Wilds Child: Exploring the PA Wilds with Little Adventurers

One of my earliest memories is walking across Kinzua Bridge when I was around three years old.

It was the early 1990s, so the bridge still stood, this being before wind swept part of the iron structure into the gorge below. It was a warm summer evening and the hills around me were lush and verdant, bathed in the golden glow of a setting sun. I remember the thrill of walking across the viaduct’s rough, wooden planks and staring down at the river winding through the trees.

My dad held my hand as we walked and, although I was 250 feet off the ground, I did not feel fear, only the exhilaration of exploration and the participatory excitement I got from visiting one of my dad’s favorite places with him.

They say that you always dream of your childhood home. For my part, I still dream of that walk at Kinzua. I dream also of the other adventures my parents took me on when I was young. The forests. The dark skies. The creeks and streams. Perhaps that is the reason that no matter where I’ve roamed in my nascent adult life, not one place has measured up, compared to those I spent my childhood exploring while growing up in the Pennsylvania Wilds.

Born in Jefferson County in the heart of the landscape that would come to be known as Cook Forest and the Ancients, I spent my childhood splashing in the swirling shallows of the Clarion River, sitting around a campfire at Clear Creek State Park, and basking in the shade of enormous, ancient pines.

My family has lived in the region for generations, my father’s side originally from the backwoods forest area that could somehow manage to be Clinton, Potter, or Cameron County, depending on which log you sat on. Some folks might think that’s a dig at the area – by the way – but it’s not. I like rural, and the enormous expanse of wild lands known as the PA Wilds is as authentically rural as it gets.

So, you could say I’m something of an expert concerning our neck of the woods. At the very least, I’m a Wilds enthusiast. The rivers and the creatures, the artisans and the outposts, and the heritage and culture are encoded in me like DNA. I left town after college, like so many others have done, seeking new adventures in big cities and cultural landscapes, but it wasn’t long before I felt compelled to come back home, a prodigal daughter drawn back to the natural spaces that raised me. Although I had explored here all my life, it still felt like there was so much more left to discover.

And now I have children of my own – two young sons who have an amazing capacity for wonder. They love looking at the stars. They love throwing rocks in the river. And they love to travel with me as I show them the places I explored growing up.

Knowing the region – knowing not just the established destinations or commercial hubs, but the back roads, the humble scenic views, the off-the-beaten-path spaces – has always been important to me, so I knew after I had children of my own that my approach to parenting would be similar to that of my parents’ – get those kids out in the woods and let them learn to love the wild places we call home.

But to be a Wilds Child is not a birthright. You do not need to be from the region to be invested in it, and you don’t need to have been born and raised here to find a way to call these forests your home.

To be a Wilds Child is to be passionate about exploring the region and celebrating its heritage and culture. It is to be curious about the natural world and observant of the quiet magic you can find there. To be a Wilds Child is to be a good steward of the land, a defender of rural spaces and, above-all-else, a fierce advocate for the kind of adventures you can find just outside your back door.

Hands gripping mine, their tiny footsteps falling in line with my own, the boys walked out on the skywalk with me, hundreds of feet in the air, the hills around them a shock of red, orange, and yellow. It was the midafternoon sun that warmed the trestle this time and, of course, part of the bridge I had once crossed lay in the valley below with the piles of brown leaves. It had been nearly 30 years since I’d been there.

When we reached the glass platform at the end of the walkway, both boys stepped cautiously toward it and peered down. At once, my youngest looked up at me with a delighted grin. His brother pulled his binoculars up to his eyes and surveyed the land around us. “It is like being in the sky!” he exclaimed, spinning around.

When I was a kid growing up in the forests of the Wilds, the world seemed enormous and full of magic. But the world tends to shrink as we grow older and learn more. The universe, however, is never done with its tricks or its gifts. When I go on an adventure with my sons, the world suddenly feels enormous again. And full of magic once more.

Whether you’re a local or just visiting, whether you have kids of your own or you’re a part of the proverbial village that it takes to raise a child, whether this is your first adventure or just your next, I encourage you to plan an outing in the PA Wilds with your Wilds Child today. There’s so much to see and do here and just one childhood to do it in.