide natural resources, wildlife habitat, clean air, clean water, and recreational opportunities for small towns and sprawling metro areas alike. As Stegner said, they cure cynicism and offer shared hope.
Stegner’s words resonate as Americans head to their public lands this summer. With visitor numbers increasing annually and agency budgets at historic lows, we remember these places’ value to all Americans. We agree with Stegner that wilderness is more valuable for American collective identity and freedom than as real estate or commodities.
