Category: Essays & Stories

He’s out there, hunting.      My hands are shaking right now. I don’t know where to begin.  My heartbeat is racing. I fear he is following me. I can’t catch my breath.      It started innocently enough. I had no warning. Well, maybe I did. I don’t know. I...

On the northern shores of Middle Saranac Lake Between Weller and Eden Rests a remote rock rimmed boulder bay Biding time’s weathered seasons Beyond lonely wail of coyote and loon Made legend by Reben Beware Hungry Bay’s windswept whitecap howl Stalking doomed souls it feasts on **********      It...

When the Laws of Man and Nature Collide in the Mountains      The year was 1983. July, to be exact, as a young man’s lone figure eased into an overgrown Adirondack trailhead parking lot and turned off his truck’s engine. He did a quick personal pat down; keys, pocket-knife,...

If that’s not an official holiday, it oughta’ be! Well! This is it! Saturday is October 1st. The time of year every hunter has been waiting for. In New York State, October ushers in the opening of bow season, fall turkey and duck hunting, as well as most small...

A Cancer Fighting Canine’s Morning Paw Patrol Photo Shoot Featuring: Captain Blue As folks may or may not know by now, our Monroe Paw Patrol family recently received some very devastating news. Captain Blue, our canine Paw Patrol Leader, was diagnosed with lymphoma. Captain Blue is only six and...

The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Duck      The day dawned with a twist.  A hunter’s life lesson hard learned as my Zen Boat canoe silently sliced morning mist.      I jumped a pair of wood ducks along the shore to my left as my hand painted Zen Boat...

The 2022 Adirondack Canoe Classic AKA: “The 90 Miler” An Adirondack Outlaw Photo Chronology ********** I suspect that being in the right place at the right time is one of the tricks of being a photographer. I also suspect that sometimes it’s by design, and sometimes by chance. I...

Ari Rae Marra’s Adirondack Outlaw Christening Bull Rush Bay 2022 was not only our Monroe family’s 50th anniversary camp celebration, it was also an Adirondack Outlaw camp celebration as Ari Rae’s first. Plans and preparation for this big event began late last fall. The NYSDEC built a brand spanking...

OR “THE GREAT RAT CAPER OF 1981”      It was fall, 1980.  My friends and I had somehow managed to survive our way to senior year at Saranac Lake High School.      I wasn’t a great student in high school.  I never really studied or applied myself.  I copied...

A Middle Saranac Lake lean-to look-back collection of memories, artifacts, legends and photos.      My family first visited Middle Saranac Lake’s site 63 Bull Rush Bay in 1972.   The photo above depicts the lean-to that was there by that time. It quickly became the cedar log summer home...