The Great Midwest

Susan and I just completed our Fall tour of the upper Midwest and I’m sharing here a couple of posts resulting from this expedition, posted recently on woodrisebooks.com, my new outdoors blog.

Embrace The Wild – Keep the Change

Ownership of some of the land we’d just passed through had changed since we’d last visited and we were now barred from entry. This favorite stretch, first described by me in my book The Dying Fish, was now part of someone’s private preserve and we aren’t allowed in.

Wild and Wonderful Blog Post

I ate many types of animals early in the trip. Soon my animal crackers ran out though and I realized that I’d need to go foraging for things like mushrooms

Of Flowages and Fire

The ground was soggy as we sloshed back in on this early January day. We parked at a place that I’ll never reveal to walk in to a stream I’ll never name.

Weeding

We strive to achieve perfection, every shrub and flower in its assigned place, looking its best, and nothing else crowding things and making a mess, nothing interfering with appearances or first impressions.

Walking

Walking can be thought of as the basis of almost all your further activities in the wild.

Welcome to the Forest

So, I’m turning over a new leaf today, at least for a while, and writing a series on the basics – how to get started outdoors from square one, from venturing out your back door to pursuing fish to survival.

It’s Still Worth Saving

“Now I ask you: what can be expected of man as a being endowed with such strange qualities? Shower him with all earthly blessings, drown him in happiness completely, over his head, so that only bubbles pop up on the surface of happiness, as on water; give him such economic satisfaction that he no longer […]

Rise of the Elk

I think we often underestimate how early environmental devastation came to the eastern states. Around 1800, the Connecticut River had been dammed and one of the inestimable runs of shad and Atlantic Salmon halted. Maine lost most of its evergreens (and hardwoods too) in the early 1800’s. It’s tall pines had gone for ship masts […]

The Land of the Living

I can look around the forest and field of Westmoreland County and I can see environmental devastation. I can see fragmented forest that’s a dim reflection of the primeval Seventeenth Century canopy. I can see bright orange streams, tainted for decades by the arteries of acidic water ruptured during the heyday of deep bituminous coal […]

the dying fish

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environment