We’re in the middle of week 3 of the spring, 2026 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester and I’m always amazed at the relativity of how we experience time. We’ve all engaged in things that didn’t excite us, during which time seemed to crawl by. I can recall being a kid in school, watching the second and minute hands on the clock count down the moments until the bell rang and we were able to go outside. It seemed to slow down the closer it got to the bell, leaving me to experience those final moments as seemingly hours. Those are the times you wish you could speed time up, sort of like fast forwarding through a movie to get to the good parts. On the other hand, when you’re fully engaged in something you enjoy, the moments, hours, days and weeks seem to fly by. And that’s what I’m experiencing right now. It feels like yesterday I was getting ready for the semester to start, and now we’re two and a half weeks into and we haven’t even hit the water yet! I’ve been making an effort to publish short videos about what we’re up to on the course, and am planning to record a podcast by the end of the week. It’s busy around here.
The weather has been a challenge. April can be a hard month in northern Maine. We all have spring on our minds, thinking about hiking the trails through the woods (still covered in snow), fly casting on the pond (still covered in ice) and canoeing on the river (completely flooded and blown out with snow melt), but the temperatures have been barely making it into the 40s. We have had two days where it got up to near 60 F, but they were just to whet our appetite. We know that warmer weather is coming, but it seems to still be hiding just over the horizon yet.
But the birds and animals aren’t waiting, and have been ramping up the activity. Moose have been active along the road into camp, with some of the guys on the course who are from away getting to see their first one. There is a young beaver who has decided there should be a pond along the road to Moose Vegas and is frantically working on a dam to make it happen. And our resident family of ravens are again nesting in the big white pine tree next to our headquarters. I can tell that the babies will arrive soon because both Buddy and Eddy raven are only using their inside voices in or near the nest. They will both still make a racket when away from the nest, but it sounds like they are ‘cooing’ to the little ones. It is sweet and endearing to listen to. Lastly, the baby snowshoe hares will be arriving any day now. Most years we find one or two next to the pavilion and it’s a great opportunity for a photo. They always blow the roof off of the cuteness meter. The little guy in the photo was hanging out in the pavilion last spring. See what I mean about the cuteness thing?
In review, the land is waking up, we’re incredibly busy, and even though it’s cold there’s no place I’d rather be than right here, right now.
