Most of us live in cities where the natural environment is controlled as much as possible. About the only things uncontrolled are weather and geological processes. Wilderness is out of our control. We encounter wild places at our peril.
Quite large areas of the planet remain as wilderness. That does not mean that any part of the world is truly unknown. Satellites measure and catalog the earth in great detail. Still, in spite of our technologies wilderness exists unmodified by humans.
Being in the wild gives me with a feeling of exhilaration. Some of my earliest memories are of times spent in the mountains with my grandfather. He gave me a great gift of respect for the wild world. 
