In the field: by Foster Huntington
Each morning my grandfather wakes at sunrise, marches up the five staggered stairs to his crows nest, and scans the 360 degree view. As a shepherd the crows nest proved valuable, enabling him to quickly locate his sheep in the fields surrounding his Adell, Wisconsin farm. Perhaps it’s his time spent in the Army in his twenties but almost a decade after selling his last sheep my grandfather still walks up the stairs to inspect the area.
Like walking up a nearby hill for a better view, I spent a lot of time enjoying sunrises and sunsets in the solitude of the crows nest on a recent trip back to Wisconsin. Once in the morning and once in the evening: I photographed the stairs in the natural light.
Foster Huntington is the man behind one of our favorite blogs, A Restless Transplant. He lives and works in New York City.
Sketches of Philmont, by Nick Zdon
In July of 2000, at the age of 19, I left my home state of Minnesota for the second time for Philmont Scout Ranch. Situated in the northeast corner of New Mexico, Philmont hosts Boy Scout troops from all over the world for high adventure backpacking and camping in the New Mexico mountains. Before leaving I made the decision to keep a journal of the entire trip, something I’d never done before. It wasn’t until recently that I rediscovered the journal in my apartment, I had almost forgetten about the small sketches I’d drawn to accompany the writing. These sketches were done in the brief moments during trail rests or in the early evenings after setting up camp. The entries describe life on the trail with 6 adolescent boys, dehydrated dinners, dirty clothes, dirty jokes, and musings on particular members of the opposite sex. I find the journal enjoyable to read, even if I do feel the same twinge I get when I see my photo in my senior yearbook. But having the Philmont experience bundled into the worn pages of the journal, It’s not just a way for me to remember the memories, but also a measure of how much I’ve grown since those ten days in the mountains of New Mexico. I should journal more often.
I’ve chosen a few of the sketches and journal entries to share. Enjoy.
7-21-00, 1:30pm, South Dakota
We are now back on the road. The sky is dark and the rain is slight. Everyone in the van seems more sedate. Our early morning departure from the Twin Cities is probably catching up with us. Signs for Bear Country and Koa campgrounds whizz past us as we fly down the highway at 70 mph. Flashes of lightning occur suddenly and without thunder.
7-22-00, 5:46pm, Wyoming
The highway runs parallel with a set of railroad tracks. Pretty soon a heavy train rumbles past us hauling 115 boxcars full of coal (we counted them all). No sooner than the train has gone than we drive through the city of Lost Springs, population 4. And 5 minutes later we pass Shawnee, which looks deserted, and no larger than Lost Springs.
7-25-00, 9:51pm, Colorado
We are now fast approaching the New Mexico border. We will be in Philmont in a matter of hours. The familiarity of the landscape returns to me. I now remember the gray color of the soil and the almost complete lack of decidious trees.
7-27-00, 9:08am, Philmont
I felt like hell when I awoke this morning at 5am. Travis (my tent-mate) said it well: “It felt like sleeping at the Cosmos.” Our tent was situated on a hill that caused me to wake up and ascend back to the top of the tent several times during the night. Hopefully our next camp site will be better.
8-2-00, 8:02pm, Philmont
We have finally reached Harlan, after hiking 13 and half miles. We rolled in a little after 12:30pm. This is the one camp I’ve really been looking forward to on this trek. As I write this I am perched 10 feet above the ground on the last remaing branch of a long dead tree. It stands in a clearing at the top of a rocky hill. It took me all afternoon to find this spot again. I first discovered it in 1997. I watched the sunset then as I am doing now and I am still impressed. Directly in front of me is Mt Baldy, behind which the sun is setting, and directly to my right, about 1000 feet below in the distance, are the lights of Cimarron, NM.
8-4-00, 3:33pm, Philmont
It’s day ten, our last full day on the trail. I’m sitting in the tent with rain and hail falling outside. The rain is different here in the mountains than it is back in Minnesota. It falls harder here, with larger drops. But the most astounding thing here is the thunder. It rolls across the sky often lasting for several seconds, sometimes starting before the last batch has finished. The rain has now lightened but the great rolls of thunder remain. They feel so close I want to reach out and touch them as they roll over the tent.
Welcome Back, by Peter Buchanan-Smith
The following was written for the Ontario Camps Association newsletter, November 2010.
I was welcomed back to a world that hadn’t changed. Hard for me to believe. 25 years later and here I was stepping back in time. ”Welcome Back” read the Camp Ahmek placard emblazoned in signature Ahmek orange on the signature Ahmek green dining hall, in the signature Ahmek font. Some 25 years after I broke my arm falling off a signature Ahmek horse (named Gonzo). I was welcomed back to camp.
In 25 years I’ve had the chance to stumble across many “worlds” since the world of Camp Ahmek. Like most of us, I’ve come a long way from camp, but not so long ago on a recent trip to Algonquin Park I found myself smack dab back in my childhood on the shores of Canoe Lake. My life at that very moment was ironically quite adult: I was watching my beloved business fall to its knees in the eye of an economic downturn, my personal finances were mortgaged to the hilt, my marriage was unravelling fast, yet here I was confronted with something that hadn’t changed (in a very long time). I thought to myself: this world is right.
And so began a new journey for me. I left camp that day, returned home to New York and six months later I had started Best Made: a company that essentially tells the universal camp story, something many of us have lived. My first offering, my perch if you will, was a simple axe, an indispensable icon of camp life. Inspiration came to me from far and wide, but Tom Thomson — the resident ghost of Canoe Lake, a Canadian art and folk legend whose importance is near impossible to impart to my friends in the US — was one of the biggest. Thomson (who like me started his career as a graphic designer) fled the city and captured a remarkable landscape, and in so doing he lived a remarkable life. Like so many of history’s iconoclasts Thomson died tragically, young, a life shrouded in mystery left mainly to our imaginations. We spent hours huddled around campfires exercising our imaginations in attempts to exorcise Thomson’s ghost, and since then my imagination has got me where I am (and it was honed sharp at Ahmek).
If Thomson were alive today, his trademark strokes may have have been born onto something other than canvas. As admittedly crass as this sounds, I have chosen to tell my story, and paint my pictures in the form of a business. Best Made Company is my Jack Pine. Every Spring as a child I eagerly awaited the camp checklist: a concise list of clothing, bedding, tools, and personal effects that the camp’s administrators determined would get us through the summer. The Best Made mission is to provide like minded people all over the world with a similar checklist, a cohesive and compelling inventory of objects that — much like a good painting — will enlighten, inspire, and entertain.
Since I fell off Gonzo those 25 years a go I have been terrified of horses (absolutely terrified). Last week I embarked on a photo shoot for Best Made into a very remote mountainous region of Idaho, only accessible by horse. We arrived to the base of the mountain at dusk, got on our horses, and in pitch black darkness, on icy snowy trails, I ascended up into the mountains, into my worst fear: needless to say I am much better for it and I might be tempted to get back on a horse soon (maybe). My advice is this: Go on a canoe trip, build a fire, take an art class, go for a swim in a cold lake, chop wood, ride a horse. No matter what we’ve done since camp, no matter what worlds we live in now, I believe happiness lies somewhere in our ability to imagine. Now more than ever camp can be vital fuel for the imagination.
Photograph by Peter Buchanan-Smith
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.
From Gordon Lightfoot’s Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a song that largely inspired Bobby Sand to write Back home in Derry.
Without any distress signal the Great Lakes freighter The Edmund Fitzgerald mysteriously sank 35 years ago to the day. Its entire crew perished and none of the bodies were ever found.
Best Made Guide Bio: Matthew Shor, Wandering
I’m just a kid on a mission to tell a tale!
With help from my parents, I feel I’m very well traveled for a normal eighteen year old. Some of my favorite places on earth include, the Blue Mountains in Australia, Havasupai Falls in Arizona, Ingram and the Texas Hill Country, and Delphi in Greece. I’m interested in what most people like, so here’s a list: Film, Photography, Writing, Reading Classics, Girls, Food, Rock Climbing, Summer Camps, Summer Girls, Language, Exploring, and whatever else seems good idea at the time.
I’m soon to be nineteen (my birthday’s shared with my good school friend, and Martin Luther King Jr. himself). I’m a youngblood, on the hunt for adventure and better stories to tell my grandkids than my two older brothers (who also happen to be my inspirations for my expeditions). I’m a recent graduate of R.L. Turner high school in Carrollton, Tx where I was born and raised. Right now I’m studying in Caen, France as an international exchange student, and right now I’m in a little café drinking a Desperados and eating a panini. Yeah, I guess you can say I’m enjoying life.
My plans are pretty clear: that I don’t have any clear idea of what I want to do for the rest of my life (I’ve made multiple graphs on this, it’s very scientific). But I do know that I like to go to different places, and see different views that the normal passerby might miss. With all of my experiences so far — as an eighteen year old — I feel confident to be your guide on how to Wander. And here’s the first lesson: throw away all your skepticism, there’s no need for it if you don’t know where you’re going.
In the Field: Idaho (Part One), by Peter Buchanan-Smith
We made it back. For those who didn’t know a team from Best Made accompanied by photographer Nate Bressler embarked on horseback into the snowy mountains of Western Idaho last week to shoot new products and test new prototypes for Winter 2011. The Kendall brothers — Idaho natives, ranchers, horsemen, mountaineers, modern day cowboys, and beyond remarkable outdoorsmen — were our indispensable guides on the trip; it was with them, and their fearless string of pack mules and sure footed quarter horses that we had one of the most exhilarating, death defying, contemplative, and magical weeks of our collective lives.
A few people have asked: “what’s the take away” from the trip, and sifting through the pictures over the last few days I’d have to say that it is first the big, impermanent sky.
Best Made Guide Bio: Dax Wilkinson, Aviation
I was born in Sudbury, Northern Ontario and have lived in Toronto since my family moved here in 1987. I was 15 at the time of the relocation so I had a proper dose of small town Northern living before being dunked into Toronto. Toronto is now my small town home and I live happily Downtown West - Ossington Dundas. I ride my new Vespa 3 minutes to work and 12 minutes to F-LLO at the Toronto Island Airport if I time the ferry right. My wife’s name is Kirsten Gauthier. My son Finn is 8 and my daughter Margaux is 5.
Sudbury was a very entrepreneurial place and from a young age I decided that I wanted to be a business owner and that having a float plane was a priority. Luckily my wife became an entrepreneur as well and eventually came around to the idea of the plane. My apparel and dry goods company is called Red Canoe and Kirsten’s graphic communications and production co. is called the Production Kitchen Inc.
Kirsten and I both spent our childhood summers on remote islands where our respective families had established bush camps. These camps remain important touchstones for our families although the commute of 5.5 hours by car (on a good day) can curtail enthusiasm. The 1.5 to 2 hour flight is a joy.
I started ground school for my Private Pilot’s License in the winter of 2006 and finished the license at the end of 2007. I’d say the whole experience was about as challenging as a very interesting yet difficult University course. I continued my training to get my Night, Seaplane and VFR Over the top ratings. F-LLO is a Cessna 182P Amphibious plane with Aerocet amphibs and a Continental IO-550, 300 HP engine. She is rated to carry 945 lbs on the amphibs which is my family of 4 and dog Abby with about 65 gallons of gas. That’ll take us for almost 4 hours of flying.
I look forward to enticing people to fly and will illustrate through this Guide how safe, rewarding and attainable flying and becoming a pilot is.
