Canaan Valley, the largest and highest mountain valley east of the Mississippi River, is a site of breathtaking beauty and breathrestoring energy. Canaan (pronounced Kah-nane') has been ranked by the Interior Department with the celebrity landscapes Yosemite and Yellowstone Valleys for its beauty and splendor. But the greatest of Canaan Valley, like all of West Virginia, is its people: made strong by the mountains, kept simple by the land, honed natural by the sky.

In designating Canaan Valley's 32,000 acres of boreal forests, upland bogs, clear mountain streams, and diverse wildlife as a National Natural Landmark, the US Department of the Interior observed that "in the East, there are very few areas of its grandeur and magnificence." There are also very few ecosystems as fragile or as important, especially to migratory birds and black bears, as the tundra-like landforms along the ridges of Canaan Valley's mountain tops.

Canaan Valley's wetlands 3200 feet above sea level and its mountain ridges nearly 1000 feet higher than that are home to the threatened Cheat Mountain salamander, the endangered Virginia northern flying squirrel, and many other life and land forms. It is for this reason that Canaan Valley became in October of 1994 a National Wildlife Refuge, the 500th dedicated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Mercifully free of tourism-deformed areas (West Virginia is the last of the 48 states to get an east-west interstate expressway), West Virginia is known for its "wildering" adventures and natural playgrounds. From around the world, stressed-out urbies (urban/suburban movers-shakers-and-rat-racers) come here to get back to God and nature.

The "wildering" experiences are the best to be found in the Eastern US and Mid-Atlantic states--whitewater rafting (the most concentrated stretch of whitewater in the US is the New River Gorge, "the Grand Canyon of the East"), mountain biking (two transcontinental biking trails intersect in Canaan), horseback riding, rock climbing, canoeing, caving, golfing, backpacking or fly fishing. "Get Tuckered Out in Tucker County" (in Appalachian culture we take out the "warsh," sometimes find ourselves "up the crick," and talk in terms of counties and hollers, not cities or regions) is the current ad for Canaan Valley and its amazing abundance of resorts and recreations (including golf, tennis, swimming, etc.).