Canoeing through Algonquin Park a few years ago, as I do most summers, I met a South African. It was his first camping trip outside the Kalahari Desert and he was awed by what he called, in his rich Afrikaans accent, "this bloody great WILDerness of yours."
Hearing it pronounced that way, I began to see tame old Algonquin with new eyes. Our bloody great WILDerness indeed.
