Where is Wilderness? (student choice 3)

In the environmental literature class I took a couple of years ago, we discussed the concept of wilderness for several weeks. I remember one point that was made about this topic, which was does wilderness even exist? The areas that people consider “wilderness” have likely been affected by humans, whether directly or indirectly. And we typically define wilderness as a place that is untouched by humans. We can’t always tell in present day whether or not a piece of nature has been affected by humans in the past. An example of this is many plants (e.g. some species of grass) that are seen as common in the southeast are actually native to Europe and were brought over during the colonization of the U.S. Another question that was raised related to this concept of defining true wilderness was is it still wilderness once we go into it? Thoreau talks a lot about going into wilderness in his writings. Well, once we enter it, is it still considered wild since, by definition, it requires no human interference or interaction? I don’t necessarily have an answer to these questions; I thought they made interesting points as to what we actually define as wilderness. I do believe, though, that some of the landscapes we may consider “wild” today were at one point affected by humans—whether early colonial settlers or even before that by Native Americans.