Journal | A genius, so to speak, for sauntering

I overhead some radio chatter this morning sugesting that the park plane would be heading out this way, so I spent most of the day hanging around the cabin waiting. It went to the upper lake to drop off some ...

Junketing with Fred Hirschman at the connecting stream today. He arrived yesterday at the upper lake and is planning to boat around the lower lake today in his motorized canoe. I arrived early, parked on the north shore and strolled ...

September begins, marking, at least in the mind, the frontier between boundless summer days and the quick advance of winter whose chilly emissaries have been flirting with the mountaintops for several weeks. The frost-teasing temperatures have russeted the recently bright-green ...

Ranger Cabin, Lower Twin Lake >Omni die renovare debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: >nunc hodie perfecte incipiamus, quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus For whatever reason—perhaps an impish desire to explore the narrative possibilities of this journal, or maybe to create ...

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, >With charm of earliest Birds Or so says Eve in Paradise Lost. Well let me tell you something about the charm of earliest birds: there is a resident robin who thinks ...

On the shelf in the cabin sits Hultén’s “Flora of Alaska.” It’s a nice book, but not exactly the sort of page turner which keeps you up late at night reading and, as with most dichotomous keys, it is perfectly ...

The squirrels are noisy as they rummage around in their garden squirrelly delights, so when I heard a rustling in the brush I assumed it was one of my noisy, busy neighbors. In the time it takes to say, “that’s ...

The weather showed her complete repertoire today. The day began with a slight breeze and high, bright overcast. Around 10:30 the wind kicked up to about 40 knots and the bay filled with white caps. By 11:00 it was raining—at ...

Ranger Cabin, Chinitna Bay In his Dictionary of Received Ideas, Flaubert satirically defines the Railroad thus: >Enthuse about them saying, >“I, my dear sir, who am speaking to you now, was >at X this morning. I took the train to ...

If I wasn’t such a slave to truth I would never admit it, but I was roused from my honey-heavy dew of slumber by the voice of Jerry at Telaquana on the radio. I am, you see, rather more capable ...

Spike's Cabin, Upper Twin Lake I arrived in the cabin this afternoon, took a quick paddle in the kayak—one must avail oneself to a calm lake when one has the chance—met a hiker and her guide camping nearby, and made ...