Stories

The environment, poverty and human trafficking. For the past 25 years northern Uganda has been under siege — not from invading armies as might be expected but from within fueled by a ruinous cycle of environmental degradation and crushing poverty. Stemming from the economic and cultural disparities between the prosperous and economically diverse south and...

Mountain Lion The house is quiet now, only the slow sleepy breathing of three black dogs stirs the air. Abe, my old lab, lies beside me on this dog hair-covered couch, his breathing uneven now but on pace with the dream-twitching of his back legs. We had a big walk in the snow today and his recovery takes ever longer as his endurance slowly wanes. He’ll be...

His name was Arthur Cooper, although it seemed most people in the bar called him simply Cooper.  He was an older gentleman, in his 90’s I figured, dressed as a solid New Englander- a checked, button down, LL Bean shirt with a beige cardigan and worn brown slacks- neat but nothing fancy.  You would call him natty in his day but his day was mostly...

I am often asked where my ideas come from for the articles and books that I do. Sometimes they are the end result of a much thinking and analysis. Other times they just spring fully formed into my small but perfectly formed brain. And still other times they are given to me as a gift, I just have to keep my eyes and my ears open. This was one of those...

A true story: For many years I  lead polar bear photography tours in Churchill, Manitoba, on the coast of Hudson Bay. Churchill is an odd little frontier town that, before they realized they could make money off the autumnal polar bear migration, was the end of the rail line for grain shipments from Canada’s Prairie Provinces. When I was in Churchill the...

The directions to drive to Crabtree Lake are to just follow Crabtree Creek upstream until it stops flowing. The problem is that the approach is via a snarl of logging roads that pay no heed to topography or logic. I remember the route as straight-left-straight-left-straight but its been a few years since I have been there and all that might be left, might...

The Hub – Kim Furlong, Storekeeper Kim Furlong has a single string tied around her left wrist. The string symbolically connects close friends in a circle of support and promise for a friend about to give birth. “When the child is born we will all cut the string together. It’s a way of celebrating a new beginning. I should’ve put one around this store years...

Midnight in mid-channel, mid-coast in Maine and I am adrift between two tides. One carries my small boat away as I pull to shore against its tidal tug. The other also washes through the starry darkness but I cannot pull against it. And so, thus caught in the middle, with raised oars I drift...... listening. From above “Churrs,” “cheeps,” “tinks” and...