The Walk
by MJ Logan
May 14, 2012

Northern Wisconsin is big snow country and in the sixties, seventies and early eighties, temperatures would often drop well below zero and stay there for days. It still happens, but less frequently than it did when I was growing up and into my early twenties. I was not around in earlier years, but I'm told there were decades of warmer weather followed by decades of colder weather. I'd have to look at the records to know and compare to how things are today.

Often, we had to shovel the snow off the cabin roof or it would be too heavy and cause damage. Deep snow means that a lot more has fallen than you can measure with a yard stick because it compacts. If the snow is waist deep, you've probably endured more than 100 inches of the white stuff , and in Iron County, 180 inches of snow in a year was not uncommon.

The Pond
by MJ Logan
April 27, 2012

I think it was the winter of 1967. I'm not sure of the exact year and it was a very long time ago, but 1967 seems right and it fits. We lived in a small town in Central Wisconsin and looking back, it seems like an almost utopian existence. Almost, for fear and danger and death may await the unsuspecting six-year old boy who wanders beyond his given borders against parental instruction.

Yep. 1967 in small-town America. I walked to kindergarten and back, nearly a mile each way and did it every day. I passed neighbors and friends and people I didn't know, who seemed to know me. Mom had half the town watching out for me and if I was three minutes late, the phone wires were probably burning. In the winter of 1967 I was a grand six-years old and proud to be in kindergarten. I was almost devastated to find out that I wouldn't learn to read until the next year, but that was how it was in 1967, kids didn't learn to read until the first grade.

We're Not Lost!
by MJ Logan
March 10, 2012

It was 1986 and the fall colors were at their peak or maybe a few days past peak in early October. The day was clear, dazzlingly brilliant and you could not ask for a more beautiful day in Northern Wisconsin. It was a Saturday morning and still fairly early when I asked my best friend Dan what he wanted to do.

"Let's go on an all day hike," he told me. "I'd like to see some country I haven't seen before."

It sounded like a plan to me. We ate half a pound of bacon and half a dozen eggs cooked in bacon grease (heart disease was not something we thought much about) and left my family's cabin. I knew exactly where we were going to explore and it was surely an all day hike. We each had a compass, a lighter, a pocket knife and a shotgun. Read more: We're Not Lost

Fly-In Adventure Chapter 1
by MJ Logan
January 7, 2012

It started in Milwaukee at the annual Sports Show. The Sports Show is an outdoor extravaganza of shows, displays by various manufacturers promoting everything from fishing rods to the latest electronic gizmo guaranteed to triple your outdoor fun and of course, outfitters for trips around the world.

Outfitters for hunting, fishing and camping. If you want to go there, you can find someone to take you. Do you like to fish? How about fishing for walleyes in Canada? Or you could go bass fishing, ocean fishing, river fishing, pond fishing, reservoir fishing, lake fishing, freshwater, saltwater.