August 19, 2010

A good wood cooking fire begins with kindling gathered in the nearby forest. Click to enlarge

Sure, you can use a compact gas grill or a charcoal grill when picnicking or camping. But there is something satisfying about knowing how to cook competently over a wood fire, preferably  a fire made from kindling and firelogs gathered in the woods.

Hartford Courant photographer Steve Dunn photographing a wood cooking fire. Click to enlarge

A campfire of wood is more than just a source of heat, of course, as I point out in my Walkabout column in The Hartford Courant Saturday, August 21. It is a gathering place, too, the hub of a picnic site or a campsite. You can gather around the gas grill, too, I suppose, but, uh, it’s not quite the same.

I spent a couple of hours the other morning building a fire at a picnic spot along Beaver Brook in Barkhamsted, Ct. It wasn’t as quick as lighting briquettes or a gas stove, for sure. I began with kindling gathered nearby, and added larger chunks of hardwood. It took more than an hour to develop a good bed of coals for cooking. But tending the fire, getting it just so, is part of the pleasure of camp cooking over wood.

I made a little vegetable stew in an aluminum foil packet, put some chicken pieces right on the grill and baked a simple camp bread called bannock in a cast iron frying pan. In all, the fire and the cooking took close to two hours, two relaxing hours.

Courant photographer Steve Dunn’s photos accompany the column Saturday. He and I had no trouble wolfing down our wood-fire lunch.

August 11, 2010

At Farmington, Ct.

On a day that would become hot and humid, it was a most pleasant morning in the kayak, the temperature in the low 70s at 7 a.m., the surface of Lake Dunning glass-like. I was the only boater on the lake, as often happens, but my summer paddling company, as always happens, was a glance away.

Lake Dunning in Farmington, Ct., is a quiet, lightly-developed pond. (Click to enlarge.)

The kingfisher appeared first, launching from a tree on the shore and heading across the water, chattering loudly the whole while, as if annoyed, which in fact I suspect is exactly what the chattering is about, if I might ascribe human feelings to an avian creature. Spotted sandpipers bobbed their tails as they walked the shoreline, suddenly darting out over the water, then circling back to shore, and all over again, as they do. The green heron, usually tucked into a leafy refuge over the water, almost impossible to see, stood motionless on a small, protruding, pebbly piece of shoreline, as if to ensure I would not miss it. When I approached it flew no more than 20 feet into a water’s-edge branch, facing me, every detail on display, most notably the rich chestnut color of its neck. Six young mallards passed to my left, no mother in sight, and for the first time this season did not take flight at my appearance. Likewise, the great blue heron tolerated me more than usual as I passed too close to its shoreline perch, the black streaks against white throat, the golden bill, the rufous thighs, each crisply defined in the soft light of a cloudy morning. Passing one of two islands in the lake, a kingbird moved from one branch to another, not 15 feet away. It was as if the whole outing was somehow choreographed, a performance meant to assure me that, no matter how quickly this summer is flying by, no matter that many of the birds will migrate south in coming weeks or months, the show continues, and I should appreciate the moment.

July 17, 2010

The Allagash Wilderness Waterway in northern Maine is one of the great canoe-camping rivers in America. It flows for 92 miles through some of the wildest country left in New England, emptying into the St. John River on the Canadian border.

Kevin Slater in the stern navigating the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in northern Maine

If the great rivers and mountains of New England speak to you, summon you, soothe you, then the Allagash is one of those places you have to experience. I’ve paddled all or part of the waterway three times, but until a couple of months ago, I hadn’t been on the river since 1975 – way too long to be away from the ‘Gash. My account of the latest Allagash trip appears Sunday, July 18, on the Travel section cover of The Hartford Courant.

Our trip in late May was typical river travel, which is to say, unpredictable. Weather, as always, was the master, determining more than almost anything else what a day would be like. You pay attention to the weather when you are canoe camping. We didn’t have rain, but we had wind in our faces, and we adjusted. Sometimes you just don’t paddle as far as you planned.

Our group of seven was led by Kevin Slater of Mahoosuc Guide Service in Newry, Maine. We traveled in grand style, late 19th Century style, in wood-and-canvas canoes Slater built himself. Our meals were prepared from scratch over wood fires.

Meanwhile, I got my first good look at the Allagash in 35 years. Unlike so much of the rest of the U. S., it was comparatively unchanged, as if Gerald Ford was still president, as if decades of the nation’s suburban sprawl were erased. Thank goodness that the Allagash, a nationally-designated and state-administered Wild and Scenic River, is still a linear waterway of connected river and lakes, cradled by forest, forever protected. Woods and water and wildlife and almost nothing else. We need more of that.