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.

Established in 1932, Swanquarter National Wildlife Refuge encompasses around 16,500 acres of islands and coastal marshland on the north side of Pamlico Sound. The Swanquarter Wilderness makes up more than half of the refuge: Judith Island, Swanquarter Island, Great Island, Marsh Island, and portions of the mainland along Juniper Bay.

Judith, Swanquarter, and Great Islands are entirely estuarine, dominated by black needlerush, intermittently under water usually due to wind tides. Marsh Island is almost entirely estuarine, with a small upland forest section on the extreme northern boundary.

Along the mainland of Juniper Bay, the Wilderness is approximately half estuarine and half upland forest. In upland forests of loblolly pine, you may catch a glimpse of white-tailed deer, opossums, raccoons, and squirrels. Yellow-bellied turtles and water snakes inhabit the needlerush and saw grass that blankets most of the refuge, and a few of the northernmost American alligators live here in brackish water.

Access to most of the Swanquarter Wilderness requires a boat.

Most visitors come to fish from May through November for croaker, spot, speckled trout, flounder, puppydrum (young redfish), and bluefish. Crabbing is a popular sport in the warmer months. Portions of the refuge are open seasonally for waterfowl hunting.

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 Swanquarter 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

The Swanquarter Wilderness is along the northern coast of Pamlico Sound and near the community of Swan Quarter.

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 Swanquarter Wilderness
Google Earth

North Carolina 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 94-557

Date: October 19, 1976
Acreage: 9,000 acres

(No official title, designates Fish and Wildlife Service wildernesses) - Public law 94-557 (10/19/1976) To designate certain lands as components of the National Wilderness Preservation System and to provide designation for certain lands as Wilderness Study Areas

For more information (To download or see all affected wilderness areas) visit our law library for 94-557 or legislative history for 94-557.

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.