While Golden Shadows Dance

 

The flames snap while golden shadows dance;

off hardwood floors and walls of rustic adornment.

As burning logs shift, sparks explode;

mini fireworks cascade into glowing embers.

Smoke drifts through the chimney flue;

evening air the ambiance of a Northwoods campground.

A snowy tread blankets frozen turf;

warm sounds of a crackling John Denver record.

“Lie there by the fire and watch the evening tire;”

while stories and visions decide to hang around like cordwood stacked against the spruce out back.

I dream of life, the world of fish, teaching, and my old bike;

documenting words struggle to leap from my pencil’s tip.

Soon enough sentences will escape and take shape I’m sure;

while time flits and flutters away at Mach speed - hurtling faster than sound and my comfort.

It’s hard to hang on if not for family, friends, laughter, and interludes;

watching flames snap while golden shadows dance.

     See you along The Way…

When The Fish Wouldn't Bite - Much

Over the course of 4 different outings stacked almost back to back over 2 different weekends, the fishing was bleak at best; especially under the intense heat that the Midwest was experiencing at the time.  Still, the winds were out of the south to southwest, so regardless, I proceeded while hoping for the best.  Typically if I have an open chunk of time, and am excited about the opportunity to escape to water somewhere, I’m what others often refer to as “fair game.”

On The Way To The River - Cows : )

   The first outing began on a Saturday morning.  I launched my kayak into a local river and began the arduous task of working my way upstream.  I fished as I went; often from my kayak, sometimes while standing at an inside bend to reach the outside bank, and on several occasions when I tossed my anchor out to hold me stationary in the otherwise strong current.  My anchor is somewhat sad and humorous at the same time, but it works.  To lock it in at the correct depth, I press down on the nylon anchor rope with my foot to hold it firmly against the floor of my purple kayak. While using it, I can easily remember back to when I retrieved the window counter-weights from our first house; when we remodeled to add a sliding glass door and deck out into the backyard.  The window weight anchor is a bit clunky and unconventional, but as I said, it works. And at 16 pounds, the 4 rusty iron tubes do the trick to hold me fast.  That day I caught one lone white bass and that was it.  I had been hoping to get hooked up with some river pike, but after many hours of fighting the current, I turned around and began the paddle back.  Fortunately such an adventure constitutes more than fishing!  I also enjoyed the many different wildflowers, and the scenery as the sun reflected off the water in a thousand shards of sparkling light.

Blue Vervain

Cardinal Flower

Fluff Left Behind From An Eagle
That Took Off In Front Of Me

Woodland Sunflower Along The Banks

Labor Day weekend allotted me the opportunity for three more days to fish, so I decided to cash in on the choice to step into moving water.  It was too hot to do much else.

On that Saturday I woke early and drove 50 some miles through the dark to begin trout fishing at daybreak.  The waxing gibbous moon still hung in the southwest sky, and it felt good to once again visit a small creek I hadn’t visited in several years.  I took my time, but it was tough going in water that was choked with weeds due to the lower water levels.  I managed to catch 4 to 5 brook and brown trout.  The biggest and first fish was a 10 inch brown trout.  Each fish in succession was noticeably smaller than the last by at least an inch, until my final fish wasn’t much bigger than the lure itself.  All of them were released of course, and while doing so I remembered that it had been several years since this creek had produced much.  I like it though, and I can’t remember ever seeing anyone else there, so I give it a chance from time to time.  I saw signs of other people who have fished it though, so perhaps that’s the difference.  Fortunately such an adventure constitutes more than just fishing.  That may be why I hiked back to my Jeep to try another section of the creek with a bit more water, but not without stopping first to smell the native flowers and take some pictures.  Their colors were brilliant and spectacular.

Highbush Cranberry - Viburnum

Sandpiper

Goldenrod

Purple Aster

Unfortunately the second stop yielded nary a fish, so on one last ditch effort I headed to a nearby bigger river in search of pike and smallmouth bass.  I managed to catch one bass, but almost became a permanent fixture of the area after getting bogged down in what amounted to a silt trap.  If you’ve ever stepped into one, you know the fear that can rise up within you.  I wallowed against the current through waist deep muck and water up to my chest for about one hundred yards; falling ungracefully once, but somehow managing to keep from filling my waders with water and sinking into the depths.  Once I reached a sure footed riffle, I took a picture of myself and upon the next immediate cast, my braided line became a tangled birdsnest.  Game over!  It was time to hike out and drive home.

On Sunday I started fishing in the midmorning on a locally large river; under the shadow of a fairly new sports stadium.  At this point I was only slightly desperate and willing to catch anything willing to hit the lure that I was casting into the bends.  Several times I had small fish follow my spinner up to me, but none were hooked.  I made my way up to an old railroad bridge turned bike path, and positioned myself there under its shadow to avoid the intense heat.  While the fish eluded me, I did spend a lot of time saving clams that were stuck in the shallows of the quickly receding water.  I enjoyed seeing them cleaning the water as they were filter feeding and pushing themselves along with their pseudo-foot.  Each one was carefully picked up and tossed into a little deeper water.  As I performed this conservation minded effort, I identified three different  species of the double shelled mollusk.

A Clam Pushing Along With Its Pseudo Foot

Seeing as though it was lunchtime, and more importantly that I was hungry, I zipped home for an hour or so to refuel, regroup, and refocus my efforts.  I decided that the rest of my day would be about exploring a few other local areas in addition to fishing.

I elected to return to the same big river that I had been on that morning but in a different area next to a boat ramp.  I walked and cast into the water from the shoreline until I got to some soupy muck that simply became too much.  With the walking all but impossible, and the number of downed trees lodged in the shallows threatening to snag my lures, I turned around and made my way back to the Jeep.  Although I had nothing resembling a hit, the potential was there, and I made a mental note to return at some point with my kayak to better access some of the backwater areas.  Just off the main current there had to be some toothy pike patrolling the perimeters for unwary bait fish.

My final destination for the day was below a dam that fills a raceway to a hydro plant.  Other people were scattered in various areas of the river - either fishing, swimming, or exploring.  Ironically I saw my neighbor and his daughter off in the distance moseying along in their canoe.  I found out later that they had paddled up to the dam to check it out while enjoying the opportunity to spend time in the cool water under the intense heat.  Later that evening they camped on its bank farther downstream.

I couldn’t believe how low the water was.  Mounds of gravel sent shallow trickles into a myriad of channels that would reconnect in sapphire pools before spilling out and continuing on its journey.  What a picture it painted!  All I could think about was how cool it looked.  How had I missed out on this location all of these years?  I’d been here before of course, on both sides of the river, but had somehow failed to realize the Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer opportunity held within its banks during the low water of summertime.

As I walked out onto a gravelly point, an osprey watched from the top of a dead tree above me.  At one point I actually stood in the middle of the river.  I was barely waist deep in what had always held me with a slight sense of dread.  Rightfully so of course as this river can oftentimes roar with a vengeful power that will pierce you deep with fear when its water runs deep and fast.  Today was not that day.  Although there was the continuous sound of water pouring over the dam, I waded peacefully in the tranquil water.  I fished in old running shoes and shorts, a baseball hat pulled down tight on top of sunglasses for my eyes; the rest of my skin laid bare to the power of the sun and some of our last hot days of the summer.

Standing In The Middle Of A Major River

Despite my best efforts, I didn’t see or catch anything, but I was excited about the area and figuring out how to fish it.  Fortunately such an adventure constitutes more than just fishing.  I’d be back to explore its mysteries.

Monday was Labor Day.  I stopped for some night crawlers before daybreak to supplement casting with lures.  Surely I could catch some panfish, catfish, or something with fins using worms!  I returned to the spillway I had been to the previous afternoon.  The area had transformed overnight.  Whether from rains far to the North, or dams releasing more water, the gravel bars had disappeared.  You could still walk to various areas below the spillway, but with a good foot to foot and a half more water than 12 hours prior.  I fished for quite a few hours; some of that time again under the watchful eye of the osprey.  A toad and leopard frogs kept track of my movements as well; basking in the warm stagnant pools up off the river but down in the crevases of the gravelly banks.

An Osprey Takes Flight From A Dead Tree

I did foul hook a channel catfish, but with the higher water washing more food into the river, the hope for an early morning feeding frenzy was off, even after trying almost every lure in my arsenal as well as a crawler on a bobber.  A clam was the final act of my fishing for the day.  Apparently it had closed down over a hook as my spinner was reeled over it.  I had to work hard to get the hook out before releasing the mollusk unharmed.  Fortunately such an adventure constitutes more than just fishing.  It’s at times like this that you take on a different perspective of such an escapade.

I Caught A Mollusk On A Spinner

The Clam Was Released Unharmed

On my hike out, I ran into a neighbor who had lived next door to the first house that Cindy and I bought in Rockford.  Having finished fishing for the day, we talked while standing in the water and caught up with what the various members of our families were up to in the 17 years since we last saw each other.

Four outings, during 4 days, in four locations, with 4 different experiences.  The commonality throughout it all was that it was both hot as blazes and the fish wouldn’t bite.  If you look at the outings collectively, I kept from being skunked.  But it was nip and tuck on most days, and it wouldn’t be anywhere close to being considered productive; in regards to fishing anyways.  In terms of exploration and experiences it was significant.  Fortunately such adventures constitute more than just fishing!

See you along The Way…

Kringlor

 

Good home cooking; it quite literally flows through my veins.  From within my immediate family, up into all of the intricate branches of my ancestral tree - as well as deep into its roots, foods have been made from the heart.  It’s not that the various foods have been laden with complex procedures or steeped in secret spices and extra ingredients.  In fact, it could be argued as somewhat bland in regard to some tried and true recipes. They are what I grew up with, however, so they have special ties and are therefore important to our family’s heritage.

When I teach a lesson on physical properties in 5th grade science, I explain that properties tend to describe certain traits.  At that point we review the 5 senses and how these can guide us towards articulating certain properties of an object such as: cold, sharp, vibrant, loud, tart, or smokey.  In regard to smells I reiterate to the students an often quoted saying from my Dad, who apparently got it from his Dad, that states, “Of all the smells I’ve ever smelled, I’ve never smelled a smell that smells like that smell, smells!”  I suppose that could go both ways; for the things that smell beautifully aromatic as well as for things that come across putridly rancid!  Regardless, the students think that it’s funny and are quick to learn the quote.  We often discuss how our sense of smell is closely tied to our memory.  I tell them that although I love them as a class, if someone came into our room and told me that right that second my Mom was taking something she had recently baked out of the oven, like she did on a regular basis when I was a boy growing up on our farm; and that I couldn’t reach her any other way than on my own two legs, I wouldn’t blink an eye but would simply take off for my parent's home!  Sure the class would be left in a lurch, but they are 10 or 11 years old in 5th grade and are smart enough to figure out what to do and how to survive.  Besides, it’s my Mom’s baked goods we’re talking about here!

As I walk the 24-ish miles to my parent’s house, I’d probably jog from time to time to help the process go a bit quicker.  I might even break into a sprint over the last few miles as the aroma from the baked goods fills my nostrils; pulling me towards the finish line.  After the cordial hellos and heartfelt hugs with Mom and Dad I’d cut a thick slab of homemade bread, still warm in the middle, and then slather it with butter.  I wouldn’t just eat it, I’d inhale it!  If it was a batch of raisin griddle cookies, I’d pop 2 or 3 of them into my mouth without so much as a blink of an eye.  Should the baked goods exiting Mom’s oven be Swedish kringlor, then I’d savor each bite as I broke off chunks from the soft, circular, treat; the essence of magical memories wafting in the air!

Recently I had a hankering for kringlor.  It wasn’t so much the eating of them that caused the craving, although I wasn’t against such an occurrence given half a chance, but rather it was a hankering bent towards knowing how to make them on my own.  I contacted the source and asked Mom if I could come over and learn how to bake kringlor with her.  You know, the old adage, “Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

As it happened, the time that worked best was on the afternoon of Independence Day; the Fourth of July.  To kick off the activities, I ate lunch with my parents in their dining hall.  It consisted of an all-American bratwurst, and summer berry salad, among other tasty side dishes.  After that we went up to their apartment and layed out the necessary kringlor ingredients.  We would be following my Great Grandma Fagerlund’s recipe; on my mother’s side of the family tree.  Great Grandma herself had emigrated from Sweden to America as Hildegard Widegren around 1910.  Soon after she met up with a fellow Swede that she had known in the old country by the name of Oscar Fagerlund, who was a blower in a glass factory by trade.  The rest as they say is history!  I am fortunate to have memories of my Great Grandma.  I remember sitting next to her for breakfast at my Grandparent’s farm, I know there is a picture of us together somewhere, and I have a Valentine card from her in my baby album.  Those things coupled with the kringlor, are my link to her past.

As my Mom and I went to work, we substituted vegetable oil for the melted shortening; but otherwise followed the recipe to a tee.  Well, as much of a tee as is necessary for my Mom, who probably has made thousands of kringlors in her lifetime.  She tends to add a pinch of something here and a dash of something there.  In other words, she can make them with her eyes closed, but on that day humored me, and simply helped me work step by step through the process.  Dad entered the scene when it came to demonstrating how he rolled them out between his palms and pinched together the ends to form a circle.  It was a tag team effort between my parents to help teach me the process!  In the past we’ve sometimes had kringlor in a stick form (often referred to by family members as “stogies”), and traditionally they are often twisted into a figure 8, but Mom always made ours in a circle.  Regardless, kringlor tastes awesome no matter what shape they are baked in, and the warmer they are the better!

It was a great experience that day; baking with Mom and hanging out with my parents.  The kringlor I baked was packed into a tub and taken Up North into Michigan with my cousins later that week - for our annual camping and fishing trip.  We had just enough kringlor to have one each morning.  The cousins enjoyed eating them with their early morning coffee before we pulled on our waders, hiked down a trail, and stepped into a river to fish.

On The Banks Of A
Favorite Michigan River
Eating A Kringlor.

I’ve made kringlors once on my own since then to take up to a rented cabin with friends.  I may have lost track of a few of the measurements needed for the ingredients on that batch, but they tasted pretty much the same, so I must have come fairly close.  With continued practice I’m sure I’ll be able to mass produce them without having to even think about it; as if it’s second nature.  Except for the fact that it really won’t be possible to make them as if from a cookie cutter on an assembly line, because they’ll be made from the heart and my own two hands.  For you see, behind every Swedish kringlor I’ve got my family’s history and the surrounding memories baked into that recipe.

See you along The Way…

Eating A Family Recipe With Mom & Dad

A Kringlor In Circle Form

A Well Loved Recipe
Covered In Ingredients...

Shared Words

 

Three of my cousins and I have headed into the woods and rivers of Northern Michigan to camp and fish for almost sixteen years now.  The outing has become the lifeblood of our adventurous spirit.  And while this yearly excursion lacks most frills, it works for us, and we like it that way.

We prepare by following a packing checklist.  We know that list by heart after nearly two decades of honing our skills, but it’s a tradition, so we at least look it over each year.  Lord knows you wouldn’t want to forget something.  You may never live it down with the ribbing you may take in camp!  Since we began in 2008, the list has been worked and reworked to the point that it’s been narrowed to one concise page.  At different times, in certain years, it’s carried a snarky comment or two due to a holdover joke or circumstance from the previous year; usually stated in jest, or to make a point, and then deleted the following summer.

As with most traditions that develop and morph, our packing list has gotten better with time.  After a year or two under our belts I began adding a quote or two at the top of the list; typically from books or articles that I’d read since our last outing.  I included quotes with meaning, purpose, and passion of what we commonly share; a love for the outdoors.  We were all raised to appreciate and protect Mother Earth.  That respect was equally seen between the smallest leopard frog or the greatest of white pines; ticks, deer flies, and mosquitoes notwithstanding!

The books, authors, and quotes added each year are meaningful to me, and once typed on the packing list, to my cousins as well.  Below are the colorful and fragrant sentences over the last sixteen years.  If any of these timeless words speak to you personally, this blog entry suddenly becomes a shared library you may want to check out and add to your “must reads.”  On the cusp of heading Up North again this summer, Enjoy!

See you along The Way…

------------------------------------

PACKING LIST QUOTES

THROUGH THE YEARS

 

2008

Yikes!  I’m almost afraid to type this out…after writing it in a spiral it seems like a lot, but I guess it’s not too bad when it all comes together.  In other words, I’m sure it’s not a big problem to get a semi-trailer down into the campground (insert semi truck sound here while pumping your fist up and down).  Dad says, (And this refers more to backpacking when you don’t have a truck to stash things in), ‘If you’re not sure you need it, leave it home’!” - Mike Rhines

 

2009

 

“Nothing in this world so enlivens my spirit and emotions as the rivers I know.  They are necessities.  In their clear, swift or slow, generous or coy waters, I regain my powers; I find again those parts of myself that have been lost in cities.  Stillness.  Patience.  Green thoughts.  Open eyes.  Attachment.  High drama.  Earthiness.  Wit.  The Huck Finn I once was.  Gentleness.  ‘The life of things.’  They are my perne within the whirling gyre.”

- Nick Lyons:  Full Creel

(For the Record I had to look these words up: perne=shining moments & gyre =circle)

 

2010

 

“I’ve noticed that many of the people I’ve really enjoyed fishing with over the years have turned out to be sturdy peasant stock from Michigan.  I don’t know what it is about the anglers from that state, but you can spot it: some kind of casual facility with difficulty, or the belief that suffering is the only promise life keeps, so that when things go even a little bit right, it’s like a gift.”

- John Gierach:  Standing in a River Waving a Stick

2011

 

“We ended up fishing a generous handful of small streams before we completed an uneven loop and started back.  I guess it did amount to an awful long way to go for a few trout, but trips like this have nonetheless become a kind of part-time life’s work.  The idea is to fish obscure headwater creeks in hopes of eventually sniffing out an underappreciated little trout creek down an unmarked dirt road.  “Why” is another question.  I suppose it’s partly for the fishing itself and partly to satisfy your curiosity, but mostly to sustain the belief that such things are still out there to find for those willing to look.”

“I like everything about fishing, but especially this walk in…You never know what to expect – but the goal of going fishing has already been accomplished, so the rest is the aimless, doglike happiness of being outside and off your leash.”

- John Gierach:  No Shortage of Good Days

 

2012

 

“Needing Supplies, we stopped at an old, unpainted crossroads store.  There was everything imaginable for sale in that store: snowshoes, shotguns and deer rifles, and even a yoke for oxen.  You could buy groceries as well as brightly colored yard goods, snow packs, and bear traps.  There was also merchandise more fascinating to me, such as excellent split fly rods and hand-tied trout flies which I viewed with longing.

The stream came winding toward us over and under mossy logs.  It tumbled through the remains of an abandoned beaver dam, and ran like quicksilver across the beaver meadow where the meadow larks added their music to that of the water.

Other fish can fight, but there is nothing quite like a big trout for style and grace and courage – as though they drew strength from the whole wilderness.”

- Sterling North:  Rascal

2013

 

“Outside it’s easy to abandon every convention and prejudice and get down to the messy business of being an animal, alive.  When you’re rooting around in the water or the woods, miles from the nearest strip mall and office complex, nobody is likely to judge you by your clothing or your skin color or your political orientation, and if they do you don’t give a damn anyway.  Fishing – or hunting or photographing birds or cutting firewood – frees you of such nonsense.  If you want society, convention, comfort, and safety, stay home.  If you want your life to be a joyous romp, get outside.”

- Jerry Dennis:  The River Home

 

As the years go by we have become campers & fisherman with great equipment (or at least the equipment that gets us by) but are still minimalists to a certain extent (knowing that the experiences are what we’re after…and that we’ve pretty much gone in every type of weather over the years and have been able to enjoy it). -Mike Rhines

 

2014

 

“Everyone needs such quiet times, some solitude to recoup his sense of perspective.  One does not have to be in a canoe or in some remote wilderness.  I find such times at night when I do much of my reading, but to me when solitude is part of wilderness it comes more surely and with greater meaning.  Since the time when man often traveled alone, hunting and foraging, all this became part of him.  It is easy to slip back into the ancient grooves of experience…When I am fly-fishing for brook trout, alone on some favorite stream, the sense of hurry is gone and time seems endless…Trout fishing for me is not the taking of fish, but being at one with the stream and all the sights and sounds.  The great Leonardo da Vinci said in 1512, “The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the chief means whereby the understanding may most fully and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature, and the ear is the second, inasmuch as it acquires its importance from the fact it hears the things which the eye has seen.”  I have often thought of that, and wondered if this most perspective of minds had ever stood in a quiet pool as I have.”

- Sigurd F. Olson:  Reflections from the North Country

“When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.  Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish you have just caught’.”

- John 21: 9-10

2015

 

“Studying maps is a sure way to make yourself miserable.  Those two-dimensional representations of our multidimensional world have a way of igniting wanderlust and over exciting the imagination.  Follow the meandering blue line of a river into a sprawling blue maze of lakes and you can easily slip into an idealized version of the place.” 

- Jerry Dennis: “From a Wooden Canoe”

 

“I think we’ve finally given up on the idea of the fishing trip of a life time and now see each expedition as just part of a lifetime of fishing trips.”

- John Gierach: “Standing in a River Waving a Stick”

 

“Simon Peter…dragged the net ashore.  It was full of large fish…Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast’.”

- John 21:11-12a

 

2016

“The only conclusion I have ever reached is that I love all trees, but I am in love with pines.”

“The song of a river ordinarily means the tune that waters play on rock, root, and rapid.”

“The elemental simplicities of wilderness travel were thrills not only because of their novelty, but because they represented complete freedom to make mistakes.  The wilderness gave them their first taste of those rewards and penalties for wise and foolish acts which every woodsman faces daily, but against which civilization has built a thousand buffers.  These boys were ‘on their own’ in this particular sense.”

- Aldo Leopold:  A Sand County Almanac

2017

“Beyond the road and maples is the river, with its own movement and its own life.  Lakesides have their charm and personality, but after living with this river for ten years I know that my personal choice is flowing water.  A river comes from somewhere, flows past my wondering eyes, and goes on to some other place.  It has movement, change, and there is a sense of both time and eternity in it.  The river tells me that so long as there are heights and lowlands on earth, water will continue to flow and life will persist.  A river, flowing water, not only has its own life – it is life.  I am prejudiced about rivers, and I shall have more to say about them.”

- Hal Borland:  Beyond The Doorstep

2018

“There’s a rhythm on the inside to what you see on the outside...But if you get down on your belly, crawl through the weeds to the edge, and stare deep into the water; if you get on the inside and slow down and breathe it in, then you get to know it.”

- John Luthens: Taconite Creek

“Of course there are many of us, and I am now one of them, for whom a day on a trout river is so pleasant an event, such an amiable and engaging pastime, that it feels, both going and coming back, as comfortable as an old shoe.  We go for the sheer joy of it, not to put notches in our rods.  We go because no day on a trout stream lacks mystery, surprise, wonder, and suspense...I like to fish water I’ve fished a hundred times before, water that shares history with me, that I see in my head, going and coming back.”

- Nick Lyons: My Secret Fishing Life

2019

“Being in nature can restore our mood, give us back our energy and vitality, refresh and rejuvenate us.  We know this deep in our bones. It is like an intuition, or an instinct, a feeling that is sometimes hard to describe.” 

- Dr. Qing Li: Forest Bathing

“I would rather have a body of scars and a head full of memories than a life of regrets and perfect skin.”

- Atticus: Love Her Wild

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

- A sign that used to hang over Albert Einstein’s office at Princeton University

2020

“The North grabs some people and never lets go.  It doesn’t care if you were once a carpenter or a bank president, and after a while, neither do you.” 

- Dennis Weidemann: This Water Goes North

“I got up and made my way upstream, stepping on wet stones and moss covered boulders, careful not to tear the moss with the rough soles of my boots.  A stream boulder, with moss and other small plants and fungi growing on it, is a world unto itself-a miniature planet Earth with a rock core, a soft crust, water, vegetation, and even animal life.”

- Jim Arnosky: Nearer Nature

“I like the wild, beautiful country where trout are often found, the solitude of walking along a river and being drawn more completely into the landscape, and how the sound of a fast-flowing stream could wash away my blues.” 

- Bill Barich: Crazy For Rivers

2021

“To the trout fisherman, who are always searching for the spring-fed headwaters of streams, they [logging roads] are a godsend.  What devotee of the elusive speckled trout but remembers long hikes through the dewy brush of old tote roads, and who hasn’t caught a good one beneath the fallen timbers of some long-unused bridge?”

- Sigurd F. Olson: Listening Point

“During times when we’re not in physical contact with the wilderness, just knowing it is here is a comforting thought, but actually being here is what we dream about, so we try to make the most of this experience.”

- John Highlen: “Painting the Boundary Waters” (The Boundary Waters Journal - Fall 2020)

“For me, I just know in my gut that I need the solitude of the wilderness with time to reflect, be silent, and listen to my Creator.  I need to exert my full body in heavy exercise and know the tiredness and sweat of true exertion.  Our six-day disconnect from modern society has begun.”

- Rollie Johnson: “Plan K” (The Boundary Waters Journal - Winter 2020)

2022

“It seems a good portion of my time in the woods is spent hunkered, propped or slouched in the glow of a good fire.  And it ought to be a good fire - not a raging, pep-rally bonfire, but a healthy, well conceived fire that burns with the right attitude.”

- Sam Cook: “Your Fire, My Fire.” Up North.

“But the place which you have selected for your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its attractions, and becomes a very center of civilization to you: ‘Home is home, be it never so homely’.” 

- Henry David Thoreau: “Friday, July 31.” Canoeing In The Wilderness.

“If children do not attach to the land, they will not reap the psychological and spiritual benefits they can glean from nature, nor will they feel a long term commitment to the environment, to the place…Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart.  If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.” 

- Richard Louv: “The Best Of Intentions.” Last Child In The Woods.

(Yup, that’s how we were raised : )

2023

“Filled with ozone, our pulses bound, and are warmed and quickened into sympathy with everything, taken back into the heart of nature, whence we came.”

- John Muir: “The Alaska Trip.” Wilderness Essays.

“The river is often used in literature as a metaphor for life, and aren’t both made richer by sharing the stories that occur along the way and isn’t that what life is about; creating and sharing memories, telling stories?”

- Don Miller: “The John Day Escape.” Life Afloat.

“It is all woven together now - the bird sounds, the forest smells, the anticipations of the coming season.  Now we know to go no matter what the weather will be and that, likely as not, we’ll come across some small event worth remembering… 

The North is rich with the glories of life.  Sometimes you have to poke your nose in the dirt, and sometimes you have to muck around in the swamps and sometimes you have to get up with the geese.

But it’s there, awaiting discovery.”

- Sam Cook: “Moving Pictures.” Quiet Magic.