THE MYSTERIOUS SIGN: In my wilderness guiding years, spanning decades and thousands of miles of ‘canoe country,’ we would sometimes come across the famous, red-tinged rock paintings of the North. Pictographs. The red color due to the ferous oxide compound used to make them. The paintings are always haunting and mysterious, their creation dating back hundreds, even thousands of years,
I DECIDED to go out for a country walk, for as John Muir said, “Going out is really going in.” It would be the sort of walk much favored by me, with no identifiable goal or ambition. Just to see things and think about them, or not think about them as the case may be. Immediately after stepping out the
ONE OF THE GREAT pleasures of being a countryman, or a woodsman-or-woman, is simply going for a walk. And looking for stuff. In the winter this can prominently include tracks. I especially like finding otter ‘slides,’ places where these playful and delightful creatures gallop along, flop onto their bellies, and just glide—sometimes for 20 or 30 feet, on the level