Maine Guide Tip

Every week, I'll offer some wood wisdom gleaned from Registered Maine Guides I've known.

How To Read a Topo Map

Topographical maps — whether downloaded from the Web or the old-style ones printed by the United States Geological Survey — work on the principle of color coding:

Brown — Indicates contour lines, signifying changes in elevation.

Blue — Indicates water, including lakes, rivers, and streams.

Green — Signifies vegetated areas over six feet in elevation.

White — Signifies areas with vegetation under six feet in elevation, such as swamps and bogs.

Black — Is used for man-made features such as buildings and roads.

Red — Marks major highways, although it can also signify the boundaries of public lands.

Something to Fear

In Hemingway's Nick Adams Stories — specifically in a deleted prologue to the small masterpiece "Indian Camp — there's a passage of dialogue that anyone who knows the northern forest knows to be false. The first sentences are spoken by Nick's father, Doctor Adams:

"You don't want to ever be frightened in the woods, Nick. There is nothing that can hurt you."

"Not even lightning?" Nick asked.

"Not even lightning."

Having been struck by lightning myself I know there's plenty to be afraid of in the woods. Read my account of the worst night of my life.

Secrets of My Library

You are what you read. Those words popped into my head the other day as I was sitting in my home office looking at all the books I own. The walls of my personal library are lined with unfinished pine shelves literally overflowing with books. It occurred to me that a stranger could wander into my office—not that I want strangers meandering through my house, mind you—and quickly deduce all sorts of things about the person I am. He or she would guess that I am probably male (too much Hemingway and Mailer), that I almost certainly went to college (how else to explain those thousand-page anthologies of British literature?), and that I fancy myself an outdoorsman (tons of canoeing, wilderness first aid, and fly-tying guides).

The hypothetical stranger would also recognize that I am someone besotted by Maine. Louise Dickinson Rich, Carolyn Chute, Gerry Boyle, Edmund Ware Smith, Bernd Heinrich, Monica Wood—these are just some of the Maine authors whose titles occupy prime positions on my shelves. And if it's true that we define ourselves by the choices we make, then for better or worse, I must admit that my library is a pretty naked representation of my secret self.

I bet yours is, too.