Finding the wilderness - Derek Bryant

The other day my friend Matt and I decided we needed to go for a walk. It had been a lazy sorts of day and we needed the fresh air. So we set off walking down the road, and realized what we really wanted was to walk in the woods. But where could we? The suburbs of Newport News have packed countless houses back to back allowing no free open public woods. Of course there was the noland trail but we were looking for no trails. We walked for ours and whenever we did see open woods it was always marked "No Trespassing." And honestly I can understand the core concept of it. You don't want tons of people just galavancing through your woods I guess. But why does everyone insist that their woods be "their" woods? Why does every slot of land in the area have to belong privatly to somebody? And if somebody doesn't own it privatly than the government owns it and either puts up "No Trespassing" signs or they make a small park out of it and it looses most of its allure. We wondered for a good two hours trying to find any entrance to an untampered plot of land. Finally we found our entrance. A gap between properties that had access to the open woods behind it. In honesty we were probably trespassing but I saw no signs and I saw my first chance all day. So Matt and I roam through the back woods exploring. To our suprise it wasn't as unexplored as we had expected. It was still wild forest and all but there were definite signs that others had been there. From a couple abandoned hobo campsites; to an old unused construction access road that had been turned into a dirtbike run. It all brings an interesting point of view to mind. That these unexplored, untamed wild places we find, were once seen by other people. And some of them probably did try to tame it, chop it up, and sell it piece by piece to the highest bidder. But it seems there are a few places that just won't be taken and controlled. And so these woods become a giant photo album for the next people to see, showing that man was once here and has been bested and kicked out. Man did not belong there. The best sign of this was Matt and I wondered even farther down the road. We came to another access road that was obviously out of service. There was a powerline that had been built to take electricity to the house to be, but since its being quit it had fallen into disrepair, and sections were laying on the ground, and the road was gaining trees in the old tire tracks. We followed the road to see were it led. At the end we saw a clearing were the house was going to be built. But there wasn't even a foundation built. Instead there were signs nailed up all over saying "Stop destroying the forest" and "Stop the construction." It was obvious we had found a site of a people blockade. Someone had even nailed a basketball hoop to a tree so they had something to do in between attempts by the construction company to continue. It was nice to see that the group had won and the clearing was left to be taken back by nature.