Wilderness Travel as an Art and as a Paradigm for Outdoor Education

One problem of contemporary education is that it tends to be overly specialized. Ideally, education, as opposed to mere training, should develop broad personal competence. Some educational programs promote this whole person competence more than others. Amongst physical activities the art of wilderness travel unites a wide variety of skills and knowledge. It can be seen as a paradigm of an art which unifies the many goals of outdoor education. In this paper wilderness travel is described as an art, its features are examined, and its general lessons described. “Wilderness Travel” symbolizes not only the actualart of travel through the wilderness, but also the way in which such journeys can teach us important lessons about daily life.