If, as the philosopher Santayana famously asserted, “the longing to be primitive is a disease of culture,” then we have a ready explanation for the popularity of such anachronistic pleasures as cycling and canoeing. After all, these take us back to an earlier time, offering a taste of life as it was lived when most humans still had to depend on their muscles to get around. Of course, this is only a taste, and a rather sanitized and denatured one at that—as we’re reminded every so often, when nature’s caprices disturb our routines and challenge the comfortable certainties of our everyday lives.

I got just such a reminder last week, when a fast-moving storm delivered, first, torrential rain, then a glaze of ice, and lastly, heavy snow, all in the space of a single day. But I was lucky. The power stayed on, and the comfortable tenor of my workaday life continued undisturbed, even as thousands of my less-fortunate neighbors shivered in the dark. Still, I’ve already endured enough winter days without heat or light or running water to be thankful I have a second home sitting only a few feet from my desk, one that isn’t dependent on the local electric grid to maintain its habitability. I’m speaking of my getaway pack. It is, in Colin Fletcher’s memorable phrase, a “home on my back.” So long as I have it with me, I can never be truly, totally homeless.

In fact, any outdoor enthusiast’s closet or garage probably contains everything he (or she) needs to weather all but the most malign of nature’s fancies. If you can camp by a river for two weeks without discomfort, or spend a weekend above treeline on a mountain in winter, you can certainly keep yourself fed and warm in your house long after the lights go out. And if you have a Kindle 3G or a similarly thrifty tablet computer—and if the local cell network stays up—you’ll even be able to read about it in the papers!

Not convinced? Then take a look at this short list of items, all of which can be found in nearly every backcountry enthusiast’s collection of gear:

• • Warm clothing
• • Propane or alcohol cooker
• • Shelf-stable staple foods
• • Water-disinfection tablets
• • Sleeping bag
• • Battery-powered LED lantern
• • Headlamp

OK. These won’t keep you in the style to which you’ve become accustomed. But they will ensure that you’re adequately warm and reasonably well-fed, whatever the weather. And that’s what really matters, isn’t it? Sure it is! You’ll need to keep your head about you, of course. Using a cooker indoors is fraught with potential hazards to life and property, for instance. Yet anyone who’s managed to melt snow for drinking water in a two-man tent and then gone on to make a pot of stew in a blizzard, and done so without asphyxiating herself or burning down the tent, should be in no danger.

So the next time the weather forecast delivers lugubrious warnings of arctic gales and towering drifts, don’t panic. Just check your gear. Then settle back, secure in the knowledge that however wild the storm, your cold comforts are always at your side.

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Every year, as autumn gives way to winter, after the last wavering skein of geese has honked plaintively overhead and the beaver ponds where I paddled lazily in summer are covered with a skim of ice, I turn away from the water and spend as much time as I can among the trees. I’m almost never alone on these excursions. As I make my way through the woods, skirting the soggy fringes of bog and swamp, I often find myself on the receiving end of a brickbat thrown by a querulous red squirrel. Even more often, however, I hear him keeping pace with me, scurrying along some arboreal highway, silent and aloof, effortlessly matching my plodding progress along the ground. Much nearer at hand, chickadees, nuthatches, and brown creepers flit from tree to tree in search of seeds or hapless, half‑frozen grubs. Sometimes these little birds are joined by downy woodpeckers, who probe tirelessly beneath bark for more substantial fare, while every now and then the woods resound to the distant hammer blows of their much larger, crested cousin, the pileated woodpecker.

Yet despite all this activity, it’s the trees who emerge as the main characters in the story of my woodland rambles. There are tens of thousands of them in the narrow valley where I most often walk. And every one of these — the quick and the dead alike — plays a vital role in the forest ecology. Each is somebody’s home and a refuge in times of danger, as well as a source of food. After years spent crisscrossing the same square mile of land, I know them all, and while it wouldn’t occur to me to single out a favorite in the normal course of affairs, if you pressed me I’d probably choose the tamarack, Larix laricina. Some of you will know it as the larch or — though this is now seldom heard — the hackmatack, but I like the sound of “tamarack.” And I’m lucky to have a fine example growing in a hedgerow not far from my office window, where I can see it whenever I raise my eyes from my computer display.

Tamaracks are modest trees. Most of the year they blend into the background, looking much like any other conifer, at least to the casual eye. Unless you know them by sight — and their characteristic light‑green foliage does much to set them apart — or see one standing alone in an expanse of bog — this isn’t uncommon; tamaracks can thrive in even the wettest places, and they don’t like shade — you probably won’t take much notice of them during the paddling season. It’s only in late autumn, when most of us have already laid up our boats for the year, that the tamarack takes center stage, but once its turn in the footlights comes, the performance is a show‑stopper. This modest conifer has the capacity to surprise even the most jaded woods wanderer. After all, it’s the evergreen that isn’t… Read more…

Sea turtles don’t frequent my Adirondack home waters. (The fact that I live several hundred miles from the sea might have something to do with this, I suppose.) And they’re not often seen in UK waters in winter, either. But lately they’ve been washing up on beaches in Wales and Scotland, and the UK’s Marine Conservation Society is asking coastal walkers and boaters for help.

Why are warm-water species like the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley turtle suddenly turning up in cold northern seas? No one is sure, but it’s likely that recent storms may have altered surface currents, sweeping the unlucky turtles far from the warm waters where they normally winter. And while there’s nothing anyone can do about the weather, if you live in the UK there is something you can do to help stranded turtles. Dr. Peter Richardson of Marine Conservation Society’s tells how:

Our advice is that under no circumstances should stranded turtles be thrown back in the sea. While they may appear to be dead, they may in fact be comatose due to the cold conditions, and can be nursed back to health if immediately rescued and given expert care. [Even i]f they are dead, it is important that they are collected and stored for post-mortem examination. [Emphasis added]

You’ll find more information at the Marine Conservation Society’s website, where you can also download a PDF copy of the “UK Turtle Code.” And don’t forget: any stranded turtle, whether alive or dead, should be reported to Marine Environmental Monitoring on 01348 875000.

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