“To those devoid of imagination a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.”
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other Essays on Conservation from Round River

"The Canoe Country. . .

How can one sum up this wild and lonely land? There is no easy way. It must be known in glory and adversity,. In cold and wet and sun and wind. In sky lines and rock and surging water. In the men of the party who, through the struggles of each day, become a sort of community of saints, dedicated to a concern for each man but sounding very little like saints at all.

To make such a journey is to stand very near to splendor and to sense it for the delicate and wondrous thing it really is. And, it must be held to carefully in photographs and in words but mostly in memory. For, despite the promises we make, way does lead on to way, and perhaps we shall never come back."

From "Canoe Route to Fishing Adventure" by Roger Drayna, © (used by permission)


I found this on a little note paper in Canadian Waters' gift shop after our first canoe trip in 1971. Bought a box of 8 note cards and took them home, and then after writing on 7 of them, I framed the last one to hang on the wall. A few years ago I wrote to Roger and asked permission to use it on the message boards. It was from an article he wrote for "Field and Stream" about his fishing trips in the Quetico.

I really like his writing. The essay on sawing through the log is one of my all time favorites.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Robert Frost

"You're never lost if you don't care where you are in the first place."

-My buddy Mike to me, somewhere in Maine

"trust me, this is a shortcut" My buddy said and was wrong

"I'd rather wake up in the middle of nowhere, then in any city on earth."----Steve McQueen.

"@%&%#@!!!!!.... Another snag!!!!!

You packed the steaks that were in the freezer right?

"It may be asked, What have mountains fifty or a hundred miles away to do with Twenty Hill Hollow? To lovers of the wild, these mountains are not a hundred miles away. Their spiritual power and the goodness of the sky make them near, as a circle of friends. They rise as a portion of the hilled walls of the Hollow. You can not feel yourself out of doors; plain, sky and mountains ray beauty which you feel. You bathe in these spirit-beams, turning round and round, as if warming at a camp-fire. Presently you lose consciousness of your own separate existence: you blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel of nature. "

John Muir

That poem made my whole week, thank you

Where did you put the map?
.
.
.
.
What map?
.
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.
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Super....

swim naked and never look back...

"Life is short; grab a paddle".

"Hearses don't have canoe racks".

"You can dance with the river, but you have to know the steps".

"Everybody has to do something; I think I'll go paddling".

"Whitewater; paddle or die".

"Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe".

"Endeavour to perservere".

BOB

splash through bogs
eat like hogs
sleep like logs

"A map on a wall,
a dream in the making,
a tugging at one's soul.
for those who feel the tug,
who make the dream happen,
who put the map in the
packsack and go,
the world is never quite the same."
-Sam Cook

"I knew then I had found the place I had always wanted to be."
-John J Rowlands, canoeing, on seeing the remote lake of his boyhood dreams.

"When you get down to hardpan, the whole business of living in the wilderness, finding your way about, and avoiding the dangers, is much a matter of common sense and getting the habit of observing everything closely."
-John J Rowlands

Matt (non Board member): What do you know about this portage coming up?

Bojibob: Well.... Ho Ho said its fairly level and pretty easy.

Matt: What's a Who Huh?

Ho Ho is now referred to as "Who Huh" when I provide actual quotes in the Wilderness :-)

“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”

- Frank Lloyd Wright

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer."

Albert Camus

"The wilderness is the source of all strenght."

from the pen of Louis L'Amour

"Now I see the secret of making the best persons. It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth." - Walt Whitman

"Nature is not a place to visit, it is home." - Gary Snyder

"Laws change; people die; the land remains.” - Abraham Lincoln

"I go because it irons out the wrinkles in my soul." -- Sigurd Olson

"I hear the mountains (wilderness) calling and I must answer."

Fish on, Damm fish off!!

"youve got to be kidding me". mostly used on portages.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
there is a rapture on the lonely shore,
there is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
From these our interviews, in which I steal
from all I may be, or have been before,
to mingle with the universe
and feel what I can ne'er express,
yet can not all conceal.

-Lord Byron

After weeks of watching the roof leak,
I fixed it tonight,
by moving a single board.

-Gary Snyder

"Why the hell do they have to slap their tails on the water when I'm trying to go to sleep?"

“The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask.”

Nancy Wynne Newhall

The way that you wander
Is the way that you are,
A day that you tarry
You don't go far,

Sunshine or thunder
A man will always wonder
Where the fair wind blows,
Where the fair wind blows.

Theme song from "Jeremiah Johnson"

quote OBX2Kayak: ""I go because it irons out the wrinkles in my soul." -- Sigurd Olson"

Possibly the best quote of all :-)

quote sunnybear09: "The way that you wander
Is the way that you are,
A day that you tarry
You don't go far,


Sunshine or thunder
A man will always wonder
Where the fair wind blows,
Where the fair wind blows.


Theme song from "Jeremiah Johnson""

Awww! Love that movie!

"The man who walks is the man who knows the land".
-- Richard Proenneke

He was referring to his preference of hiking the mountains versus people who flew over them.

Thanks for the great quotes. When on a trip with the teen grand kids, I will read one to the group at breakfast and evening fire.

Thanks keep them coming! Saves me research.

"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?'"

~Aldo Leopold

"The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders."

Edward Abbey.

quote h20: ""The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders."

Edward Abbey."

"March and April are the wet, muddy months down below. Some folks like 'em...mostly farmers."

Darned double-tap.

"…short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things..."
Theodore Roosevelt

Some people feel the rain.
Others just get wet.
Roger Miller

...I glassed the area over and over for anything that moved and would be of interest to the tourists. True to form. They like to see it but waste little time looking.

Dick Proenneke

Born a poor young country boy
Mother Nature's son
All day long I'm sitting singing songs for everyone

Sit beside a mountain stream
see her waters rise
listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies

Find me in my field of grass
Mother Natures Son
Swaying daisies sing a lazy song beneath the sun

~Lennon/McCartney~

quote kanoes: ""youve got to be kidding me". mostly used on portages."

+1

"Water reflects not only clouds and trees and cliffs, but all the infinite variations of mind and spirit we bring to it." – Sigurd Olson

"Don't you sit upon the shoreline and say you're satisfied, choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tide." -Garth Brooks

"Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe."
Henry David Thoreau