Jack's Tracts

Silent Partners

3/28/2023

I first met Jim Whitelaw in 1959 at my Great Aunt Dot’s summer camp. Jim, the camp caretaker, was sharpening some knives on an old pedal grindstone. He was quiet but friendly and offered the grinding stone to my dad to sharpen our knives. Little did I know that for the next twenty years Jim would provide me with guidance about how to be responsible, how to think like a problem solver, and how to be an adult.

Jim’s day job was the Director of Facilities and head of buildings and grounds at Trudeau Institute and in the summer served as my Aunt Dot’s caretaker. It took valuable time away from his family and his favorite recreation, fishing, but I think he did it for two reasons. One, he could use the extra cash, and two, he understood how much he was helping an elderly lady maintain her beautiful camp.

I worked for him for a couple of summers mowing lawns and doing other odd jobs around the camp, and after graduating from high school I worked for him at the Trudeau Institute before going off to college. The Institute had opened its new research facility and was clearing land for housing of resident scientists, so each day I hauled and stacked four-foot logs that were sold for pulp and hauled and burned brush. It was hard work and good for a kid right out of high school.

Why did Jim become a mentor? For starters, he was an incredible problem solver. I’d go to him with some issue big or small, and he’d always have a solution. They were practical solutions to practical problems. Being a practical guy, I loved how he’d think briefly about a problem then suggest something that, in my mind, was pure genius.

I was fourteen when my distant cousin Chip, who was a couple of years younger than me, got a toy glider that you could shoot long distances with a slingshot like gizmo. Chip shot it up into the air and it got caught in a branch about thirty feet up in a white pine. Chip was desperate to get the plane back and I had no idea how to help, especially since we had no extension ladder that could reach that height. Dutifully I went to Jim with little hope that we would be able to retrieve it. I explained the situation, he pondered the problem in a pose resembling Rodin’s The Thinker. Then in no time he said, “Get a hose with a spray nozzle.” I hauled the hose over to the base of the tree and in seconds we’d shot the plane out of the tree with water and salvaged it.

I always wanted to emulate Jim and his problem-solving ability. I know I’ll never reach his ability, but I like to think that because of his tutelage, I’ve gotten a lot better.

Jim took me bullhead fishing in the evenings and pike fishing on an occasional Sunday afternoon near his camp on Miller Pond. He also took me Kokanee salmon fishing on Lake Colby. Our fishing trips were long on fishing but short on conversation. He’d demonstrate something like how to assemble a fishing rod and to be sure to oil the ferrules by rubbing them against the side of his nose, but then let me do it on my own. There wasn’t much conversation other than; where to cast, how to avoid catching the Dardevle in the weeds, how to hook the fish, how to grab the fish. And that’s it, neither of us were the chatty types.

He didn’t just take me fishing – he taught me how to catch fish, how to clean them, and even provided suggestions for cooking them.

In some ways Jim was a father figure. My dad passed away my senior year in high school and there weren’t many older men in my life. Plus, I wasn’t always the best student, or most responsible person. But slowly, and thanks to him, I learned and matured, became a harder worker and a more responsible adult.

In 1970 when I inherited my own camp, Jim could be counted on to provide much needed advice. At the end of the summer, before I headed back for my senior year in college, I had to close up the camp for the first time and knew little about what had to be done. I turned off the water, drained toilets, emptied drain traps, put up the shutters, and did everything that came to mind. But the smartest thing I did was leave a note in Jim’s workshop asking him to check out my work and let me know if I forgot anything. About two weeks later I got a note in the mail forwarded from my mom. It was Jim gently reminding me that I forgot to drain the water heater. He said, “I give you a C minus. Remember these things next time.”

A mentor is an experienced and trusted advisor who trains and counsels people. Jim certainly served that role for me.

Yours truly on the far left in 1968. This was a photo of summer employees at the Trudeau Institute the summer I worked there.

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Growing Old Graciously – More or Less

3/13/2023

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Phyliss, Eden, & June cheering on Megan

I’m a competitive guy. It’s something I’ve disguised much of my adult life, but it comes bubbling to the surface every now and then like it did a week ago at the Saranac Lake 3P (Pole/Pedal/Paddle). No, I didn’t compete. I’m too old, and more importantly, too smart for that.

Back in the day it didn’t matter whether it was high school football, wrestling, bowling, Monopoly, Parcheesi, Euchre, or dominos, I played to win. My raison d'etre: what’s the sense of playing if you don’t play to win? If you aren’t playing to win, aren’t you playing to lose?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a sore loser. I can lose, and do so often, and with grace. I just don’t like it. When I compete, I give it all the energy I can, and I’ll do everything within the rules to win. I subscribe to Grantland Rice’s quote, “It’s not that you won or lost but how you played the game.”

Years ago, when visiting an old college buddy, we went outdoors to toss a frisbee. We played catch for about five minutes before we came up with a game where one of us would be a goalie and the other tried to throw the frisbee past him. We kept score. An hour later when we went back indoors, I announced I’d won ten to eight. My wife said, “You went out to play catch with a frisbee. How do you win at frisbee?” It seemed fruitless to try to explain our impromptu rules and how we turned it into a competition. Only someone with the competition gene would understand.

Over time, as I fell in love with the outdoors, I found the wilderness was a place I didn’t need to be competitive, and I could enjoy it for its intrinsic value. I climbed mountains, but not to see who could get to the top first. I paddled rivers, but not to see who could get down them first. I skied, but not to see who could get down the mountain the fastest. I did those things only for my own enjoyment.

Some recreate outdoors to get in shape, others want to check mountains off the bucket list, still others love the social aspect of it. Me, I like all those things, but ultimately, they are just by products. I’m outdoors to breathe the fresh air, take in the beauty, and soak up the natural world.

The older I get, the better I am at stopping and smelling the roses, but not everyone thinks like me. I gave a presentation to a group of paddlers a while back and told them I prefer to do a canoe carry twice with lighter loads rather than once with a heavy load. I explained that it allowed me to see and experience the environment more thoroughly. I nearly got booed out of the venue.

I knew my competitive spirit had all but died when I took a badminton class my junior year of college and in a tournament was eliminated in the first round. What was wrong with me? How could I let that kid beat me three straight games? What happened to my competitive spirit? I think I finally realized that my life priorities had changed. My desire to be outdoors and explore wildlands became more important than winning badminton games. (Then again, maybe it's just a good excuse for losing)

I graduated from college, moved to Saranac Lake, and let my competitive spirit lie dormant. (And was especially grateful when asked to play rugby) Sure, I competed in the occasional canoe race, especially when my boys came of age. I played pick-up basketball during my NCCC years. I wasn’t very good, but it was fun – as long as I gave it my best shot. Yup, even pick-up basketball I had to give one hundred percent.

But I’ve left competition behind… almost. I’m a work in progress. I mentioned my competitive nature to my stepson Ben last night. He laughed and said, “I noticed. You just finished playing checkers with six-year-old Hazel and wouldn’t let her win.” Guilty as charged (but maybe next time I’ll challenge her to arm wrestling).

At the Saranac Lake 3P (Pole/Pedal/Paddle) my competitive spirit was manifested by becoming a cheerleader. Phyliss, the granddaughters, and I hollered encouragement to their parents Will and Megan. We waved our signs, drove from Pisgah to Dewey, to the river, and back to Pisgah, cheering the entire way.

But something else also manifested. While the competitive spirit can be suppressed it can’t be eliminated – at least not in my case because after watching Will and Megan, I found myself wishing I was thirty years younger and back in my competitive prime.

But since I'm not, maybe next year I’ll train hard and enter the 3P, in the over 70 class.

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A Friend Lost

2/28/2023

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My friend Ed Hixson, hiker, mountaineer, skier, and world-class paddler passed away last week at his home on Upper St.Regis Lake. As a child he was sent to a summer camp on Lake Placid to escape the polio epidemic of the 1940s and started a lifelong love affair with the outdoors. I don’t know anyone that loved the outdoors more than Ed.

I first met Ed in the mid-seventies at a meeting of paddlers, when some local paddlers were trying to organize a paddling club of sorts. Ed was a legend on the Hudson River and regularly tackled whitewater in his open canoe that others were hesitant to do in the safety of a raft. They looked to Ed for guidance which he was glad to provide although he was more interested in getting out and paddling than creating a club.

Once Ed found out I’d climbed Denali, he invited me to dinner to pick my brain, because he had much grander mountaineering plans than I: He wanted to climb, not just Denali (which he did), but also Mount Everest. He ended up serving as the expedition doctor on three Everest expeditions. He nearly summited one year but suffered a stroke, which caused him to walk in a slightly awkward way for the rest of his life. One day he said to me, “My gait is caused by my stroke.”

I said, “I always thought it was due to your two hip replacements.

He smiled and said, “That’s what I want people to think.

We came from different spheres. Although we were both believers in learning by experience, he believed colleges should provide canoes and other outdoor gear and just let the students have at it. By contrast, I advocated guided instruction, emphasizing safety and protection of the environment. Over the years I think he came to appreciate my approach, and I his. Sort of along these lines, “Good judgment is learned by using bad judgment,” and “Smart people learn from their experience. Wise people learn from the experience of others.”

When I first got to know Ed, I found him politically much more conservative than I. That changed considerably after Al Gore’s movie about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth came out. It had a tremendous impact on him, making him more attuned to environmental issues. Whether the issue was acid rain in the Adirondacks or climate change nationally Ed knew what the issues were and supported a healthy environment.

In 1998 my good friend Doug Fitzgerald and I started a biennial tradition that lasted fourteen years and totaled nine two-week wilderness river trips throughout North America. We paddled the Buffalo and Green Rivers before teaming up with Ed and his family in 2002. Ed, and his wife Karen with their two boys joined our wives and kids for a two-week trip down the Rio Grande River.

My memory of Ed on that trip is him paddling through the rapids, demonstrating the smoothest paddling technique I’d ever seen.

Two years later our families paddled the San Juan River, where our whitewater skills were put to a better test. Ed loved it when we overheard rafters exclaim, “Look at them old folks paddling open canoes. Wow, they’re good. Are they from National Geographic or something?”

Ed was a bit old school, so when he saw male rafters wearing skirts and other rafters running around naked, he didn’t mind the nudity, but he couldn’t comprehend the skirts. All he said was, “Why would men want to wear skirts?”

Ed was also old school when it came to packing. He liked to bring everything, no matter what the weight. We were all worried about meeting the weight limit for our flight into the Thelon River and tried to discourage Ed from bringing his axe and hammer, among other heavy items. We were desperately trying to figure out what to leave behind when the pilot surprised us by pointing to a giant four by ten-foot box and said, “If it will fit in the box you can bring it.” This ended the argument with Ed for the time being, but on other trips excess weight was a problem, especially when lots of canoe carries were involved.

My career was spending time outdoors. I loved it but took it a lot for granted. Not Ed. He was a surgeon and having spent too many hours in the operating room he never took the outdoors for granted.

It was on the Missouri River that Ed’s love of the outdoors was reinforced. We were debating whether to end the trip a day early. The weather was marginal, and the long drive home was on our minds. Ed, with a look on his face like a kid in the candy store said, “Yeah, I get it, we could get off the river a day early. But I’m content to stay out here, cook my meals and enjoy the river.” The comment said it all.

Our most remote trip was in 2010, when we traveled to northern Canada and flew 350 miles by bush plane into the Thelon River barren lands. The Thelon, known for its wildlife, had been on Ed’s bucket list for a while and it didn’t disappoint. We had great fishing, saw moose, wolves, caribou, and signs of muskox. But the highlight was one morning after breakfast when a grizzly bear came into our camp. We were all thrilled but none more so than Ed. We were taking pictures with one hand and prepared to fire away with bear spray with the other when, after a tense five minutes the bear finally wandered off. We looked at each other and Ed exclaimed, “Wasn’t that something!” It was a story Ed told many times.

They say there are three aspects of a wilderness adventure, the pre-trip planning, the trip, and the post-trip reflection. Ed cherished all three. He loved to read books and research the areas we were traveling. He may not have been as detail oriented as some, but he knew the history of an area as well as anyone, and even more, loved sharing it with others.

You know your trips have been successful when the outfitter picks you up at the end of the trip and says, “You must have done that bonding thing. Most groups aren’t even talking to each other when we pick them up.” Indeed, with our three families, the Hixsons, Fitzgeralds and Drurys, we had found a formula for success: Good folks, good planning, good communication, and clear recreational objectives built around fun and enjoyment. When combined with a spectacular environment it was a recipe for great adventures and wonderful memories.

After each trip Ed loved recounting stories as we all did. Often the winds got stronger, the waves bigger, the scenery better and the bugs worse. The fish got longer and the bears more ferocious. Of course, we all had stories aplenty. But when all is said and done, trips are about the people you share the experiences with. I will forever be grateful that Ed and I shared a lot of them.

Missouri River 2008 L-R Doug Fitzgerald, Jan Fitzgerald, Phyliss Drury, Jack Drury, Karen Hixson, Ed Hixson

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Best In Snow

2/14/2023

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The brief cold snap of last week had many in a panic. For me, although age has dampened my enthusiasm for the cold, it was just another day at the office. I calculate that I’ve camped a year's worth of nights in freezing weather and over twenty nights at between 25 and 40 below zero. Like any skill, knowledge and practice make perfect. The proper clothing and equipment, along with plenty of food, keeps misery at bay. Plus, there’s something satisfying about being toasty warm in a snow shelter when it’s 30 below zero.

My first winter camping trip was during a college semester break in January 1970 near Wanakena. Back when, if a trail was cut somewhere in the winter in all likelihood, it was a snowmobile trail. I decided to snowshoe from Wanakena to Januck’s Landing at the south end of Cranberry Lake, spend the night and snowshoe back out. It was a typical Adirondack January with nearly two feet of snow in the woods and daytime temperatures in the teens.

I was a rookie. I’d never camped in below freezing temperatures, with the exception of one debacle in March of 1968. I had, however, learned a lot from that experience. I had also been reading outdoor books. The first was Bradford Angier’s 1956 classic “How to Stay Alive in the Woods,” I read it cover to cover and while it wasn’t rocket science, it had great sections on “staying found” and “keeping out of trouble.” Those topics were to come in handy time and again.

It was late afternoon when I strapped on my rawhide-laced snowshoes with leather H-bindings. It was a little over three miles to the lean-to and I wasn’t sure I would make it before dark. But that was okay because I had a flashlight fortified with extra C batteries. It was my first trip on my snowshoes, a Christmas present from my mother the previous month. Traveling on a well-packed trail was easy despite my need to stop frequently to adjust the snowshoe bindings. As darkness crept up, I avoided turning on my flashlight until the last possible moment to keep my eyes adjusted to the dark. I no sooner turned it on than the snowmobile track headed off the trail out onto Cranberry Lake. I looked at my map, peered into the darkness out on the lake, and determined that the track went directly to Januck’s lean-to and would save me a mile of snowshoeing.

Should I take the risk and head out onto the lake or stay safe and follow the hiking trail?

I’ve never considered myself reckless, but my rational side said, a snowmobile is a lot heavier than me. If it made it, I should be able to. I just needed to keep an eye on the map and compass to make sure I was heading in the right direction.

Hiking out onto the lake with the beam of light limiting me to tunnel vision, I plodded on. I was able to confirm, with my trusty Silva Huntsman compass, that I was indeed heading in the correct direction. Soon I came upon the lean-to. It wasn’t your average lean-to. Yeah, it had lots of graffiti, more nails than needed, and lots of wear and tear. But it had two unique things. Some snowmobilers had spread a bale of hay on the floor and enclosed the front with plastic. So, it was less a lean-to and more a cabin.

This was long before I had become a Wilderness purist and I was psyched to have such luxury. But luxury is subjective, it was damn cold out. I went into the lean-to, laid out my down sleeping bag on the hay and crawled in. Hay provides little insulation, and I was unaware of the value of a sleeping pad.

I had been reading Colin Fletcher’s book, “The Complete Walker,” and tried one of his suggestions. Fletcher would get everything he needed for dinner; stove, fuel, water, pots, food, etc., place them around his sleeping bag, crawl in, and cook in the comfort of his sleeping bag. I tried it and I was surprised how well it worked. I lit a couple of candles, cooked up my dinner of mac and cheese, washed it down with a cup of hot chocolate and was set for the night. Then I put on dry long underwear and before I knew it, I was sawing logs.

I awoke early to find my nostril hairs had frozen. It was not just cold, but likely below zero cold.
I broke through the thick layer of ice in my pot and again fired up my Svea stove. Starting a Svea stove was always a feat in itself. Get some fuel to flow into the shallow bowl at the base of the burner, light the fuel, preheat the burner, and finally just as the fuel is about to burn out, turn on the burner. The stove would sputter a bit and then roar to life with the sound of an F-35 fighter jet. Noisy, but it could boil water in no time.

Before I could say, “Jack London,” I’d downed a bowl of instant oatmeal and a cup of hot chocolate – prepared from the warmth of my sleeping bag. Well nourished, with calories to burn, I dressed, packed up, and got on my way.

It was one of those frigid clear mornings where you could see for miles, and I made good time retracing my snowshoe tracks back to my car.

The car started with only minimal resistance, and I drove off for my first-ever winter visit to Saranac Lake. I drove over to Moody Pond and visited the Cantwell family.

I told them of my adventure. As I recounted my trek, I realized I'd not only survived the night, I’d thrived. Using my new snowshoes, snowshoeing in the dark, finding the enclosed lean-to, cooking from my sleeping bag, sleeping through the night, a hot breakfast, and the snowshoe trek out made for the perfect adventure.

I don’t know if they were impressed, but I sure was – especially after I found out that the low for the night had been -280F.

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Father and Son

1/31/2023

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I tell young parents to hug their kids tight and not let go because they’ll be grown up and gone in a nanosecond. I also tell them to hang on for the ride, for their children will bring them more joy, and more pain, than they can ever imagine.

My two boys, Eli and Dustin came along, and while I know it’s cliche, they made my life complete. The older, Eli, was born in April after the 1980 Winter Olympics.

He was a great kid and as a family we had great fun traveling the country, visiting relatives, and experiencing the outdoors. When Eli hit adolescence he became a handful, but the foundation had been laid and although he went through a long rough patch, I knew things would work out for him.
Eventually he found Krishna Consciousness, a fundamental form of Hinduism and it proved to be the right path for him. Like many people who find religion, he once told me, “I couldn’t leave the destructive lifestyle behind without help. I needed the guidance of a higher power.” It was with the guidance of Krishna Consciousness that he cleaned up his act, found his passion (spreading the word through food), and met his wonderful wife Mandali.

On January 31, 2012, Eli was killed at the age of 31 in a car accident. I have never felt such pain. I had lost my parents and three siblings way too young, but nothing comes close to the pain of losing a child. Thirteen years later I still have to remind myself to focus on the good times and the joy he brought to my life, rather than the pain of losing him.

I visited Eli in different parts of the world during his Krishna travels. In Albany outside a Grateful Dead concert, where he was selling pizza to concert goers. In England at an estate once owned by George Harrison and given to the Krishna community. In New York City, where I helped pull a float down fifth avenue during a Krishna parade. And the last time, when he was coordinating 4,000 meals at a Wanderlust Yoga and Music festival in Stratton, Vermont.

He had two funeral ceremonies, one in Florida and one in India; Each was uniquely Hindu in its own way. In Florida we were ushered into a reposing room where a couple of devotees were chanting “Hare Krishna" accompanied by an Indian drum called a mridangam and a small harmonium. The ceremony started with some wonderful eulogies from Eli’s friends.

My favorite demonstrated Eli’s compassion as well as his business acumen. A friend told of Eli at the Burning Man Festival, where Eli coordinated food for thousands. Eli had decided to rent a refrigerated tractor trailer to keep their produce fresh but needed just half the space. Eli figured by renting out the other half, he would pay for the rental of the truck. It was working out well until one vendor, who was storing a pallet of melons in the truck, accused Eli’s staff of stealing some of his melons and he threatened not to pay his rental fee. Eli was compassionate, telling him they had not stolen his melons but offered to contact the produce company to see if they could track down the missing melons. Then he said if they didn’t pay the rental fee that was okay too – He’d have the rest of their produce immediately taken out of the cooler and left in the hot desert.

After the eulogies the chanting resumed. Slowly it grew in tempo and volume. The casket was wheeled out the door into the crematorium. The priest started reading Sanskrit. We were all sobbing as the doors to the crematorium were opened and we pushed in the casket. Then the doors were closed, and we put our hands on the button and started the fire.

It was all too surreal and was all a haze, but I like to think it provided some closure that is missing from most western funerals.

Eli’s mother, his brother Dustin, and I decided to travel with his wife Mandali to India to spread his ashes on the Ganges River, a Krishna tradition. Within a couple of days, we flew to Kolkata (Calcutta) where we were met by friends of Eli’s who drove us the two and a half hours to Mayapur.

The culminating event was a ceremony on the Ganges River. From my journal:

Today’s the day – not much sleep last night – got up, put on my Yogi pants and Indian shirt – I’m terribly sad but ready.
As we look out from the 3rd floor, we see a small crowd gathering and starting to chant. We are the guests of honor. We walk down the road to the Ganges, where a boat awaits. The chanting continues as we load the old boat. We head downstream to a large sandbar. Eli’s friends lead more chanting while we wait in the warmth of the sun. A colleague of Eli’s comes over and explains the service to us then tells us we need to be strong. That’s easy for him to say.
I’m in a warm fog. The priest starts the ceremony. There is a round straw tray. They line it with a layer of river mud, then Mandali pours Eli’s ashes on it, along with some ghee, honey, and sesame seeds. The tray is sent down the river with many candles on floating leaves.
At one point I break away and walk down stream to collect some Ganges water as a keepsake.
We boat back to the temple and convene in a spacious room where we are served a meal of prasadam (holy food), an interesting mix of traditional Hare Krishna food and an Italian pasta dish. It turns out Eli had a soft spot for Italian food. There are more eulogies by people whose lives Eli touched.
I speak with great difficulty, but my message is simple, “When our children are born, we have dreams and aspirations for them. It has taken me a long time to realize that those were MY dreams. While those dreams and aspirations are worthy, you must let go of them and realize that the important dreams and aspirations are not yours but your children’s.

Eli traveled a unique path. It wasn’t the path I envisioned but it was the right path for him.

The last time I saw Eli in Vermont

Eli helping me when working on our house.

Eli and Dustin

Eli

Eli snowboarding up St.Regis Mtn

Eli on the Grand Teton

Eli and Dad getting ready to climb the Grand Teton

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Every Dog Has Its Day

1/17/2023

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For sixteen years I led month-long wilderness expeditions in the fall and two-week winter expeditions in January for NCCC. People told me I had the best job in the world, and I said, “I do, but you’d hate it.” I reminded them I had to leave my family for those periods, and I was out in the rain and mud, bugs and winds, and snow and cold. I spent 1,000 nights in the field with the students, and I was responsible for their safety, wellbeing, and making them the best outdoor leaders possible. I loved it, but it required sacrifice.

So, what did we do all those days and nights? You mean besides having over fifty lessons to teach and learn, thirty camps to set up and break down, seventy meals to prepare, and miles to hike and paddle? How about reading and assessing journals, and evaluating leadership?

But in between we had a lot of fun. We experienced the beauty and uniqueness of the Adirondack Wilderness. We went days on end without seeing anyone outside of our group and we explored corners of the Adirondacks that few ever see.

One of my favorite activities was storytelling. It ate up lots of hours on the trail, taking our minds off our heavy packs. From my mother I learned to love “shaggy dog stories.” Which was only natural, since, for over fifty years, she raised shaggy Newfoundland dogs. Shaggy dog stories are long-winded tales characterized by interminable narration of irrelevant incidents and typically ending with an anticlimax or a groan-inducing pun.

A standard one was about The Tiz Bottle. It takes about twenty minutes to tell and involves lots of “tiz this and tiz that” and ends when the protagonist finds the last tiz bottle in existence. And when he does, he taps the bottle and sings “My country TIZ of thee.”

As much as the students groaned when they heard these tales, they all wanted to remember them to tell in the future.

Minute Mysteries were another form of storytelling that took the grind out of a long hike. They are riddles where folks try to solve them by asking yes or no questions. The name is a misnomer since they usually take a half hour or more to solve. A typical one is, “I want to go home but I can’t go home because of the man with the mask. Who am I?” I won’t ruin the fun by giving you the answer. A hint: Finding the solution frequently involves figuring out the person’s job. You can ask me yes or no questions via my Facebook page if you like.

Then there were campfire stories and poetry. There were Robert Service standards like The Cremation of Sam McGee and less common The Men that Don’t Fit In. My Robert Service favorite is The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill. It’s about a sourdough’s promise to bury his buddy when he dies. He gets challenged when he arrives at Bill’s cabin to find him frozen. He thawed Bill for thirteen days, but to no avail...

Sparkling ice in the dead man’s chest, glittering ice in his hair,
Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart, ice in his glassy stare;
Hard as a log and trussed like a frog, with his arms and legs outspread.
I gazed at the coffin I’d brought for him, and I gazed at his gruesome dead,
And at last I spoke: ‘Bill liked his joke: but still, goldarn his eyes,
A man had ought to consider his mates in the way he goes and dies...’
His arms and legs stuck out like pegs, as if they was made of wood.
Till at last I said: ‘It ain’t no use – he’s froze too hard to thaw,
He’s obstinate, and he won’t lie straight, so I guess I got to – saw.’

Morbid? Hell yes. But it’s a great poem to tell when you’re out in the woods and the high temperature for the day is ten below.

Then there’s Jack London’s To Build a Fire. No matter how cold our group was, we were never as cold as the protagonist in To Build a Fire. The sourdough neglects to listen to the old timer who told him one must never travel alone in the north when it’s colder than fifty below zero. When he gets a foot wet he stops to build a fire but fails. Slowly and tragically he freezes to death, but admirably he admits to himself that the old timer was right.

On a hot summer day, I get cold just reading it.

Of course, scary stories were also part of the repertoire. We even made up our own. When camping near Newcomb Lake, the actual site of an eight-year old's disappearance in 1971, students made up a tale where “Sammy Santanoni” disappeared. Twenty-years later his ghost came back as an adult and started murdering college students. That’s enough to keep you awake at night – especially if you were a college student.

And then, best of all, there were the story pranks. I’d sit next to someone who’d make a good victim and tell a story that went something like this:

My wife and I were in Atlantic City for a conference and had a break, so we took a stroll down the boardwalk. We walked by a fortune teller’s booth, and I told my wife I didn’t believe in any of that stuff.
She nudged me and said, “I dare you to go in and see what she has to say about you.”

I couldn’t resist the challenge, so we walked in.

The woman was dressed in the traditional gypsy garb.

I said, “I’m not a big believer in this kind of stuff but I thought it’d be fun to give it a try.”

She ignored me and motioned me to sit down. She didn’t have a crystal ball or tarot cards, but within a minute she fell into a trance and said, “You have lived a previous life…but not as a human. You were a dog, a German shepherd.”

I chuckled to myself, but she was so serious I didn’t want to be rude, so I just said, “Okay.”

She continued, “You were a guard dog for the German army during World War I.”

At this point, even though I’m of German heritage, I thought the entire thing was a joke and I was ready to get up and leave. But what she said next made me a believer.

She said, “You were beaten every day and as a result you had bone damage to your skull. To this day if you feel behind your left ear, you’ll feel a bony protrusion.”

I immediately reached behind my ear. And sure enough there it was: A rock-hard, grape-size lump.

Then I’d turn to the student on my left and say, “Here, behind my ear, you can feel it.”

When she reached behind my ear, I’d turn and bark ferociously three or four times. Inevitably she’d recoil in shock, let out a shriek, and the others would burst out laughing, grateful they weren’t sitting next to me.

Inappropriate? Maybe.

Politically incorrect? Probably.

Funny? Always.

A few of the well-used resources

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Siberian Shakedown

12/29/2022

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In the fall 1998 I hopped onto a DEC helicopter at the Lake Clear Airport heading up to Lake Colden to help rebuild the interior ranger cabin that had burned down the previous winter.

The pilot asked me, “Have you ever been in a helicopter before?”

And I thought back to 1993 when a group of wilderness friends and I joined adventurer Paul Schurke on a two-week rafting expedition on the Chukchi Peninsula of far-eastern Siberia. The plan was to stay in a Siberian community a few days before and after a rafting trip on one of the numerous rivers above the Arctic Circle.

We started the trip by flying from Anchorage to Kotzebue, then to Nome. The 230-mile last leg was in a nine-passenger Piper from Nome to Provideniya. The airport located seven miles from the small community of 3,000 can best be described as Third World.

We stumbled into the crowded airport and its mixture of Russians and native Chukhi. It was a dusty, dirty old wood-frame building with people elbow-to-elbow. The odor was like a boys’ locker room, and we felt like aliens as we watched a young boy pee into a chamber pot in the middle of the terminal. Even weirder was that we were in as remote an airport as there is in the world and suddenly a Chukchi kid walked by wearing a Chicago Bulls Basketball T-shirt celebrating their third NBA championship.

Then we met our guide, Vladimir, and his companion, an English teacher who would serve as our translator. They walked us across the apron to our waiting Aeroflot helicopter. In the background we saw new looking, spotless military-transport planes. Our helicopter, however, looked different. Very different.

The helicopter had been hand-painted a dull baby pink and blue, at least a decade previously. The entire upper fuselage was stained with black exhaust. The Aeroflot airline name and logo were primitively stenciled in black. It looked like a relic from the sixties, and it was.

Our infamous helicopter

There was nervous laughter as we anticipated getting on this old, well-worn machine. Paul assured us, “Russian helicopters have an excellent safety record, and their maintenance is as good or perhaps even better than U.S. maintenance.” I’m not sure where he got his “facts,” but I trusted Paul because had traveled this part of the world numerous times.

It may have been naivete or the fact that I was ever the pragmatist, but I threw my gear in and climbed aboard preparing for takeoff. I figured the pilots didn't want to crash any more than I did. Or did they? I learned later that there is a .03% chance in a plane crash that the pilot DID want to crash. Comforting, isn’t it?

There were no seats or seat belts, we sat on the fuel tanks. The pilots were two garrulous guys who, although we couldn’t understand them, chatted whenever the noise allowed. The translator was nearby at one point and told us they took great pride that they were civilian trained helicopter pilots and not military.

One of them was short and stocky with slightly graying well-kept hair. He had a slight belly and always sported a cigarette. The other was tall and thin with bushy dark hair. He had a pointed nose and always wore a flight jacket. They both sported three-day old beards. They seemed friendly, and were, but they had a dark side we would learn about.

We took off for our destination, Egvekinot, a town of about 5500 located two-hundred and fifty miles northwest of Provideniya.

The Chukchi Peninsula is an area the size of Arizona, with a population of about 15,000 mostly indigenous people who were historically reindeer herders. Our route took us along the coasts of the Bering Strait and Bering Sea.

At one point we had an unscheduled landing at a tiny two-house settlement along the coast and the pilots traded a case of vodka for a couple of burlap bags of salmon. It seemed like a fair trade.

The question that kept cropping up in my mind was: “Where does Aeroflot fit in? Does the airline know they make these kinds of stops?” There was no communication with things like control towers or the office. There was no oversight. The pilots ran the show, and we were at their mercy.

Before long we landed in Egvekinot. In 1946 it was created by gulag labor as a seaport to ship tin and tungsten ore mined two-hundred miles to the north. Egvekinot, like virtually all Russian communities in this part of the world, had no tourist accommodations so we stayed with families in their apartments.

The morning of the third day we met again at the airport (a generous description for the concrete pad), with our intrepid pilots. They appeared unusually eager to fly us north to start our rafting adventure. We would soon understand why.
We loaded two helicopters with our gear, food, and rafts, and headed north, above the Arctic Circle. We landed in the middle of a large wilderness by the Amguema River.

The countryside was open, stark, and beautiful. Wildflowers and grasses were abundant, but trees weren’t – we were in the treeless tundra. It was sunny, with the temperature an unexpectedly warm seventy-two degrees. We started to inflate our rafts (by hand pumps) and quickly realized they weren’t your state-of-the-art whitewater rafts found throughout North America but were life rafts with domed survival-shelter tops. I hoped they were surplus and that some Russian ship on the North Sea wasn’t missing its life rafts, but who knew? Instead of real paddles they had tiny wooden handled, metal blade paddles like I had seen in survival movies.

I didn’t think anything about the pilots hanging around and that they were in no rush to leave. After an hour we got everything sorted, loaded, and were ready to go. Vladimir reviewed with the pilots where we would be picked at the trip's end.

We had no idea what was going on, but the tone of the conversation appeared to get tense. There was a back and forth between Vlad and the pilots. Finally, Vlad came over to us and said, “They want more money to meet us when we finish.”

It took a few seconds for the translation to register, but suddenly it was clear. We were being shaken down.

I was not a novice traveler. I’d sailed around Newfoundland and throughout the Caribbean. I’d traveled through Guatemala, throughout Europe including numerous Iron Curtain countries, the Middle East, and India. I’d heard horror stories from friends who’d been shaken down from Mexico to India, but I had never had the privilege. I thought I was immune, but obviously I’d just been lucky since there we were being asked for several hundred bucks by supposed Aeroflot helicopter pilots. I tried to imagine a Southwest Airline pilot walking down the aisle letting us know that they weren’t going to land at our destination unless we all ponied up more money. It was impossible.

Paul said, “How much cash do we have among us?”

We dug our wallets out of our packs and between us found three-hundred American dollars. We gave it to the pilots in the hope that we’d be picked up ten days later. The reality was, even with the extra money, we had no way of knowing for sure that they’d be waiting for us.

We finally got in our rafts and headed down the river. Aside from the extortion we had a great trip rafting through spectacular country, visiting native reindeer herders, catching Arctic grayling and salmon, and drinking too much vodka with the citizens of Egvekinot.

All in all, it was a great trip, but when you’re 3800 miles from home but there's nothing that shakes you up quite like a shakedown.

The helicopter pilots

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A Close Call

12/20/2022

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Occasionally we’re reminded our first-world problems are just that, problems that Third World folks would gladly have. The vast majority of time, we turn the tap and quality drinking water comes out, we turn the key on a cold morning and our car starts (well, almost always), we turn up the thermostat and the house gets warmer, or we plug in an appliance and – Presto – we get electricity and can make our morning coffee. And perhaps most important of all, we call 911 and get the police, rescue squad, or fire department in a matter of seconds.

I was rudely reminded of that last week. Phyliss and I had returned to our house from our maple sugar shack, and we entered the house to a strange burning plastic smell. We sniffed and sniffed throughout the house, trying to identify where the smell was coming from. We have a wood stove, so our first thought was that it was the culprit. After a little more sniffing it was apparent that it wasn’t. But just to be sure I let the fire burn out.

Our second thought was because we have enough Christmas lights in the house to decorate the tree at Rockefeller Plaza, the problem lay there. But it didn’t.

More sniffing, and more inability to find the source of the smell.

At 11:30 Phyliss and I finally went to bed and within seconds she was asleep. Meanwhile, I lay there thinking. This is not right, something’s wrong. I got up and sniffed some more. The burnt smell was no longer like plastic yet was even more pervasive. I took the ashes from the wood stove outside to eliminate that as a source of the smell. Then, as I came back in, I looked into the corner of the living room and saw a small cloud of smoke. My first thought was it was from removing the ashes. But as I went over to check, I found the culprit – a small stream of smoke coming out of the electrical outlet.

I got my tools, removed the outlet from the wall and carefully cut the wires. The outlet fell to the floor, but a small amount of smoke was still coming out of the wall. I hit it with a few shots from the fire extinguisher and then remembered there was an exterior outlet opposite this one. I went outside, and sure enough, smoke was coming out of that outlet too. The outlet had a heavy-duty extension cord plugged into a heater we use to keep our wood-fired hot tub from freezing solid. I unplugged the cord, but the outlet was too hot to mess with.

I ran back into the house to the smoke alarm shrieking, “Evacuate, Evacuate!”

Phyliss was now wide awake, also shrieking. “The house is going to burn down! The house is going to burn down!”

It was time to call the pros. I called 911 but the call didn’t go through. I called it again, and again it didn’t go through. Then I said to hell with it and called the fire department directly. A gentleman took down my information and said help would arrive in minutes. And indeed, it did.

The first to arrive was Doug Peck, quickly followed by Mike Knapp, and then Andrea Boon, Nate Jones, Cory Culver, Ben Tucker, and Dominic Fontana all of them decked out in their firefighting gear. Quickly and professionally, Doug used an infrared camera to find the hot spot and told me that he’d have to cut out a section of the wall. When the others ran a fire hose down our hall, I had visions of a high pressure gusher flooding our house. Mike checked outside and before I knew it Doug cut out an exterior section of the wall. Instead of flooding the living room they expertly ran the hose through the door next to the wall where the smoke was coming and provided just enough water to extinguish the now baseball-size flame.

The fire was eliminated in seconds. They proved the flame was extinguished, both by careful examination of the wall and use of their infrared camera. Then they meticulously gathered their hoses and other equipment, and even swept up the mess made by cutting out the hole. After that I found a scrap piece of plywood that I screwed over the inside wall and found a tarp to staple over the exterior wall.

Before we knew it, the firefighters were out the driveway, with our eternal gratitude. Too wired to sleep, Phyliss decided to do the dishes while I tried to read a book. Finally, around 2:30 AM, we headed to bed to a restless night’s sleep, thinking of the What Ifs we had avoided – especially What if we’d been away?

As a former Wilderness First Responder and teacher of leadership and decision making, I know professional emergency response when I see it.

Thursday night I saw it.

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Mountains, Mortality, and Motorcycle Mamas

12/6/2022

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I’ve been watching a four-part Netflix documentary called, “Pepsi, Where's My Jet?” It’s
about a community college student and outdoor guide named John Leonard who in the mid-1990s collected enough Pepsi points to purchase a Harrier Jet.

Pepsi’s promotion campaign was designed for folks to buy Pepsi products and collect points to purchase promotional items like hats, sunglasses, and jackets. They made an ad which featured a kid arriving at school in a Harrier Jet. He hopped out of the jet saying, “It beats taking the bus.” and then the words, “Harrier Jet - 7,000,000 Pepsi Points” scanned across the screen.

Unfortunately, Pepsi forgot to add a disclaimer pointing out that it was a joke. When Leonard actually raised the $700,000 to purchase enough Pepsi Points, he sent in his check and asked for the jet. I don’t want to spoil the ending for you but suffice to say John Leonard was a unique kid.

Though he wasn’t one of my students I had my share of unique kids as well. I like to think some of the things my students did were just as noteworthy. Perhaps more so. One event in particular comes to mind.

For the sixteen years I taught Wilderness Recreation Leadership, the Fall Practicum was thirty-three days of backpacking and canoeing. The first twenty-eight were filled with wilderness experiences designed to teach students outdoor skills, but more importantly, to develop their leadership and decision making. The last five days were called the “Final Expedition.” There, students in groups of four or five planned and led trips without faculty supervision. It was in reality, if not in name, a final exam.

Students planned different types of trips. Some were ambitious excursions bagging lots of peaks, while others were laid-back opportunities to decompress after a stressful month of practicing
leadership and being under the instructors’ constant eye. While these final trips probably cost college risk managers sleepless nights, I found them powerful learning experiences.

We put a strong emphasis on trip planning. The bible may have ten commandments, but when it came to trip planning, I had sixteen. It sounds overwhelming but for most trips it requires only a small bit of time and thought:

Why are we going?
Where exactly are we going, and do we have a map?
Are there any special rules and regulations we should be aware of?
Do we have an adequate first-aid kit, and do we know who to contact in an emergency?
How are we going to safely get to the trailhead?
Is the trip appropriate for our physical condition?
Do we have the ten essentials including the proper clothing and equipment for the weather forecast?
Do we have enough food and water?
Who’s paying for things like gas, food, etc.?
What have we learned from previous trips that will help us be better prepared for this one?

My students were usually extremely diligent, so I wasn’t surprised on a mid-October Friday in 1990 when the students finished their final expedition and arrived back on campus, they were abuzz about their experience.

But I was surprised when one of them declared, “We saved a woman’s life!”

“Really? I asked, “How'd that happen?”

Helena said, “This motorcycle mama named Eva rode her motorcycle up from New York. She said that she was so stressed she just had to get out of the city. But she was poorly prepared. She didn’t know where she was or that she was climbing Dix Mountain, was dressed all in cotton, had no sleeping bag, no food, no water, no flashlight, just a plastic tarp that she planned to wrap around her at night.”

Eric said, “We saw her on the way up the mountain and told her that there was no way she could survive the night so poorly equipped. She ignored us, but when we saw her on the summit, we told her she had to come with us. She resisted, but we wouldn’t take no for an answer. We brought her back to our camp, fed her and put her up for the night. It was great!”

The following week I received a letter. It had a return address of New York City, but I didn’t recognize the name. I opened it and strange shaped paper with torn edges came out with a typed written note. “...So here I am climbing up the mountain when I run into this group of friendly, but smelly individuals. When they see my lack of provisions, they strongly suggest I hike back down the mountain. I thank them for their concern, and hike to the top. And wouldn’t you know it, they follow me. Then begins my compulsory mountain education, compulsory because they wouldn’t leave me alone. They went on a long spiel about the possibilities of death considering my circumstances, were very sweet and earnest…finally I had to accompany them back down. By then I was a ward of this group…”

She went on, “Here I am back in New York City, living just another of my usual days. Who knows if I would have perished back there (as they assured me)? But I do know your group was incredibly gracious and hospitable and a real credit to your program. Sincerely, Eva”

Of course, the letter made me proud. But more importantly, I was happy they put into practice what they had learned.

The line between a fun wilderness outing and a fatal one is thin, but with proper prior planning and preparation it’s not hard to stay on the right side.

Did the students save Eva’s life? I don’t know. What I do know is that by staying on the right side they turned Eva’s dangerous outing into a positive and memorable experience.

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The Birth of a Wilderness Program

11/22/2022

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By 1972 I had completed my bachelor’s degree in Recreation Education from SUNY Cortland, and had two transformative experiences – taking a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) wilderness leadership course, and climbing Denali. A couple of years later I completed the NOLS Instructor’s Course. Those four events told me one thing – I wanted a career where I could educate folks about the outdoors and how to be outdoor leaders.

Maybe I could work for NOLS? Nah, I didn’t want to live in Wyoming.

Maybe I could become an outdoor guide? Again, nah. In 1972 there was no demand.

Maybe I could work for one of the new wilderness programs for “at risk” youth? Well, I did that for two seasons but realized I was becoming an ersatz therapist, not an outdoor leader.

Finally, I thought maybe I could run a college-level wilderness leadership program. And that’s what I pursued.

I made an appointment to meet with Bill Rutherford, the Dean of Forestry at Paul Smith’s College. I thought that with their variety of forestry programs, and the college's namesake’s history of hiring guides, it would be a natural place to have a wilderness leadership program.

I gave him a brief description of my vision and he immediately lectured me on why such a program was NOT something Paul Smith’s College would ever offer.

“Recreation is what students learn on their own free time,” he said, “It’s not something to teach.”
It was the only time I’d been verbally thrown out of an office, and I slunk away to lick my wounds.

I had no luck generating any interest in my vision until I met Doug Kelley, Director of the Malone Campus of North Country Community College (NCCC). He immediately offered me a one week-canoe trip and a one-week backpacking trip to teach that summer. His support also triggered similar course offerings at the Saranac Lake Campus.

I gained some wonderful teaching experience, was honing my craft, and earned just enough money to stay below the poverty line.

In 1977 Doug offered me a one-year job as a jack of all trades at the Malone Campus. It was located in an old bank building on Main Street, where my office was the vault. Assisting Doug every way I could I did everything but wash the windows. But best of all I taught a hiking class and a three-credit Outdoor Leadership class.

That December I got word that Paul Petzoldt was traveling the Northeast promoting a new organization called the Wilderness Education Association, a nonprofit affiliating with colleges to train outdoor leaders. I thought if I could get him to visit the North Country it might help me get a wilderness program going.

So who was Paul Petzoldt? Petzoldt had an outdoor resume longer than Rapunzel’s hair. In 1924, at age 16, he ascended the Grand Teton wearing cowboy boots. He told folks the only reason he didn’t die of hypothermia was that the word hadn’t been invented yet.

Amazingly, he did a double ascent of the Matterhorn in one day. Why the double ascent? Because once he traversed it, the hut he was to stay at in Italy was so dirty he and his companion decided to climb back over the mountain to Switzerland.

In 1938 Paul was a member of the first American team to attempt to climb K2, arguably the world’s most challenging mountain. Although the group was unsuccessful in summiting, Paul set a record at the time for the longest stay above 20,000 feet, over two weeks.

His early climbs of the Grand Teton led to his creation of a guide service and eventually to partnering with Glenn Exum to create Petzoldt-Exum Mountain Guides.

In 1962 he became the chief instructor for the first American Outward Bound School in Colorado. His work with Outward Bound convinced him that you could find great rock climbers, great fishermen, and great campers, but rarely great outdoor leaders. That caused him to start the National Outdoor Leadership School in 1965.

After forty years the plain-speaking, rough-and-tumble mountain man had become the ultimate outdoorsman. He was even featured on the quiz show “To Tell The Truth,” where a panel tried to guess which of the three contestants was the “real” mountaineer. No one guessed Paul.

In 1969 while I was attending the University of Wyoming I saw a big barrel-chested man with bushy-white eyebrows eating at our cafeteria. I didn’t recognize him but someone mentioned that he was the famous mountaineer, Paul Petzoldt. It turned out that at the age of sixty-one, having recently started NOLS and giving lots of presentations, he decided to take some public speaking classes. A few months later I heard him speak about his new school in Lander, WY.

“How do you deal with all the discomforts of the outdoors?” someone in the audience asked, “When I think of being outdoors I think of being cold, wet, getting blisters, and being miserable.”

He answered, “We believe if you’re uncomfortable, you’re not doing it right.”

That answer made a life-long impression on me and made me want to learn how to do it right.

Fast forward a decade. When I heard he’d be in the Northeast, I called and invited him to the Adirondacks – he eagerly accepted. After Paul arrived in Saranac Lake I kept him busy for four days with a talk at the NYSDEC Region 5 Headquarters, a presentation to the Rotary Club, an evening lecture at Paul Smith’s College, and a couple of presentations at NCCC.

The most important event, however, was a breakfast to which I’d invited a group of NCCC faculty and administrators.. Upon finishing breakfast, Paul stood up and in his booming voice said, “The Adirondacks is the perfect place for a wilderness leadership program.” Then to my complete surprise he said, “I think NCCC should start such a program, and Jack Drury is the perfect person to lead it. I want him to come to Wyoming this summer and help me teach one of our new Wilderness Education Association courses.”

I was beyond pleased because Paul barely knew me. We’d crossed paths only a few times during my NOLS experiences, but the previous few days that I’d spent with him must have made an impression.

That summer I went out and participated in one of the first WEA courses and made a half-dozen lifelong friends, including Petzoldt.

The first Wilderness Education Course participants-1978 in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness of Wyoming-I'm in the top row second from left

At the end of the summer I returned, and as I was sitting in the old bank vault one day, I got a call from Paul’s assistant, Sandy Braun. “Paul wants NCCC to offer a WEA course next summer,” she said, “He wants to know what dates you could do it.”

I told her I’d have to get back to her because I had no idea whether the college would support it. Feeling that this might be my big break I immediately called Larry Poole, the college's Academic Dean.

“Larry, remember that wilderness fellow we had breakfast with last April, Paul Petzoldt?”

“Sure,” he said, “A very interesting and charismatic guy,”

“Well, I said, “His secretary just called.”

“Yeah?” Larry said.

“She told me Paul would love for NCCC to offer a 33-day wilderness leadership course that’d be certified by the Wilderness Education Association.”

Larry said, “Really?”

“She asked me if I could give her dates for next summer.”

“Well,” he said, “Did you give them to her?”

So after seven years of knocking on the door, NCCC had at last let me in. The College’s Wilderness Recreation Leadership Program ran its first 33-day wilderness practicum in the summer of 1979 and accepted students into the A.S. degree program that fall. When I left NCCC in 1995 the program was bursting at the seams with nearly seventy matriculated students.

I thought NCCC and the Wilderness Recreation Leadership program was a great place for students to learn wilderness leadership skills. And I still do.

1979 - NCCC's Wilderness Recreation Leadership Program First Summer Practicum

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I contribute a biweekly column for our local newspaper, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. It is called Bushwhack Jack's Tracts. I post them here for your reading pleasure.
© 2022

Silent Partners

Growing Old Graciously – More or Less

A Friend Lost

Best In Snow

Father and Son

Every Dog Has Its Day

Siberian Shakedown

A Close Call

Mountains, Mortality, and Motorcycle Mamas

The Birth of a Wilderness Program

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