We’re leaving on our final trip this morning, headed to a large, remote lake about an hour away. While there we’ll do our canoe-skills testing and people will head out on solos for several days. We’ve had some cold nights, so I’ll be brining a canvas tent and wood stove in case someone goes for an unplanned swim and we need to warm them up. With mild temperatures near freezing it doesn’t take a lot of wood to get a tent almost too warm.

After a long drought that resulted in the region’s rivers being super-low since late summer, yesterday we got an inch of rain. It brought the Aroostook right up from 100 cubic feet per second to over 1000. For this course it happened just a little too late for us to take advantage of.

These days I look forward to going to places that get no service for people’s phones. It allows them to let in the silence of the forest, eliminating the distractions of the outside world. Where we’re going is one such place. People still have distractions inside their own heads, but getting away from devices is a step in the right direction.

See you in a few days.