"What is ‘wilderness,' anyway? Terrie’s thoughtful answer mixes memoir, cultural criticism, and a history of New York’s famous 'Forever Wild' clause in a way that keeps you turning the pages."—Brad Edmondson, author of A Wild Idea: How the Environmental Movement Tamed the Adirondacks
"The close reading of the debates surrounding the legal construction of the Forest Preserve and the Adirondack Park are worthy additions to the established history. The details on the Protect! court case are intrinsic to the story of the Adirondacks."—Jonathan Anzalone, author of Battles of the North Country: Wilderness Politics
"Conversational in tone, the book invites readers to wrestle with the same contradictions Terrie has long understood ‘wilderness’ to represent and to join him in the important work of making meaning of this unique, as so far uniquely protected, landscape."—Kevin Sheets, author of Sources of America’s History
"The moral of this epic story: the price of wilderness is eternal vigilance."—Jamie Sayen, author of Children of the Northern Forest: Wild New England's History from Glaciers to Global Warming
"Phil Terrie’s latest book cements his reputation as the premier comprehensive historian of the Adirondacks..."—Adirondack Explorer
Description
The Adirondack Forest Preserve is the largest publicly protected wilderness in the Eastern United States, with a state constitutional provision guaranteeing that it be “forever kept as wild forest lands.” But just what does “wilderness” mean today? How has our understanding of that concept shifted, from the colonial implications of the term as first applied to the Adirondacks to a more inclusive usage, still contested, today?
Part memoir, part New York history, and part meditation, Wild Forest Lands explores the rhetorical and spiritual meaning of the Adirondack “wilderness.” Terrie revisits the literature and history of the region, reckoning with how his views on the places he has defended have evolved over time. Rich with detail, Wild Forest Lands grapples with the enduring power of the Adirondacks and what it truly means to preserve something that is, by nature, wild.
Table of Contents
Topophilia
Contact
Bill Verner
Couchsachraga
Adirondack Museum
Roderick Nash
Robert Mashall
Forever Kept as Wild Forest Lands
The Forest Preserve
The Adirondack Park
The Constitution 1894
Timber
Forever Wild
Long Lake
William Cronon
Wilderness and American Studies
Contested Terrain
The Constitution, 1915
MacDonald
The Constitution, 1938
The Constitution, 1967
Balsam Lake
Wilderness and Constitutions
Protect the Adirondacks!, Inc v. New York Sate Department of Environmental Conservation and Adirondack Park Agency
The Decision in Protect
Wilderness in the Sewards
Whose Wilderness
The Constitution, 2038
About the Author
Philip G. Terrie is professor emeritus in American culture and environmental studies at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of Forever Wild: A Cultural History of Wilderness in the Adirondacks and Contested Terrain: A new History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks, Second Edition.
September 2025