A Black Hawk helicopter churns on a straight shot, east-west line as I fiddle with a tiny fly and a knot. Overlooking perhaps the most remote spot of Vermont, the pond shimmers, and I see the helicopter’s reflection on the water’s surface. US Customs and Border Protection markings on its side are visible. The sound of the rotors dissipates, and I’m alone again, save for a pair of loons.
Three beat-up, but usable, lightweight mini jon boats stashed on the shore allow me to drift and cast in the mid-day sun.
The reason I’m lazily drifting in a sketchy, barely floating aluminum boat is that I have a recurring urge to roam.
A forest, anywhere, is a multi-layered universe. As a hunter, no matter what time of year it is, I’m subconsciously looking for deer. It affects how I walk and how I react to smells.
I need to roam to live; the obstacle is then satisfying this need in a world that is progressing toward uniformity, routine, and predictability. Some things in this life can’t be scheduled without denuding them of their value.
The cedar-scented breeze pushes me to the east side of the pond, and I paddle back to shore to put my sneakers on.
Earlier that morning, I packed a 19-pound backpack; enough to spend the night in the woods if necessary, but not obnoxiously heavy to carry around all day. Cold food, blanket, trimmed-down med kit, fishing gear, and a water filter. Plus the luxury of a tent and rain fly. I’d rather carry the extra weight than sit at home tapping weather apps.
Four ponds spread over the area serve as benchmarks. Today, I’m lucky enough to find one with a self-sustaining population of brook trout. The government helicopters brook trout into a handful of remote ponds, but not this one.
On this outing, if I discover a nice spot or need more time to reach the ponds, I’ll stay overnight. If not, I’ll hike out.
“Did you check the Doppler?”
“Fuck the Doppler.”
If roaming is an itch, then I’m going to scratch it.
For most of our 300,000 years, we trailed food and weather, pacing out roughly 17 miles at a stretch between camps and lodges. About 174 miles each year.
Even after crops, shrines, and villages appeared, communities still shifted fields, herds, and pilgrimage routes. Only engines, screens, and suburbs have let us sit long enough to forget that motion was once survival.
Some trails I walk are on the map, convenient guardrails from which to base bushwacking. Searching for a pond, I stumble onto a moose trail that contained only moose prints, but showed evidence of humans: survey tape hastily tied on the scrubby trail’s edge conifers. Following it north, it was easy walking, and soon enough I see a border-straddling pond. But I also realize I am on the border, standing on that slashed line between two countries.
Ten feet in front of me lay The True North. Glancing around for cameras, listening for the Black Hawk, I turned and headed south.
I discover more unmarked trails and flagging near the border, but no human prints.
If the ponds are my purpose, then walking and navigating are my method.
I chose this region not only because of its beauty and newness to me, but because there’s no cell service. Without the bullshit of text messages, notifications, and alerts, the melancholy of suburbia vanishes.
Fifteen thousand years ago, on its steady retreat, the mile-deep Laurentide ice sheet covered this area. When Rogers’ Rangers attacked the settlement of Saint-Francis during the French and Indian War, they too retreated through some of the hellish spruce bogs I’m walking through.
As the eleventh black fly dive-bombs into my eyes, I consider how long I could stay out here. If I were home in the yard, a single fly in the eye would result in me stopping what I was doing, going inside, and trying to get the fly out. Here in the wild, I try once with my sleeve, then journey on; it will become a problem or it won’t.
It’s 5 PM, and I make a long sweeping loop towards the last pond. Based on an old map, there’s evidence of a shelter on the north side.
In 1994, individuals tracking a group of large cat tracks in this area sent in a scat sample with subsequent results indicating the presence of mountain lion hairs. My concern isn’t animals, though; it’s people. I’d be disappointed to find a group of campers out here or settle in somewhere only to have an adventurous group of teenagers show up, young roamers themselves, looking for a private party spot.
The shelter I find is a ramshackled lean-to not worth using unless it were a torrential rain; an uneven and hole-ridden deck makes my tent look like a less “mousey” option.
For 18 years, I planned and packed for my family’s camping trips, prioritizing comfort. But if it’s just me, I’m resetting to a pre-kid packing mentality. Yet the digital tools are hobbling; they treat us like children.
Algorithms whisper danger like Gollum seeking the ring.
Where can I put myself into that place where what I see is what’s actually there, in front of me?
No rotors overhead now; only the hush of a tangerine sun. I find a canoe in the scrub not too far from the lean-to. When I flip it over, there’s a rustic, hand-carved paddle. The silence is a note higher than insect buzz; the hum I hear is my own resonance. On the water’s edge, dozens of fallen trees lay submerged in the water, pointing to the center of the pond like points of a crown.
I shove off with all my belongings on my back into this last pond, gliding to the center, no idea what I’m fishing for or where I’ll be spending the night.
Join others scratching the itch to roam
Wow, Jesse. That is one beautiful piece of prose. Your description and elegant phrases are spellbinding. It really did feel as though I had stepped out from behind my coffee table and was walking behind you sharing all of the beauty and solitude that you described. I would look forward to meeting you.
Only one place in VT where that could be, I think. And it's OUT THERE. I only visited a few times. More moose than deer. More grouse than people..a lot more.
Creative and inspiring post.