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Basspro69

07/10/2012 07:13PM

Do you have a poem, quote, or saying that reminds you of the wilderness, if you would like to share it please do.The one that stands out for me is by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

" I want to know Gods thoughts , The rest are details " Albert Einstein.

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kanoes

07/10/2012 07:30PM

MY GOD BRAD! i strongly disagree with this post!!!! what were you thinking?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!

:)

i think bigfoot is blurry. (mitch hedberg...youtube it))

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maxxbhp

07/10/2012 07:35PM

hahahahahahahahaha, I agree, Jan, but there is some validity to Brad's point....;-)

"Old Nashville still has a song and dance, and the Florida girls still wear no underpants. And we all get drunk at the football game, yeh the new south, thank God is still the same" Hank Williams, jr

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Soledad

07/10/2012 07:36PM

I was just thinking of this poem while hiking the Sioux Hustler trail last week. I missed the less traveled trail and were it not for those with me, I would have been seriously lost along a nice grassy atv trail.

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Basspro69

07/10/2012 07:54PM

quote kanoes: "MY GOD BRAD! i strongly disagree with this post!!!! what were you thinking?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!

:)" That is some funny sh@@, you crack me up !

" I want to know Gods thoughts , The rest are details " Albert Einstein.

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TuscaroraBorealis

07/10/2012 08:00PM

I've always related with this one. I just substitute Dixie with Northwoods/canoe country. Bocephus More of a anti-city anthem I guess.

"The things ya know that I miss most of all. Is the freedom of the rivers & the pines."

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bapabear

07/10/2012 08:19PM

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
Henry David Thoreau

This one has always struck my fancy from when I first saw it in college.

May waters rise to meet you. May wind and current be always at your back. May the Good Lord paddle with you, And may yours be the lightest pack.

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mocha

07/10/2012 09:21PM

"It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"

from some butter commercial, i think, way back when.

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strom2127

07/10/2012 10:29PM

No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
Jack Kerouac

"Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more."

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kanoes

07/10/2012 10:38PM

quote mocha: ""It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"

from some butter commercial, i think, way back when."
parkay margarine

i think bigfoot is blurry. (mitch hedberg...youtube it))

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Minnesotian

07/10/2012 11:14PM

Great thread, Basspro.

I bring this quote with me on every camping trip I take. I read it in the morning as I am waking up, even before I make my first cup of coffee. Gets me into thinking about what is important.

"When one finally arrives at the point where schedules are forgotten and becomes immersed in ancient rhythems, one begins to live. -Sigurd Olson

"We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return - prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdom." - Thoreau

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kayakrookie1

07/11/2012 12:35AM

When I'm up in the arrowhead region and fishing early in the morning I keep a ritual of reciting these lines from Hamlet to myself: "But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill."

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overthehill

07/11/2012 02:46AM

Mine is (forgot the dam title) ...something about a 'Waterfowl'.

If I remember right, it was be William Cullen Bryant

Not to Hurry-Not to Worry

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overthehill

07/11/2012 02:55AM

"To A Waterfowl"

(Thanks for this thread Basspro)

Not to Hurry-Not to Worry

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WhiteWolf

07/11/2012 03:47AM

Weird. I was just going start a new post about something similar. Before my first trip in Aug of 1993 awake at 4:00 am as the others slept in a Seagull Outfitters bunk house,, I just knew something very unique and special was about to occur, not just that particular trip,, but on and on afterwards. It was a surreal feeling Contact had been made. Bringing my nearly 7 year old son in Aug for his first trip----Got me thinking about the song I have used to describe the feeling I had that morning and since about the BW and Q.-- and hope the "string gets pulled" on the next generation.

And you sense a change....

"What good fortune for governments that the people do not think." — Adolf Hitler

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mooseplums

07/11/2012 04:54AM

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the worlds great flood, and runs over the rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks, are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks, are the words, and some of the words are thiers. I am haunted by waters."

Norman McLean
"A River Runs Through It"

"I am haunted by waters"~Norman Maclean "A River Runs Through It"

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strom2127

07/11/2012 09:05AM

quote mooseplums: ""Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the worlds great flood, and runs over the rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks, are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks, are the words, and some of the words are thiers. I am haunted by waters."

Norman McLean
"A River Runs Through It""

+1. I always love that one.

"Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more."

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missmolly

07/11/2012 09:18AM

I wish I had something for you, Brad. Even though I'm a writer and have written about the wilderness, I find the wilderness antithetical to words. I once started a thread about becoming a critter in the woods and on the water and that's what the wilderness tenders to me: wordless critterness. Most days, my head isn't just a hornets' nest of words, but a shaken and kicked hornets' nest. Wilderness is the soothing smoke and the hands that return the nest to the sanctuary of maple shade.

If there were one word, it would be, "Hush."

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ozarkpaddler

07/11/2012 09:58AM

quote missmolly: "Most days, my head isn't just a hornets' nest of words, but a shaken and kicked hornets' nest. Wilderness is the soothing smoke and the hands that return the nest to the sanctuary of maple shade.

I love this, great way to put it!

"Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." Mark Twain

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gutmon

07/11/2012 11:35AM

1 pike, 2 pike, 3 pike, 4
All out of wood, better go and find some more.

"The trouble with the world isn't that people know too little, but that they know so much that just ain't so." Mark Twain

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Goby

07/11/2012 11:40AM

Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe. -- Henry David Thoreau

This is a signature for someone on this board, but it speaks the loudest to me.

I also like:

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
John Muir

Tight Lines

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Arkansas Man

Moderator

07/11/2012 02:07PM

My favorite saying I found on a tee shirt from The Great Smoky Mountains. It reads like this: "Sometimes you have to get lost, to find yourself..."

Bruce

Good Paddling, Great Fishing, and God Bless All...

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kayakrookie1

07/11/2012 02:36PM

quote strom2127: "No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
Jack Kerouac"

It's been awhile since I read Kerouac, but is this from "Big Sur"?

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fraxinus

07/11/2012 06:40PM

These two stick in my head when I'm lucky enough to be "up there" paddlin.

Travel by canoe is not a necessity, and it will nevermore be the most efficient way to get from one region to another, or even from one lake to another — anywhere. A canoe trip has become simply a rite of oneness with certain terrain, a diversion of the field, an act performed not because it is necessary, but because there is value in the act itself… - John McPhee, The Survival of the Bark Canoe

….the age of the canoe is not gone; it’s just different. the canoe is no longer a vehicle of trade and commerce. Instead, it has become a means of venturing back into what is left of the natural world. It’s true there isn’t much left to be discovered, but there is much to be rediscovered about the land, about the creatures who live there, and about ourselves. Where do we come from and where are we going? There is no better place and no better way to follow this quest into the realm of spirit than along the lakes and rivers of the North American wilderness in a canoe. -Bill Mason, Path Of The Paddle

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bhouse46

07/12/2012 07:03AM

Thoughts. Ah the dilemma, LNT or bushwhack? This thread sure supports the solo tripper. My misquote would be Captain Kirk when Zulu asks what course to set, "Out there.".

And finally, S. Peck in his classic "The Road Less Traveled" spoke about how few have the discipline necessary to build the base for love and spirituality. The road less traveled is one of discipline.

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Minnesotian

07/12/2012 10:02AM

quote bhouse46: "Thoughts. Ah the dilemma, LNT or bushwhack? This thread sure supports the solo tripper. My misquote would be Captain Kirk when Zulu asks what course to set, "Out there.".

"

You talking this clip? One of my favorites. Second Star to the Right

"We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return - prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdom." - Thoreau

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schweady

07/12/2012 11:57AM

"Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee" by Henry van Dyke.
All four verses are good, but it's verse two that is my usual portaging hymn:

All thy works with joy surround thee,
Earth and heaven reflect thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Flowery meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain,
Call us to rejoice in thee.

"You can observe a lot by watching." -- Yogi Berra

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jcavenagh

07/12/2012 02:34PM

quote maxxbhp: "hahahahahahahahaha, I agree, Jan, but there is some validity to Brad's point....;-)"

I'm not sure...let's do a poll!

LNT - The road to success is always under construction. http://hikingillinois.blogspot.com/

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Canoe42

07/12/2012 03:09PM

My daughter wrote this years ago.

"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati" -Red Green

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TuscaroraBorealis

07/12/2012 03:23PM

quote Canoe42: "My daughter wrote this years ago.
"

Very Cool Beans!

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Basspro69

07/12/2012 03:25PM

quote TuscaroraBorealis: "quote Canoe42: "My daughter wrote this years ago.
"

Very Cool Beans!" +1

" I want to know Gods thoughts , The rest are details " Albert Einstein.

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schweady

07/12/2012 03:53PM

quote kanoes: "quote mocha: ""It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"

from some butter commercial, i think, way back when."
parkay margarine"
before squeeze or spray

"You can observe a lot by watching." -- Yogi Berra

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realandrea

07/12/2012 06:11PM

I'm not obsessed with Kerouac but here is my favorite:

“I yelled for joy. We passed the bottle. The great blazing stars came out, the far receding hills got dim. I felt like an arrow that could shoot out all the way.”

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Scout64

07/12/2012 06:53PM

quote kanoes: "quote mocha: ""It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"

from some butter commercial, i think, way back when."
parkay margarine"

Chiffon Margarine. "If you think it's butter, but it's not; it's Chiffon".

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit."

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