Visit Wilderness

Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.

Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, Minnesota

Why Visit Wilderness?

While wilderness can be appreciated from afar—through online content, television, or books—nothing compares to experiencing it firsthand. Activities like camping, hiking, or hunting allow you to fully enjoy the recreational, ecological, spiritual, and health benefits that wilderness areas offer. These areas provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation,” chances to observe wildlife, moments to renew and refresh, and the physical benefits of outdoor exercise. In many wilderness areas, you can even bring your well-behaved dog.

Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.

Every year thousands of migratory birds hitch a ride on the Eastern (Atlantic) Flyway, which spans the skies from Maine to Florida. At the northernmost end of the route, many disembark at 23,000-acre Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge.

Although trees in this region have been significantly logged in the past, today a diverse forest stands here, a woodland of aspen, maple, birch, spruce, and fir with scattered stands of white pine.

Once scoured heavily by glaciers, the land of the refuge is primarily low, rolling hills dotted with many lakes, bogs, marshes, streams, and rocky outcroppings.

The Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, which contains the Moosehorn Wilderness, is the only refuge where people study and manage the American woodcock, a reclusive bird that hides in dense cover of young forests during the day, feeds in clearings at night, and flies an amazing courtship ritual in spring.

Bald eagles frequent the refuge, and black bears and white-tailed deer are common. Despite the name, moose are not as common as you would expect, but ducks, geese, and loons congregate on more than 50 lakes.

In November, deer hunting is allowed.

The Wilderness is divided into two units, a section on the mainland and the Birch Islands on the rocky Maine coast where large tidal fluxuations are normal.

See also the separately designated, but nearby, Moosehorn (Baring Unit) Wilderness.

Leave No Trace

How to follow the seven standard Leave No Trace principles differs in different parts of the country (desert vs. Rocky Mountains). Click on any of the principles listed below to learn more about how they apply in the Moosehorn Wilderness.

Plan Ahead and Prepare
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
Dispose of Waste Properly
Leave What You Find
Minimize Campfire Impacts
Respect Wildlife
Be Considerate of Other Visitors

For more information on Leave No Trace, Visit the Leave No Trace, Inc. website.

Location

Maps

Digital and paper maps are critical tools for wilderness visitors. Online maps can help you plan and prepare for your visit ahead of time. You can also carry digital maps with you on your GPS unit or other handheld GPS device. Having a paper map with you in the backcountry, as well as solid orienteering skills, however, ensures that you can still route-find in the event that your electronic device fails.

Online Maps

Interactive Map of the Moosehorn Wilderness
Google Earth

Maine Wildernesses

Printed Maps

Fetching MyTopo from Database

USGS Store

Rules & Regulations

Motorized equipment and equipment used for mechanical transport is generally prohibited in all wilderness areas. This includes the use of motor vehicles, motorboats, motorized equipment, bicycles, hang gliders, wagons, carts, portage wheels, and the landing of aircraft including helicopters.

Wilderness-Specific Regulations

Learn more about why regulations may be necessary in wilderness.

Contacts

Applicable Wilderness Law(s)

Public Law 91-504

Date: October 23, 1970
Acreage: 2,782 acres

(No official title, designates Fish and Wildlife Service wildernesses) - Public Law 91-504 (10/23/1970) To designate certain lands as wilderness within National Wildlife Refuges

For more information (To download or see all affected wilderness areas) visit our law library for 91-504 or legislative history for 91-504.

Want to Volunteer for Wilderness?

People who volunteer their time to steward our wilderness areas are an essential part of wilderness management. Contact the following groups to inquire about volunteer opportunities. Groups are listed alphabetically by the state(s) in which the wilderness is located.