Camp Time
A few reflections on spending time at our remote Adirondack cabin..
A switch clicks into place, the world comes to a standstill, all the petty politics and stupidity and obligations fading away as I kill the motor and drift those last few feet dockside, grab hold of an aluminum rail and figure eight the stern line onto the cleat, loop the midship line into place as I unload grocery bags, my small suitcase, a hamper of cleaned sheets and bedspreads and towels and step from the unsteady rocking of the boat onto the steady dock, grab as much as I can for the first trip and walk the shadowy, pine needle and leaf-fall cushioned trail up to the clearing to where our small cabin waits. That first twist of the key, that entry into the light-filled, pine planked sweet camp smell, everything tidy and ready, just as we left it.
Though just a three minute, full-throttled ferry across not even a mile of water (not 10 minutes to a small, charming Adirondack hamlet, 5 to a liquor store), 50+ miles of unbroken wilderness runs from the back of our property westward—cherry and yellow and white birch, spruce and pine, maple and beech, beaver dams and swamplands, the squiggly blue lines of creeks and streams, no-name and named ponds and small lakes and large sprawling lakes and rivers damed into lakes and hills and small mountains and old logging roads, abandoned fire towers, the blue plastic squares hammered to trees that mark old hunting trails and the fire rings of old hunting encampments, deer and beaver and black bear and fisher cat and bobcat and coyote and probably even a wolf or two, the occasional moose.
We are on camp time here, the first of the morning sun reflecting off the lake then up through the leaves creating a chiaroscuro of shimmering shadowy light on our bedroom wall. The low moaning echoey call of a lone loon, then an identical response carries out across the morning mist from the far side of the lake. Call. Respond. Call. Respond. As I prepare a morning coffee, I feel as if I’m hearing, am now an integral part of, a holy service as old as time, bringing my coffee down the trail lakeside, I’m walking down the aisle, the morning light blinding me, making my eyes water, the loon silhouetted there, seeming to hover in between air and water, sky and land, bound by neither. I walk between the pews of Adirondack forest up to the altar of my shoreside deck, settle down into my seat, my steaming coffee a kind of miracle itself, the loon ascending the altar of the sky calling out in its ancient, unchanged tongue.
Always there will be the 2 mile walk with the dogs up the wide snowmobile trail abandoned by most in summer. The dogs, Charlie, our crazy-goofy-“extra” but loving and kind Gordon Setter and Prudence, a rescue, part lab part shepherd part other things but all sweet and gentle, both jet black streaks tearing out ahead of us then circling back, always coming for their new dried liver treats sent from their biggest fan, our daughter. There will be mad chasing and wrassling, Charlie always vocal, imploring Prudy to make chase, to follow me, follow me, he seems to say, he almost says, chastising when she wanders too far afield, up over a rise out of view, the water always now a dog magnet, the shore along this side of the lake all shallows and good for fast-dashing in a frothy spray, startling mergansers and mallards squawking angrily out from their shady, mid morning haunts.
An array of water vessels offer an array of possibilities: the 5-weight fly rod and a box of small poppers and Clouser minnows, the carbon kayak paddle dropped into the Hornbeck canoe, and a short paddle along the shoreline in either direction can bring you to catching small smallmouth bass who fight so much beyond their size and always seem larger until they appear alongside with still maybe a run or two left and you stab at their lower lip with thumb and the side of forefinger and lift them golden green and deeply striped and red-eyed, remove the fly, and they swim away with a big soaking tail splash.
For bigger quarry, more remote, no motor boats allowed fishing, I can set the Hornbeck into my 60s aluminum Grumman, zip across the lake, strap her to the roof rack, drive a few miles, and launch, my eight-weight fly rod now my weapon of choice, bigger, bushier, noisier flies in their big, translucent boxes stacked in my boat bag (a plastic shopping bag) and paddle out into the dense cover of lily pads and slowly work a floating fly across that carpet of thick, shimmering green always expecting the explosion from below, a large largemouth careening upwards with abandon thinking my fly a real, ample meal.
The sunfish sailboat, always ready beneath its canvas tarp and PVC plumbing pipe house, bungee corded into place so the mast doesn’t rub, so the sides don’t clang (too hard) into the metal dock legs can be ready in less than a minute. I can release bungees, ease her out, push down the rudder till it snaps into place, raise the sail and boom and secure it with its deck cleat, slide the daggerboard into its slot and jump aboard and feel the wind take hold and carry me away.
I might venture out into the forest alone with just a small jackknife, my big wicker basket, and move slowly through the shadowy moist forest, eyes downward, scanning, remembering the places where I’ve found them before, hyper alert, deeply focused. A flash of yellow orange becomes a lone, large chanterelle, a brownish reddish, bulbous and unmissable mushroom the magically blue staining scarletina bolete. Another flash of yellowish orange has white, speckles all across its yellow-orange cap, the unmistakable markings of the amanita family. Eat one of these without proper, extensive preparation, and you will find yourself on a magical mystery tour that could well end in your own death. Every rotting trunk bears close examination for the small, round, not yet grey and spore-powder-filled puffball. In the mid to late fall, I now know the place to go for yellow-foots (winter chanterelles)—their brown, leaf-colored caps hiding their bright yellow stems—these the one mushroom I’ve been able to harvest in real abundance here. I dry them on cookie sheets held above the surface of my wood stove with a few pots, store them in glass jars and rehydrate and toss them into omelets and stews all winter long.
Dark skies and an infinity of stars on clear nights can be counted upon still, skies like I remember from my childhood before we made too many people, built too many structures, turned on all our electric lights. The barred owls will come hoo-hooing close by or far away across the lake or far away through the infinity of trees and hills and streams. The loons will make their night whoops, and the dogs will lift their ears, Charlie barking, staring out into the ancient darkness toward some distant trace of the wildness that once ran through his kin. If the fisher cat calls out or a pack of coyotes shriek out their horror movie soundtracks, Charlie will go silent and curl, wide-eyed, into the center of his bed beneath the table, and I might walk out along the trail up toward the deep woods and turn off my flashlight, the darkness exactly the same whether my eyes are open or closed.
If you’ve been enjoying my writing, please consider doing any/all of the following:
Help me grow my audience by Sharing this post or my main site with a few people you think might enjoy it as well.
Upgrade your subscription to paid. For only $.14/day, you can help me continue to devote the many hours I do each week to writing, editing and promoting this page.
JourneyCasts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
You can also help a lot by making a one-time contribution at any time by “buying me a coffee” (or two). And certainly a good amount of real coffee has gone into the making of JourneyCasts.
As always, I encourage you to leave a comment.
Be sure to check out my podcast, “Hemingway, Word for Word.”
Another outstanding piece by a great wordsmith. The best compliment I can pay you is to say that your powerful evocation of a time and place I don’t have any particular affinity for actually makes me long for it :) It is the mark of a highly gifted writer to convey a visceral appreciation for what most compels him and to seduce the reader. You have certainly done that , Arnie 👏👏👏!!
Ohhhhhh man, Arnie, I am dripping with envy. And so glad for you and that Cabin ‼️‼️❤️❤️👍