Deep Woods Wild Waters

Wait, young Douglas’s grandfather says as the bobber twitches on the surface of Little Lake. Be patient. And so begins an encounter with the promise and wonder of nature that will last a lifetime. Deep Woods, Wild Waters traces the winding path that carried Douglas Wood from one wonder to the next, through a landscape of rocks, woods, and waters, with stops along the way for questions and reflections that link human nature to the larger mysteries of the natural world. Like life itself, the author’s way is not linear. One landmark leads back to a favorite campsite, another prompts him to consider the “gospel of rocks,” another launches him into the wilderness beyond the stars—a contemplation of time and space and humanity’s place in all of it. The creator of thirty-four books, including the classic Old Turtle, and an expert woodsman and wilderness canoe guide, Wood brings all his storytelling and bushwhacking skills to bear as he takes us hurtling down wild rapids, crossing stormy lakes, or simply navigating the treacherous currents and twisty trails of everyday life. A warm, generous, and knowing guide, Wood maps a journey that, as he says, “anyone can take, through a landscape anyone can know.” Turning the pages, hiking the portages, running the rapids, or scanning the wild country from high promontory, he invites us to say, in a soul-satisfying moment of recognition, “I know that place.”

A soul-satisfying journey through the wilderness that uncovers hope, healing, and the abiding grace of wild things A Wild Path is author Douglas Wood’s highly anticipated followup to the critically acclaimed memoir Deep Woods, Wild Waters. He again leads readers along a meditative path through a wilderness of many dimensions—from the lakes and islands of his beloved Canoe Country to rugged ocean coasts to a mountain chasm, from camping on the Canadian Shield to listening to the soft strains of Beethoven in the pines, and from the pain of childhood wounds to appreciation for a life rich with nature. As on every good journey, there is plenty of laughter, warmth, and humor on the trail. With the generosity and compassion of a good wilderness guide, Douglas Wood welcomes readers to accompany him as he navigates his life-path from struggling student and “worst reader in the class” to prolific writer and best-selling author. He offers courage and hope to those who feel different or left behind, and he shares how he found, through the counsel of rocks, trees, and waters, his own way toward joy and wonder and an unshakable sense of belonging. Exploring the meanings of myriad outdoor experiences, Wood seeks to understand the importance and existence of beauty, the emotional poignancy of a wilderness sunset, and the realization of dreams, while also honoring his outdoor and literary mentors, including Sigurd Olson and Aldo Leopold. Traveling across continents, over oceans, and through the landscape of time, A Wild Path ranges from solitary shorelines of introspection to peaks of triumph, finding rest and tranquility in a simple cup of jasmine tea, sipped by a campfire under the stars.

Fawn Island is a place where crows serve as alarm clocks, white-throated sparrows leave the tracks of their songs upon the evening hush, and chickadees help a woodsman learn to whistle. The island is also a jumping-off place for journeys large and small, earthly and spiritual-to nearby Mallard Island, Gull Island, or Bald Rock, by sea kayak into the wild recesses of sprawling Voyageurs National Park, or on a midnight paddle in which the paddler can reach the silent wilderness of the stars themselves. In his latest book, best-selling author Douglas Wood guides the reader on a deep journey into the heart of the North Woods. For Wood, Fawn Island is not merely a charming wilderness hideaway; it is the entry to realms of thought and meaning as well. From its pine-clad shores he probes for insights into the nature of neighborliness and independence, of community and solitude. Out of an ancient Ojibwe legend comes an exploration of personal loss and life after death. Wood questions the notion of being a “force of nature” and the concept of the passage of time in the context of seemingly eternal trees, lakes, rock ledges, and stars. From beneath the ascending trunks of pines comes an inquiry into the principles of optimism and, finally, a personal response to the eternal question: Is the universe a friendly place? Embedded in the text like roots of the island’s pines is Wood’s gentle, self-effacing humor and the author’s own original pen-and-ink drawings that superbly evoke the poetry and mystery of this “small bit of rock and tree,” this “lucky place” in the wilderness.

Presents a collection of natural history essays, written between 1871 and 1912, discussing the four seasons, the Catskill Mountains, the Maine woods, Yosemite, and coastal Alaska

John Burroughs is generally credited with having popularized the American nature essay as a literary genre. He journeyed to Yellowstone with President Theodore Roosevelt and hiked around the Grand Canyon and the Yosemite Valley with John Muir. Collected here are natural history essays from the books that span Burroughs's most productive years, from 1871 to 1912. In these essays, Burroughs writes of the seasons, of his beloved Catskill Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Maine woods, and the far west of Yosemite and coastal Alaska. Burroughs set the tone for a literary tradition that continues today. As Richard F. Fleck notes in the introduction: "Surely all American nature writers owe some debt to John Burroughs who takes the reader along the trail and gives him the sight, sound, and scent of the deep woods."

Excerpt from The Hollow Tree and Deep Woods Book: Being a New; Edition in One Volume of the Hollow Tree and in the Deep Woods With Several New Stories and Pictures Added About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"From the Deep Woods to Civilization" we will hear of a single-hearted quest throughout eighteen years of adolescence and early maturity, for the attainment of the modern ideal of Christian culture. It is clearly impossible to tell the whole story, but much that cannot be told may be read "between the lines." The broad outlines, the salient features of an uncommon experience are here set forth in the hope that they may strengthen for some readers the conception of our common humanity. "Indian Boyhood," presents the incredible adventurous childhood and youth which were a part of the free wilderness life of the first American — a life that is gone forever. By dint of much persuasion, the story has now been carried on from the point of that plunge into the unknown with which the first book ends, a change so abrupt and so overwhelming that the boy of fifteen "felt as if he were dead and travelling to the spirit land." In his second autobiography