Matthew Dickerson: Of lost ice and changing seasons

I don’t remember the exact year when I first drilled holes in the ice and set up tip-ups, beginning a longstanding tradition of ice fishing in Maine the first few days of every new year.

We parked the Jeep on the edge of the old unmaintained Class VI road running through the town forest.

The chill air bit into our hands and cheeks as we reached the far shore of the lake and turned the canoe into the wind. “Let’s be careful,” my wife said.

At the annual gathering of the Outdoor Writers Association of America, I signed up for fly fishing on the Clyde River, a tributary of the transnational Lake Memphremagog.

The bike trip started with seven miles of continuous downhill—and quite a bit more if we’d had the time to continue all the way to St. Johnsbury. But we had to turn around. And that’s what made me a little nervous, because those seven miles of downhill al … (read more)

I have a confession. Although all three of my sons have gone on fishing trips with me from time to time, none is especially interested in fly fishing. If I bring one of them with me somewhere wild and beautiful — a national park in Alaska or Wyoming, for … (read more)

Neither Kira nor Tuesday had ever been fly fishing before. But there they were in Alaska taking a three-week environmental writing class taught by my friend David O’Hara (from South Dakota’s Augustana University). And there I was, helping teach the class. … (read more)

3rd in a series; read the previous installments here.Morning light creeps into Hell’s Canyon, carving the hillsides with light and shadow in just a few minutes as neatly as the water has been carving it for millennia. I look up the slopes for a glimpse of … (read more)

2nd in a series. Read the first installment here.It’s the third morning of our four-day float trip with ROW Adventures down the Snake River along the Idaho-Oregon border. My wife Deborah and I sit in the shade of one of the rare clusters of trees near the … (read more)

Hell’s Canyon. With 8,000 feet of elevation difference between river level and the highest peaks of the enclosing ridgelines, it’s the deepest river gorge in North America — even deeper (and wider at the brim) than the Grand Canyon. It’s also the terminus … (read more)

SALISBURY — There have been occasional years when, for one reason or another, I didn’t make it down to the fish hatchery off Route 53 in Salisbury. But I try to make it an annual pilgrimage.The hatchery, more accurately known as a “fish culture station” a … (read more)

It’s the day before my birthday. I stand on the bow of my brother’s new boat. Since he moved from Alaska back to coastal Maine a few years ago, he’s been looking for a motorboat for Casco Bay. Something he and his wife could use to hop among the bay’s num … (read more)

It was two years ago this month that the Outdoor Writers Association of America had its most recent in-person conference. We gathered in Little Rock, Ark., in a hotel on the banks of a flooded Arkansas River. I met representatives of tourist bureaus from … (read more)

My wife and I got out canoeing this week for the first time this year. We made our way onto Bristol Pond (a.k.a. Winona Lake) with our canoe, two paddles, two life jackets, one water bottle, a cell phone camera, a slathering of sunscreen (already applied) … (read more)

Identifying and naming creatures. It started many years ago for me with species of trout, but it has since spread — to birds, to trees, to flowers, and even to insects. Not that I’m particularly good at it. Several years ago I was selected as artist-in-re … (read more)