The girl found The River irresistible. Whenever she could, she scrambled over the cliff that rose precipitously from the swift waters. The snowmelt‑swollen spring torrents carved deep potholes in the cliff’s sheer walls, and when the floods receded, the girl sometimes found stranded trout in those dark recesses, swimming frantically in futile circles. That’s when she taught herself how to tickle trout, catching the imprisoned fish in her hands before returning them to The River. It was a difficult job, even a dangerous one at times, but seeing the trout swim free was all the reward that she asked — or wanted.

When she wasn’t climbing the cliff, the girl often dabbled in The River’s shallows, turning over cobbles to see who might be living under them. And sometimes she spent hours doing nothing more than watching The River flow — watching as it swirled around boulders, leapt over drops, and then reared up in steep standing waves, only to subside into ripples and linger long in tranquil moving pools.

In winter, however, she reluctantly turned her back on The River, exploring the woods that ran for many miles along its banks. She almost never ventured onto The River’s frozen margins. Her brother had died doing just that. The ringing ice that had seemed so solid when he stepped out on it proved to be as fragile as fine crystal, plunging him into the swift, dark waters, a prison from which there was no parole. It was a lesson the girl was unlikely to forget. So, when her world assumed an arctic aspect, the woods became her refuge. She slogged along on babiche bearpaws, following the tracks of fisher, fox, and hare, while towering white pines stood silent witness to her passage and spindrift sparkled in the winter sun.

She never once questioned her need to be outside in all seasons. It had marked her from her earliest days. Perhaps, as the saying then went, it was in her blood. Her father, too, was a woods‑wanderer and frequenter of secret waters, a farm boy who, early on in life, had traded his tractor for a rod and rifle. Remarkably — this just wasn’t done in those days — he nurtured his daughter’s bump of curiosity, sharing his love of wild places with her whenever the opportunity arose… Read more…

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Car trips to faraway places were a rare treat when I was a youngster. This was in the day when most families were lucky to have one car, never mind three. And while it’s true that the price of gasoline was then measured in gallons per dollar rather than the other way round, household incomes were a whole lot less than they are today. So the family car was mostly reserved for my father’s daily commute. Road trips were luxuries. Still, my Grandad lived in the Adirondacks, and we made the drive from the New York‑Vermont border to the magical realm beyond the fabled Blue Line as often as we could. (What’s the “Blue Line,” you ask? A line drawn in blue ink marked the boundary of the Adirondack Forest Preserve on early maps, and today this Blue Line is synonymous with the Adirondack Park.)

As you might expect, on each of our infrequent family outings I climbed into the car in a state of barely controlled excitement. I was unmoved by the charms of the rural landscape between my home and the Blue Line. The overgrazed pastures and hardscrabble farms of dairy country seemed to slip by with agonizing slowness, until, at along last, I could see distant shadows rising from the horizon. These, I knew, marked the start of the Adirondack foothills. At first slowly, then with increasing rapidity, individual peaks emerged from among the shadows, as cultivated fields gave way to wetlands and deciduous trees ceded space to stands of conifers. Soon the highway wound around ragged outcrops and skirted sheer cliffs, while my heart danced a happy triphammer beat.

Our progress often seemed frustratingly sedate. The Adirondack Northway ended at Lake George in those days, and traffic slowed to a crawl at every crossroads hamlet. Impatient as I was to get to Grandad’s camp, however, there was an upside to our stately passage. Each small town boasted a craft‑and‑curio shop, and we kids could sometimes persuade my father to stop at one. We didn’t buy much — cash was always in short supply, and the gas for the trip consumed most of my family’s discretionary income — but the shops were fascinating places to explore, nonetheless. Miniature bark canoes hung suspended from the ceilings like fish on a stringer, and wonderfully fragrant pillow‑shaped balsam sachets were piled high on the shelves. Most of the sachets bore some sort of embroidered legend, with “For you I pine/For you I balsam” being a favorite. Impossibly corny? Of course. But we kids thought that this overwrought pun was the height of wit. The writer E. B. White must have thought so, too, because an identical balsam sachet, bearing the selfsame legend, makes an appearance in Stuart Little, his enduringly popular children’s book, as does a miniature bark canoe.

I loved the smell of those sachets, and it wasn’t long before I learned to identify the aromatic scent of balsam with the deep Adirondack woods. Not that balsam firs are limited to the Adirondacks. In fact, their range more or less coincides with the geographic boundaries of Canoe Country, extending from Alberta to Newfoundland and from Minnesota to Maine. That said, balsam has more than its pleasant smell going for it. In the words of professor E. H. Ketchledge, it’s “The Most Beautiful of all [North] American Conifers”… Read more…

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If you’re already getting tired of scraping ice from your car’s windshield, why not take an early winter break to someplace warm—west-central Florida, say? Better yet, save your money and let Contributing Photographer Pat McKay take you on a virtual tour of some of the wilder corners of that fascinating state, which he last visited in late October. As luck would have it, Pat spent a lot of time in a kayak, and, as he notes, …

It's amazing how close you can get to wildlife when you approach them from the water in a stealthy little kayak. But the alligators do give one pause.

Still, you can’t say you haven’t been warned:

Toothy saurians notwithstanding, Florida certainly makes paddlers welcome, …

And it wasn’t long before Pat was hobnobbing with one of the local gentry:

But he never was one to outstay his welcome, so he paddled off to have a chat with a great blue heron, …

Who seems to have had a lot to say. This sandhill crane, on the other hand, was more of a strong, silent type, …

And not very sociable, to be honest:

Whereas this youngster, a little blue heron, was more outgoing, …

And this night heron didn’t seem the least bit sleepy:

A little further along, a roseate spoonbill pauses to exchange pleasantries with Pat, …

While a wood stork shows off his catch of the day:

This red-shouldered hawk, on the other hand, seems a little standoffish, …

Unlike this deer, who just appears surprised:

There’s a lot going on ashore, too, as brilliant butterflies compete for Pat’s attention. Take this Gulf fritillary, …

Or this rather pugnacious zebra longwing:

Of course, not everyone you meet is addicted to bling. A hoary edge skipper shows us that a subdued outfit in muted earthtones can be chic, too:

While knocking around ashore, Pat found himself in this peaceful setting, the Duchene Lawn at Historic Spanish Point, whose long views are framed by a portal that bears a passing resemblance to the torii greeting visitors to Shinto shrines:

Back on the water, Pat met another member of the local aquatocracy:

Here’s what Pat has to say about their encounter:

I was using zone focusing as I drifted up on a big gator snoozing on the bank. But as I approached, the alligator suddenly decided that it was time to take a swim. It quickly passed through my pre-focused depth-of-field while heading for the water as I snapped the shot, threw down the camera, and began to backpaddle madly in the opposite direction.

Good idea! It doesn’t do to linger overlong when calling on new acquaintances, though Pat was soon to have another chance meeting:

As you progress up the creek, the banks become steeper and the waterway increasingly narrow. When I had reached a point where the creek is no wider than, say, 15 to 20 feet, I suddenly felt something rubbing along the bottom of the kayak. It was not a submerged log. It appeared to have ridges of some sort. And it created a kind of pulsing sensation as it passed. No sooner had I experienced this when I struck something in the water with my paddle. The water was very dark with tannin, limiting visibility. Well the mystery was soon solved as a large alligator tail suddenly appeared directly next to the kayak, slapped the water, and left me soaked (and a little shaken).

Which just goes to show that you sometimes have to rely on the kindness of strangers when you’re getting to know a new place.

Maybe, like me, you’d like to learn just how Pat got these wonderful shots. If so, you’re in luck. Here’s a page from his notebook:

All images were shot with a Canon PowerShot SX40 HS. Many were taken in Shutter Priority mode, but I also used zone focusing for a number of pictures. My brother sent me some info on understanding DOF (depth of field), and I tried to put this to good use when drifting up on wildlife in the kayak. I guess it was a little like doing street photography in that I just had time to compose the pic and shoot before my subject was gone. Creamy bokeh is not very realistic with a slow lens, and I was more concerned about keeping the subject in focus than I was with eliminating detail in the background. I figured that the naturally dark background would help to isolate the subject anyway.

What can I say? Pat not only gave those of us in the frozen North a welcome holiday from shoveling and scraping, he also let us in on the secrets behind his breathtaking photos. Such generosity of spirit is indeed rare—and very welome.

Pat McKay is a Tamia Nelson’s Outside Contributing Photographer.

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Further Reading

• “The Inquiring Eye,” a collection of photography articles from Tamia Nelson’s Outside—scroll the titles to find Pat McKay’s contributions.
• “Backcountry Photography: The Point‑and‑Shoot Option”

 

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