When John Muir came ashore in San Francisco in 1868 and asked for the quickest route out of town,
the question he got was simple: “To where?”
“ANYWHERE THAT'S WILD,” he responded.
That same principle guides what we seek at Gotham Canoe: Visions of the wild, wherever it is. From the schist boulders in Central Park to the trout streams of Patagonia. And that towering oak in your own front yard.
Nervous Dads, Friends, Siblings: Now Everyone is Stepping Up to Officiate Weddings
December 6, 2022Bob Davis I was hesitant and nervous about officiating my daughter's wedding, but got good advice: Know what's in her heart. In stepping up, I joined a boom in weddings without rabbis, ministers or priests.
Fishing Cape Cod’s Monomoy Flats in Beep’s Jeep
December 2, 2022By Peter Fritsch When my dad died with a few big dreams unmet, I jumped to fulfill one of my own in his honor. I bought a boat to fish the gorgeous shoals of Cape Cod's Monomoy Island.
When in Iceland to Fish, You Fish, No Matter What.
November 11, 2022David N. McIlvaney Iceland is a Shangri-La for the flyfisher, but you can't be picky in your choice of fishing days. Sheets of rain? River flowing in a torrent? Gale-force winds? Just get to it. This is Iceland.
A Pilgrimage to the River Spey
September 20, 2022By Chris Santella For a week, I hurled flies into named pools along the storied River Spey, and it hardly mattered that I never landed a single salmon. Just being there, casting in such a place, was what really mattered.
To Norway, To Swim
February 6, 2022By Neil King Jr. What better way to celebrate a big life transition that several days of swimming, well before summer, in Norway's gorgeous but bracing fjords? That's what we did right after my eldest daughter graduated from college.
There’s Joy, Pure and Simple, In England’s Coastal Trails
January 15, 2022By Neil King Jr. We Americans have our hiking trails but none can shake a stick at England's glorious South West Coast Path. It is among the greatest public gifts to the common man anywhere in the world.
An Off-Season Trip to Maine Becomes an Autumn Master Class
November 19, 2021By Janet Hook Heading to my summer cottage in the full throes of fall taught me much I'd forgotten or never knew about the changing of the seasons. The sun, the birdlife, the constellations overhead--everything was different.
Slowing Down, Taking Notice: How the Pandemic Opened My Eyes To Birds
December 19, 2021By Janet Hook This awful pandemic has had at least a few upsides. It has slowed us down and opened our eyes to new things. For me and millions of others, it has sparked a deep fascination and appreciation for birds, among the oldest of all living species.
Emptying the Mind on the Island of Naxos
December 1, 2021By Tyler Maroney The beauty of wandering this island in Greece, or swimming its waters in search of an elusive octopus, or having that second or third cappuccino, is there is no why. Except, as someone once said, glory does accrue to those who hunger after the unusual.
Scent of Deer, Descent of Man
November 30, 2020By Neil King Jr. In the meadow of my winter refuge, it's a constant war of noses between me, my dog and the resident herd of deer. And a steady lesson in how inferior we humans are when it comes to the most potent of senses, smell.
How My Life’s Course Was Set, at 19, Aboard a Swedish Freighter, Heading for the South Seas
October 8, 2020By Barry D. Wood Restless at 19 and seeking adventure, I went West with dreams of finding work as a sailor. My five months aboard a Swedish freighter opened my eyes to the world and helped set my life's course.
Fly Fishing the Apocalypse with the Legendary Glenn Brackett
September 18, 2020By Neil King Jr. He is a wise man, a Buddhist and an extraordinary bamboo fly-rod maker. Glenn Brackett also knows every post-industrial fishing hole in all of greater Butte, Montana. We hit a few, and talked.
The Late-Summer Sadness of the Adirondack Chair
August 29, 2020By Neil King Jr. Set along lakes and ocean fronts in two, threes, and fours, Adirondack chairs are the emblems of passing summer leisure and idleness. And of imagined moments that never happen as we pass them by.
GLEANINGS
Glean (verb): to gather leftover grain or other crops in the field after harvest.
Or, in this case, wonderful found objects from famous and lesser-known writers, all in the public domain.
Every Man a Ruler, And Yet Nothing Pleases
May 20, 2020By Emanuel Howitt Have we changed in 200 years in our rumbling, inchoate discontent as a nation? Not that much. In the fall of 1819, a 28-year-old Englishman named Emanuel Howitt came to the young United States to see if he might settle there. He didn’t much like what he found.
On Walking
May 11, 2020By Henry David Thoreau Thoreau was one of his era’s great practitioners of ecstatic walking and often sang of its virtues in his works, but nowhere so potently as in his essay Walking, published in The Atlantic...
