Jack Farqueson read some excerpts from a favourite book of his "The Wilderness Companion - Reflections for the Back-Country Traveller" by David Backes. Northword Press Minocqua Wisconsin. Although out of print it is available on ebay and Amazon for up from $20. A few new ones still out there are bringing $200 at certain eclectic booksellers. A valued book indeed. So I have scanned and OCRd it into an e-book so it can be shared. see closing LINK
Here are Jack's selections:

[from the preface] 

Sigurd Olson said ... wilderness provides an ideal setting for reflection: "Paddling along watching the skies, clouds, and horizons, there is time to mull such thoughts deeply and translate them not in one's own mind, but in the timeless background of hills and distance, the eternal and the immutable.

    North American society is among the wealthiest on earth, but there is an inner poverty and longing that no amount of material success can quench. As much as any society in the world, ours promotes an ethic of self-realization, but the rising number of addiction-shattered lives testifies to our fundamental powerlessness. We have the world's best system of higher education, but its emphasis on analytical thought and measurement leaves us ill-prepared to answer the questions deep in our hearts, the questions that defy analysis and measurement.
    At least partly in response to this internal bewilderment, millions of us retreat to wild places each year. Whether our trip is for a weekend or a week, many of us are making a spiritual pilgrimage. We seek an experience that adds meaning and perspective to our lives, but some of us hope for even more: We want to relieve our inner turmoil and brokenness, to admit our powerlessness to something greater, to find a glimmer of an answer to our half=formed questions.
   Some of the people who seek spiritual solace in the wilderness are "believers" in the traditional sense; they are devout, practicing members of a mainstream religion. A wilderness retreat renews and intensifies their faith. Many others, however, are agnostis or atheists. In fact, such people are probably far more common in wilderness areas than they are in the general population.
...
    Wilderness, then, has a spiritual connotation for both believers and non-believers in a personal God. Many people in both groups travel to wilderness areas to experience a kind of transcendence, a connection with something beyond themselves, something that briggs more meaning to everryday life. Whether or not they feel comfortable with the word "God", these modern pilgrims share the same basic needs and seek the same basic experience.
    This book is for all those who see a wilderness trip as more than a vacation, more than a chance to paddle or hike in a wild settings, more than a photo opportunity or a fishing expedition. The book was compiled for those who enjoy these things but seek something deeper - re-creation rather than mere recreation.

[and from the selection of sayings]

Awareness
"Did you know that trees talk? Well they do. They talk to each other, and they'll talk to you if you listen ... I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit."  ... Tatanga Mani, a Stony Indian.     
    
Adversity
"All bushes can't be bears." ... Theodore Roethke

Time
"When one finally arrives at the point where schedules are forgotten and becomes immersed in ancient rhythms, one begins to live." ... Sigurd F. Olson

Life
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." ... Crowfoot

God
"God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of whih is beyond all reason." ... Dag Hammarskjold