Speaker 1 00:00:42 Wonderful. Uh, we're here with Kurt and Ellie Johnson. Awesome. Yeah. Hello of the barons. Hi, how are you doing tonight?
Speaker 2 00:00:50 Good.
Speaker 1 00:00:51 Welcome to write on radio. Pretty good. Welcome to write on radio. Why don't you give us a little description of the book and they go right into the reading. How does that sound
Speaker 2 00:01:01 Okay. Sure. Yeah. Well, the book is about two girls, uh, who, um, won't go canoeing into the wilderness, um, of Subar Canada and, um, and, uh, one comes out with the other's decomposing body. Oh dear. In between there's adventure, hard backstory romance. Yes. It's a little gruesome. Um, and in the end, the living one has to confront the law and the dead one's parents. Oh, that's the, the short version of the book.
Speaker 1 00:01:32 Okay. We'll go into that more in a minute. Why don't we do the reading?
Speaker 3 00:01:37 Yeah. So I have the reading and I chose to read essentially the ending of the first chapter. Um, and this is what right after, uh, Holly, one of, one of the, uh, characters falls into a canyon and Lee is trying to find her and get her out. I searched to find a way to the water's edge. I saw ravine and scrambled down the loose rock scree. As the ravine steepened, I turned backwards on all fours, binding footing, as best as I could. Then I slipped and slid with the sharp edges of the screen, scraping into my thighs.
Speaker 3 00:02:18 So sorry, I fell over a ledge and ledge. And for a weightless moment, thought I would die that this is how my nightmares would end. I hit the slope of the ravine and took one head first tumble. Then another my forehead hit a solid rock. I tumbled again, and then slid face first down the incline until I stopped at the river level bottom, I saw the exit to the Gorge, the water ING back towards me, pieces of the clothing from the PPAC floated by. I waited into the ed and saw a pair of underpants, but they were my underpants, the boxers I wore, and I realized that Holly had been carrying my pee pack and I'd had hers,
Speaker 3 00:03:02 The pack floated toward me torn and nearly empty left, tucked inside with my sleeping bag that kept the pack afloat. I still didn't see Holly as I waited, my legs became numb in the frigid water, but my face flushed hot with perspiration. I was shaking from fear, panic. I waited and time magnified. I forced myself to breathe. I saw the red of Holly's life Fest. I saw her shoulders and Whis of hair flowing from the back of her head. She floated past the Eddie and I ran back to the shore and followed as she drifted downstream, then slowly came to a stop. I waited in and staggered through the river. My thighs pumping against water, my feet, finding purchase on the Rocky bottom. I slipped on a rock and submerged in the cold water, then stood and kept moving until I was at Holly's side and had a hand through the arm hole of her vest.
Speaker 3 00:03:53 I turned her over bloody lacerations, covered the side of her face, like claw marks. She wasn't breathing. My lips met hers to move air my fingers, holding her nose closed. I kept trying, as I pulled her body to shallow water, I took a deep breath for both of us, a step, another breath, her lip, body S sagged in the vest. I pulled her onto the shore, still delivering a breath for her, for me, blood drip, from the cut of my forehead and onto her face merging with her blood swirling in the current like WST of smoke. I thought I was losing her that she was dying and leaving me alone on the barons. I felt her body shake and convulsed. She coughed water and took a breath.
Speaker 1 00:04:34 That's uh, reading by Ellie Johnson from the Barron. Um, what is your personal experience? Uh, canoeing that river?
Speaker 3 00:04:45 Well, I went on, uh, a trip myself with three other women when I was 17. Um, and we did about 50 days on that exact river, um, paddled, uh, little under 500 miles, um, and ended up in baker lake Canada in the Arctic circle. And it was one of the most, uh, incredible journeys I've ever been on in one of the most remote areas of the world.
Speaker 1 00:05:12 Sounds wonderful. Uh, I'm curious. Um,
Speaker 3 00:05:14 That was incredible.
Speaker 1 00:05:16 You talk, the story goes back and forth between Lee's story of the journey taking Holly's body back to civilization and you Lee's story of her relationship with her father Jake. And I'm wondering where Jake comes from, where the character of Jake, uh, germinated from?
Speaker 2 00:05:37 Um, yeah, uh, we used to spend, uh, Easter Easter down in, um, Skylar, Nebraska with my, with my mother who was living there for about the last 10 years and a couple times there, uh, we had dinner and a, a guy came over from Columbus who was an echo anarchist. Um, this man lived off the grid outside of Columbus. It was kind of loosely based on his character I met, but I did go visit him and in his house that was, uh, built into the side of a hill. And he was again, just living off the grid and he'd gone to, uh, Harvard and he'd, uh, uh, uh, skull in, in Harvard, Harvard and, and had a, a skulling AAR over his mantle. So I, I it's loosely based on him. And then I just kind of took it from there
Speaker 1 00:06:28 In Jake's story. Uh, why don't you gimme some of his backstory even further back into childhood? What do you think, uh, brought him through to becoming an eco anarchist?
Speaker 2 00:06:40 Oh, that's a good question. I think I touched on it a little bit in the book, but, uh, uh, he goes to, um, uh, brown, um, in the, uh, seventies. Um, and, and I think just kind of, uh, studied philosophy and got into that movement, um, in the seventies. And then he grew up, uh, rich in a, uh, upper middle class household in, in Connecticut. And I think he just, uh, decided to follow that philosophy. And he lived, um, in a van, he, he was a deadhead and followed the dead for a while. And then he found a piece of land in Columbus and, and, and settled in. He didn't have much money and he bought a home that was half built. Uh, only the basement was built and he just covered the basement and used that as a home, a shelter where he, he raised, uh, his daughter Lee.
Speaker 1 00:07:43 And how did growing up with Jake, would you say affected Lee's personality and thought process as a child and as an adult?
Speaker 2 00:07:53 Wow, these are, these are good questions. <laugh>, um, the story's, uh, a little bit of a com coming of age for, for Lee. Um, she's, she's impacted by the fact that they're living off the grid, but she's also impacted by the fact that she's coming, uh, she's growing up in and understanding that that she's a lesbian and in a community that, that really doesn't accept that, that sexuality. Um, so between the two, um, she's kind of a, an outcast. So she goes to brown. She gets into brown because she's a legacy and because she's a smart kid and, and she carries with her that otherness, that otherness of growing, uh, up off the grid and that otherness of, of, of having, um, the home, you know, of being a lesbian. Um, and you know, she, she has a, um, a, a difficult relationship with Jake. She loves him, but he's crazy. And he can be mean and demanding, and really she needs to get away from him, go to school in order, you know, to find her own life and break out. So a lot of what is happening on the river and happening with, uh, Holly is a, is a coming of age for her and, and her finding herself,
Speaker 1 00:09:16 Uh, talk to something about Holly, introduce us to her and her background and how she and Lee meet and get involved with each other.
Speaker 2 00:09:25 Well, they met at, they meet at brown or met at brown and she's, uh, from a wealthy family, um, in the cathedral hill area of St. Paul. So she grew up in one of those fancy Victorian homes and went to brown where they met and Holly, uh, grew up pretty typical household. Um, and she was, as far as her parents, um, knew was straight. Um, she had, um, one relationship, but she kind of rejected the woman, um, something that she carries the guilt about. And then she goes to brown and, and essentially comes out, but does not come out to her parents. And so she takes a trip with Lee. Her parents essentially think Lee is a guy and don't really know that no, otherwise until, uh, Lee comes out with, uh, with Holly's body after the, the canoe trip. So it, it, it's a, it's also a coming out story for Holly who's unfortunately deceased.
Speaker 1 00:10:36 Um, why did Lee decide to, I mean, I think, uh, at the point where Holly dies, there's a lot of choices about what we could do. She decides to carry the body with her through the rest, down the rest of the river, trying to find help. And I'm wondering why she decides to do that rather than leave it or bury it or do something else with it. I don't know what all her choices would be. Sure.
Speaker 2 00:11:07 Well, initially she's not, you know, she's not dad, of course, I'm giving away the whole <laugh> novel <laugh>, but initially she's not dad, so that this, uh, there's a certain amount of, of just, she's already moving down the river with the, with, um, Holly who's in a comatose state, and then she just keeps going. But, but she does, she does think about that. She does think about leaving the body and, and, um, and contemplates that and comes to the conclusion that, you know, her, her, her family, uh, Holly's family needs to, to, to see Holly and, and that wouldn't be a right thing to do to just leave the body behind.
Speaker 1 00:11:53 She tells Holly's stories, the, the, the dead Holly, she, uh, Lee tells her stories about her life with Jake. And it kind of, I'm, I'm wondering how you decided to go back and forth between those two stories in that particular way that she's telling the story. And, and, uh, it works very well.
Speaker 2 00:12:13 Well, you know, initially right, initially I, I wrote, I wrote the story, first person present tense, and, and I, I, I just wanted to be in the moment the whole time, and I didn't want these backstory kind of dream sequences. I wanted, I wanted it in the moment. And of course she has nobody to talk to mm-hmm <affirmative>. So how do you do that? So I came up with this idea of, of the kind of verbal stories of, you know, sitting around the campfire and telling them, and of course, uh, well, Holly, uh, kind of turns her onto that storytelling, um, uh, pattern. And then she just keeps it up and keeps telling the, the stories to, um, Holly, even though Holly is, is not with her. Um, and, and, you know, the, the, it goes back and forth in time a little bit. And frankly, it just made sense to me at the time. I don't really have a good rationale. Why, why I did that?
Speaker 1 00:13:23 Let's talk about process. This is fascinating to me that, that, uh, the father and a daughter would work together to write a book. And I'm wondering first off, how you decided to do it that way.
Speaker 3 00:13:37 It was, I think more just, uh, initially when, uh, when I got off trail, my father was the only person who was really interested in my stories and my journey and my relationships and how they formed, and even the plants and animals. And I think that, um, just inspired him to think about this journey and particularly this journey for young women. Um, and I was in college at Burlington at the time getting my undergraduate and my dad calls me and he pitches me this story about two women who go onto the phon and only one comes out. Um, and I said, frankly, I'm a little too busy. How about you write it? <laugh> and he did, he went on to write a novel. And I, I think, um, after writing that novel, he realized he liked the story and wanted to make those characters a little bit deeper. And that started just hours and hours of, uh, conversation back and forth to be able to produce authentic characters in an authentic environment. Um, Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:14:41 Was it fun?
Speaker 3 00:14:43 Yeah, <laugh> it was fun was fun. There was a lot of beer and pool, and, uh, I talks about like growing up and kind of how we as youth engage with society and kind of learn ourselves. Um, and also like what it was like to learn yourself in such an incredible environment. Um, not, not a lot of people have a chance to remove themselves from society at such a pivotal point in their life. And, um, we talked a lot about what that makes you contemplate.
Speaker 1 00:15:17 And how old were you when you, uh, did the river?
Speaker 3 00:15:22 I, I was 17 and I turned 18 on trail in, in my last week.
Speaker 1 00:15:26 Oh, that's exciting.
Speaker 3 00:15:27 It was the summer before I went to college.
Speaker 1 00:15:29 Did, did, did you have a party for your 18th birthday?
Speaker 2 00:15:32 <laugh>?
Speaker 3 00:15:34 We did actually. We used two bags of a cake mix that we had been saving and made a marble cake and had a jar of frosting that we had bought special for the birthday, and we ate so much cake. We felt sick and then our bug tent ripped.
Speaker 1 00:15:51 Oh, dear
Speaker 3 00:15:52 <laugh>. Um, but it was quite a party. It was fun. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:15:57 Um, tell me more about the process. Was there a diary that you used to, uh, help remember things? Uh, did you go first and then, uh, uh, Kurt, did you, uh, take what she said and, uh, expand on it or did, did you write and then, well,
Speaker 2 00:16:17 Yeah, I, I did most of the writing, so I had the idea for the story and again, you know, started off as a kind of a short piece and, and neat, you know, once I was sitting there, I really needed the back story and I needed to develop these characters a little bit more. Um, but, but I did most of the writing, you know, I just, my, my style is to just sit down and bang out a thousand or 1500 words a day until it's done and get a draft. And when I was doing that draft, I'd call her up and ask her about different pieces of the river, um, and what it felt like, and, and, you know, what a Musco looked like and smells like, and those sort of things. And then once I had a draft, I, I really filled in the, the gaps. I had kind of placeholders for, for some of the, the romantic scenes and, and, uh, and, and some of the back stories. And then I delved in, in further with really conversations, you know, we had a few at old liquor Lyles on Hanton. Oh yeah. Um, sat around and drank beer. And Ellie was there with her partner, Kate, and just talking about, about her sexuality and some of the stories that, uh, she, she had growing up. And then, so I really went back and embellished a lot of that with what I learned from Ellie
Speaker 1 00:17:37 And Ellie, talk some about your, your teenage years and coming out and what that was all about for you.
Speaker 3 00:17:45 Oh, um, I mean, gosh, I was a teenager, everything was miserable and incredible all at once, you know? Uh it's. It was hard. I, I came out young and I was kind of outed. Um, I came out my freshman year in high school and, you know, there, there was a lot of initial like ostracism I faced just because I, I was very clearly gay. Um, and I was one of the first people in my class who was out and people didn't always know how to respond to me or to respond to, to my sexuality. Dating was hard. Um, but you eventually find your, your niche and your people. And I, I had a lot of really good, um, people in my life who supported me and I don't, I don't think I really like found myself or found a lot of that comfort, um, until I started going to like Wiji later and finding people who just felt really authentic and liked a lot of the same things as I did, and enjoyed the same experience and, and got, um, the same joy from the outdoors and literature, um, and all those things as I did.
Speaker 3 00:18:55 And then when I went to college, um, I, I just feel like I flourished in trying to realize the little bit of my own sexuality and my personality. Um, but yeah, it was definitely hard, uh, young growing up. And I think what we ended up having a lot of conversations about and that my dad challenges in the novel is how as, um, a young gay woman were challenged with a lot of different kinds of love and have to learn relationships, both positive and negative. Um, and, and it can be hard when you already feel alienated by society. You don't feel like people can under understand your relationships. Um, you have to do a lot of that learning and kind of out for,
Speaker 1 00:19:39 I'm curious too, you know, the writing about your story and the river and your relationship or Lee's relationship with Holly, uh, is, uh, would be one piece of talking. And then the story of Jake, I'm just wondering how you guys talked about that and, and, uh, how you created that is, is quite a full backstory. I mean, he's really kind of an amazing person, whether you like him or not, is that was, you know,
Speaker 2 00:20:08 Right. That was a little bit more my imagining <laugh>, that was a little bit
Speaker 3 00:20:12 More, or even your story. You, you grew up, you know, a lot of you spent a lot of time in Nebraska and we're doing survivalist things, riding the rails, I think in a lot of ways, Lee, through your childhood, as much as my own.
Speaker 2 00:20:25 Yeah. I suppose, you know, I was, uh, a little bit of a deadhead and I lived out of a Volkswagen bus for a while and hitched all over the country and rode the freights. And, and I didn't dabble too much in, in, in, uh, politics like Jake does, but I certainly lived somewhat that lifestyle a little bit. So I, I take some of that from my own, my own upbringing. And some of the people that I did know that, that were, uh, political activists like Jake was,
Speaker 1 00:21:00 How long were you a deadhead?
Speaker 2 00:21:03 I should say political extremist. Oh, uh, deadhead. Well, I, I was a deadhead for about, uh, three years until I decided, uh, I like punk rock music a little bit, the grateful all over the country for,
Speaker 1 00:21:24 In well in, uh, writing and creating this book. How did you handle disagreements or were there disagreements about what would happen in the story and, uh, how'd you handle those?
Speaker 3 00:21:36 Yeah, I, I, but I think disagreement is maybe not how I would phrase it. I think there was a couple times that you would pitch me a scene or an idea, and I would kind of have to say like, no, I don't think that would ever happen. I don't think they would ever say that to each other. I don't think that would happen that way on trail, or I don't think that's like what that animal would do in that situation even. Um, but then from there we would kind of work together to like, adapt that idea into something that felt like authentic to, you know, my reality, both on trail and in my own history.
Speaker 1 00:22:13 We're speaking with Kurt and Ellie Johnson, authors, authors, co-creators of the barons, uh, book of love and death on the, uh, river, uh, in Northern Canada. Um, why don't, uh, I think you had a second reading. Why don't you, uh, go for the second reading?
Speaker 3 00:22:34 Yeah. So you mentioned earlier, uh, the nature of the, the stories in the novel. And so I chose a section, uh, that dealt a little bit with, um, you know, the, the feeling of, uh, stories within the book and its importance. The wind picked up and the mosquitoes melted away. I pulled off my bug shirt and felt the warmth of the fire on my face. I moved closer to Holly for a moment. We were both quiet and I reached out to touch her hand. We held hands and she lifted my fingers to her cheek and then kissed each one. I liked how she did that. Unexpected just touching felt like hot chocolate warming. My insides later, she told a story. Holly was an English major and wanted to be a writer. A storyteller she'd explained that religions were books of stories that history, chronicled stories and songs told stories.
Speaker 3 00:23:29 They formed to an archetype like musical notes. That sounded total emotional and creating. One was as simple as where you came from your journey, what happened and what you discovered. Holly wanted her life to read like a collection of unique stories, one adventure. After another, I thought about what she'd said. I hadn't known that living a life of stories was a kind of philosophy like nihilism idealism or Jake's precious anarchism. And I didn't believe that I had any personal life philosophy. My motivation was always to get past one obstacle at a time, get out of Nebraska, get to college, get a job, be self-sustaining get there and think about all the rest when that time came. But I did feel that my life should be more than just overcoming that I needed an existential compass of some kind, what Holly said made sense. You needed to create stories throughout your life, a thread that had a narrative to it. And I figured her philosophy needed an ism, maybe story ism. Holly liked my idea, Holly, the story is the story she told me was about a kid named Edgar Christian about the phon and the Baron lands
Speaker 1 00:24:38 That was Ellie Johnson, re reading from the collaboration between her and her father, the barons. Um, are there gonna be more collaborations or, uh, about the outdoors or inner life or anything you can think of?
Speaker 2 00:24:57 Well, we're not talking about at this point. I think Ellie wants to, um, do some writing on her own and, and I've got some books that have written in the past that I'm, uh, working on and trying to get published. So, um, for right now, no, but you never know what will happen.
Speaker 3 00:25:13 We certainly haven't mixed the idea. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:25:15 So you enjoyed working with each other.
Speaker 3 00:25:19 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I do
Speaker 2 00:25:22 <laugh> sure. And I got some great stories from Ellie and I got a great book out of the relationship.
Speaker 1 00:25:29 Well, the Barron is a, a very interesting, uh, in some places gruesome, as you said, book, but very interesting and, and very enjoyable book. I certainly enjoyed it. Uh, we have been speaking with Kurt Johnson and Ellie Johnson who have collaborated a father-daughter collaboration called the barons. Um, thank you for coming to write on radio on this Tuesday evening. And, uh, hopefully, uh, you have a good life. <laugh>
Speaker 5 00:27:27 From a top to high cliff itself, gazing into the sunset and back toward the way we had come. It seemed, we could see more than the big traverse in the hints of evening mists at the river's outlet, from the mental and emotional perspective of the Promentory the whole trip laid before us, the interlaced rivers lakes, and portages we had known the weeks of travel. The comfortable routines shared the Starfield nights and gauzy mornings, deep waters and deepening friendships adventures of the body, mind and spirit. It was all there in the last golden light work could wait. Dinner could wait. They would have to, there was a view to appreciate in any life, any journey such times and places of overview and perspective are infrequent and rich with meaning a point of high ground, a commentary from which the lay of the land can be seen and fully absorbed and one's place in it understood is a rare treasure from that Headland, everything looks different, accurate, everything is different.
Speaker 5 00:28:29 And so we lingered each person's perspective was his or her own, but we shared the moment we shared the Promentory eventually tents were pitched. A fire started supper made, but when the evening dishes were done and sunset long gone, no one seemed in a hurry to crawl into the sleepy packs. A pot of sweet Gail tea from leaves picked along the shore was brewed. Canoes packed and paddles were checked and rechecked. Everything tucked safely away. One after another extra logs were laid on the fire, each meant to be the last it had been a good day tomorrow would be as well from a top R area all the days, those behind us. And those before us now seemed Giled in the gold. The sunset had laed out their inherent value, clear and unmistakable eventually all was still the wooded point, grew dark surrounded by the soft glow of the lake and overlaid by a blanket of stars from the Promontory. It seemed we had a vantage point on the entire cosmos from the Promontory for a few hours. We could see forever.
Speaker 6 00:29:35 You've been listening to Douglas Wood reading from his new memoir, deep woods, wild waters. His first book, old turtle was named book of the year by the American book sellers association. And he's also the author of the best seller granddad's prayers of the earth, as well as the humorous can't do series. He lives with his family in a log cabin on the upper Mississippi river Douglas Wood. Welcome to write on radio.
Speaker 5 00:30:05 Thank you so much for having me
Speaker 6 00:30:07 Tell us, first of all, why you decided you wanted to write a memoir? I mean, you've, you've been very successful writing, uh, mostly children's stories. And, uh, what, what was it that made you decide it's time for me to put a memoir out there?
Speaker 5 00:30:21 <laugh> well, I'm not sure I decided it on my own <laugh> I
Speaker 6 00:30:24 Had certain,
Speaker 5 00:30:25 Certain friends and family members who pestered me mercilessly. And so I agreed to do so. And, and, and, and I was enabled by a grant from the, um, Minnesota state arts board, which again, I did not really want to go through that process. Yeah. But, uh, I was pestered and I was helped <laugh> in, in the granting process. And we were able to get that grant that allowed me to take some of the time over, over two years to, to write this, this memoir. It wasn't that I really didn't want to do it someday. I just wasn't sure that someday had, had arrived and I, I guess it had
Speaker 6 00:31:00 Yeah, yeah. Drag kicking, kicking, and screaming into it. And, uh <laugh> and it's, it's, uh, it's, it's wonderfully written. It's marvelously written. It's like, it's like, uh, poetic pros in many ways. I mean, you have a wonderful writing style. Uh, does that come to you naturally or do you have to really sort of work at revising and editing to get the, the word choice precisely the way that you want it?
Speaker 5 00:31:22 Well, thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. Um, I, I think some of each, I definitely work hard at it. I definitely go back and do a lot of revising and I'm really not very happy with my writing until I read it aloud and like the way that it sounds. Mm. So that comes back to the fact that I grew up in a musical family. I'm a musician. And I began my, my professional career as a performing musician rather than an author. The, the author part, the book writing part came later. So that musical ear probably has something to do with it too. Again, I, I like to, uh, to listen to how it sounds and, and yes, it's very important to me to get the meaning across of whatever it is I'm writing him out, but I also want to get the mood and the, and the feeling across, and that's where that, that musical ear probably helps
Speaker 6 00:32:12 Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And does the singing song writing part of your life help in other ways too? I mean, do you, do you find that it does more than just give you a sense of how to phrase something? Does it give you a sense of, um, length of passage, for example, or this story needs to, to rise up here and fall there and, um, and, and sort of have this musical element to it, or is that, is it all sort of interconnected?
Speaker 5 00:32:47 Well, it's certainly all interconnected, but that's a really good point. And no, one's asked me that question exactly that way before. So yes, the, the sound of things is important, but I think that you've touched on, on something else important, which is the, the flow, the rising and falling, the, the inflection points in a piece. And, and within the book itself, how I may choose one essay to go here because it's light and airy and kind of fun. And I may choose a second one to follow it. That's a little darker and more serious that now that I'm talking about it with, you sounds a lot like how you pick songs to go on an album. So, uh, I think there's a lot of truth to that yet.
Speaker 6 00:33:28 Yeah. Yeah. And you write in a very non-linear fashion. We, you know, we, I guess we just sort of mentioned that in, in what you're saying there, but, uh, talk a little bit more about, about the process of choosing which sections to put, where, because it seemed to me that you start off with, with certain philosophical, uh, sections in a way, and, and, um, and have them interspersed throughout, but then you really have a lot of them towards the end or more maybe a more heavy concentration at the end. Mm-hmm <affirmative>
Speaker 5 00:33:58 Well, it, it, the book, um, uh, the book deep woods, wild waters is, is called a memoir. My, uh, publisher university of Minnesota press thought we should call it a memoir. Um, and it's an outdoor memoir. So it's the story of my life in the outdoors as a wilderness canoe guide, largely, but also as a, as a grandson. And, and, uh, later as a dad and now a grandfather, um, we begin, uh, the very first sections of the book with me as a little boy in a rowboat with my grandparents. That's a very important part of my background. And then we wind our way along much as you do in a canoe trip. There's some doubling back and, and, and not exactly a linear progression, but it's, it, it, it has a definite flow to it from my, my earliest days as a child, to now as a grandfather and in the middle, uh, all the way in between there is a lot of what you just suggested of choosing an essay to go here and another one to follow there.
Speaker 5 00:35:01 So it's not a biography. This is what happened to me in 1963. This is what happened in 1964. It's not like that. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, it's more like a collection of landmarks and overlooks along the way, like this particular passage that I just read, which is about a Promontory, a high overlook, the Headland, uh, in, in Northern Saskatchewan on the Churchill river. So there is a, there is a flow and it does sort of begin at the beginning and, and end where we are now, but there's a lot of, of room for picking and choosing in between as to, as to the landmarks along the way that I want to discuss.
Speaker 6 00:35:38 Yeah. Great meandering back and forth there. You looking for, thank you. Sure. One of your themes is, is connection and belonging. I mean, that comes up either, uh, directly or indirectly in quite a few of your pieces. Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 5 00:36:00 Well, I think, again, you've touched on you, you've picked a good point. The, um, as a little boy and all the way into college, I was a very shy person and was difficult for me to make a lot of connections with, with a lot of people. I had very strong connections with a few people with my granddad, for instance, and my family, but I felt this sense of connection with the natural world, as I think, many nature writers do. Um, I felt connected to, to trees and to birds and to animals and to wildflowers and even to rocks. And as I grew older, I wanted to explore what those connections really meant and what it, what it meant to learn about geology and to understand the glacial history of Minnesota under the Canadian shield. So it became a lifelong, uh, path of, of learning for me. And as the learning went along, then became, and as I got more, uh, comfortable with with people, I studied psychology as well. And along the way, it became important for me to share the things that I had learned and to, uh, share the things that I loved. So that's where, uh, that's where I became a, a, a wilderness guide and, and spent so much of my life with my butt in a canoe or, or sleeping in a tent with other people who were also searching for that, that connection with the natural world.
Speaker 6 00:37:21 Yeah. I I've been up to the boundary waters a number of times, not in quite a few years now, but I, I do remember those trips, very fondly, and even the trips that were bad, where we we'd get rained on six of the seven days. And once we had a bear, you know, almost get our stuff, it was tied up in a tree, of course mm-hmm <affirmative>, but, uh, he broke a couple of ropes and chewed through the part of the Duluth pack. And we ended up having to pay for the damages to it. <affirmative> and, uh, you know, so there's all these, these wonderful memories that come out of it. Um, and, and one of the things I was curious about is I was reading, this is how much that has changed because, uh, I noticed back in the seventies and, uh, and early eighties, when I was going up there, that it was, as you describe it now with just dipping your, your, uh, canteen in the water, for example, and, and drinking that way. And you, you, in one particular story, talk about having to filter your water and it's kind of a pain. Um, have you noticed, uh, a greater increase in, um, uh, the, the pollution, I guess, of the area either from, uh, climate change or from increased, uh, traffic to the areas?
Speaker 5 00:38:34 Well, there's certainly been an increase in traffic over the decades, Steven, and my many of my trips, uh, I write about the boundary waters can area and critical provincial park where I've spent a lot of time, but I've also guided all the way up through Northern Northwest Ontario, Manitoba, Northern Saskatchewan, the Northwest territories, and, and many of these essays take place up in what we call the Bush country. And there are still wonderful places where including the boundary waters, where you pick your spot and you, there are, there are beautiful, clear and pure lakes. There's really, um, there are more people there, uh, we're kind of loving it to death, but that's part of the deal. You know, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, if we have to be responsible in the way that we, that we treat that landscape and that water scape, um, and one of the aspects of that responsibility is the battle right now about mining high, uh, copper sulfide mining in on the doorstep of the boundary waters mm-hmm <affirmative>, which is, you know, that's a big deal and, and that could, uh, tremendously and negatively impact the area. But this and this book has, uh, a few sections about those kind of environmental concerns, but mostly it's about it's about the, the spiritual journeys that one takes when we take these physical journeys through the wilderness. And the wilderness that I write about, as I say, stretches all the way from, from Northeast, Minnesota to the Northwest territories. And, uh, as far as dipping a cup in the, into the lake and drinking it. Yeah. I still like to do that.
Speaker 6 00:40:07 Yeah. <laugh> you also talk about the Canadian shield, and even though I've been up in the Northern Minnesota, I, I was not familiar with that term. Tell our listeners what the Canadian shield is.
Speaker 5 00:40:17 Ah, well, one of the, one of the great charms of what we call the canoe country and, and, and Northeast Minnesota, the Arrowhead is, is part of the canoe country. So is north Ontario. Um, and, and the Canadian shield is the worn down nub of mountains that were there over 3 billion years ago, um, which have been worn down by glaciers largely, and by these gradually erosion of all the, uh, geologic forces of the earth. So those mountains that were once taller than the Himalayas are now the little Rocky islands and the, and the Rocky points and Headlands that we see in Northeast, Minnesota, and, and in the canoe country. So that great, that, that wonderful, charming aspect of paddling along and coming to a, a Rocky island where, where there's only soil, that's maybe two to four inches deep, and the rest is, is granite, or, uh, Greenstone is, you know, as I say, one of the great charms of the canoe country, but very few people understand that, that this, uh, this Rocky land was once mountains. Yeah. And that, that part that we now call the Canadian shield or the Lare and peanut plane is over 3 million square miles. So it's a big area.
Speaker 6 00:41:32 Yeah. Yeah. That was just interesting to, to read about that when I was, uh, unaware of, or unaware of that term. I mean, I knew that we used to be, uh, mountains here, but I was unaware of that, uh, that terminology for it. Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, let's listen, if we can, to another section from the book.
Speaker 5 00:41:47 Oh, all right. Let's try. Um, that first section was a firm, an essay called the Promontory mm-hmm <affirmative> and let's, uh, read one here from a section called in from an essay called into a smaller world. Uh, this essay is, is about the idea that I discovered long ago, that when you're on a canoe trip, it feels as though the world has, has shrunken and concerns and worries, uh, stretch only about as far as the seven or eight faces around you around the campfire. I remember a night on a far Northern lake, a typical evening around the campfire dishes and camp chores done. We told some jokes, some stories reflected on the events of the day, and finally lapsed into silence. Suddenly the silence was bent, then broken by a sound that seemed to begin under our feet and travel up our spines. It echoed over the lake and through the surrounding Hills, not a word was said as the Wolf, how died into echoes glances were exchanged.
Speaker 5 00:42:49 And for a few moments, our minds reached into the darkness and brushed against the timeless realm of mystery. The shrinking of the world has to do with mystery, partly because it involves a paradox at the same time, the world shrinks, it expands in any wilderness journey, believing behind of schedules and appointments, job, and routine in a very real way, expands the world as wilderness travelers, moving across the earth slowly as human beings have for millennia, we find ourselves opening up to the vast rhythms and tempos of the natural world sunrises and sunsets, the songs of wind and the crashing of storm waves. All the pregnant smells sights, and sounds to which we are so often closed or unaware in daily life are open to us. Once more, each is a language, each an instruction to a human organism, biologically rooted in the heritage of the earth. The universe itself becomes more accessible awareness expands yet at the same time, that awareness is expanding. One feels that the world is smaller, more manageable free from the bombardment of media images and the tyranny of ceaseless digital communications from the chaotic rush of trivia and far away crises and tragedies over which we have no control. We have entered a different world, a more meaningful world in this world. Boulders and trees and animals are presences, and also symbols that we mysteriously comprehend.
Speaker 6 00:44:14 Very good. That is Douglas Wood reading from his new memoir, deep woods, wild waters. And you're listening to write on radio on K F AI. Another thing that you read there, that passage you read that reminded me of another point that you make in the book, which is that you are intrigued by the concept of time. Talk a little bit about that, uh, about why you find it so intriguing and, and you're right. It's a difficult intrigued,
Speaker 5 00:44:43 Bewildered and bothered, and what other
Speaker 6 00:44:46 <laugh>
Speaker 5 00:44:46 Herbs we might want to use by time. And the longer I live in the older I get, the more time bothers me. And one of the essays near the end of the book is called the landscape of time in which I try and tackle the subject, uh, to the best of my ability. And, and I refer to some of the, um, cosmological concepts about time that, that we hear and that we read about in, in tones by very smart people, most, most of which, I'm not able to understand mm-hmm <affirmative>, but when you're in the out of doors living and traveling through a landscape, I find that that, that has become a metaphor for me to how, how to approach time. That if we look at the, at the universe, we inhabit, if we could see it all at once in, in terms of what, what, uh, Einstein called the, uh, space time continuum, that, that it is one thing space and time, uh, we've learned that light even bends as it travels around gravitational forces. And so the, the idea of time has changed for me to something that I think of as a landscape that we, if we could see with the eye of God and see all of it at once, we could see our great-grandfather over there on the landscape and our great-child over there on the landscape, both there in the same quote unquote time, because it's, it's one landscape. And it's hard to describe here in a few, I take about 3,500 words to try describe
Speaker 6 00:46:18 The concept, right,
Speaker 5 00:46:19 Right. In the book, but you're right. It is a, it is a theme that has intrigued me for a long time. There's that word again? Yeah. And even though we don't know what it is, and, and I asked a cosmologist giving a lecture once, if he could please explain to us what time is. And after a very long answer, which I didn't understand, he said basically, after all is said and done, we really don't know what time is <laugh> and that part I understood. Yeah. I Jo that down in my notebook.
Speaker 6 00:46:45 Yeah. It's interesting. I've talked to a number of physicists about various, uh, properties. Like, I think you even mentioned the split, uh, the split split or the double split experiment, you know? Yeah. In your book. And I've, my uncle is a physicist and I, I have talked to him about that. And he basically says, you know, there are just some things about physics we don't understand yet. <laugh> and that's, that's a refreshing answer from a physicist here. It's very refresh, refresh
Speaker 5 00:47:10 Other it leaves room for, for children's book authors and canoe guide like me to try and figure it out for ourselves and come up with some of our own thoughts, I guess.
Speaker 6 00:47:18 Yeah. Right. Another thing that, uh, from a construction of this book standpoint, uh, I was interested by was the fact that you have no, you'd have no pictures in here. And not that you need any, you paint wonderful pictures with your language, but I was just curious if that was a decision that you, you made right off the bat, that I'm not gonna include that if you're, you know, if your publisher, university of Minnesota press said something about that, or, uh, if it just never even dawned on anybody that this would be something we wanna
Speaker 5 00:47:48 Do. No, that's not exactly true that there aren't pictures there is the cover.
Speaker 6 00:47:52 Well, the cover, of course. Yes.
Speaker 5 00:47:53 Yes. And then the in papers, show me paddling a canoe along a, a beautiful cliff with the, with the thunderstorm rising in the background and the galls flying. Right. And then the, um, front desk piece has got a picture of my canoe. The pistachio princess pulled up on the shore. Right, right. In my previous books for adults. I, uh, and by the way I drew these pictures myself, they're my own pen and inks. Oh, okay. I just decided Steve, that I didn't want to draw 37 pictures.
Speaker 6 00:48:20 <laugh> this book,
Speaker 5 00:48:21 Which is how many essays there are Uhhuh. And my eyes aren't quite as good as they used to be and my neck gets sore. So I thought I will try and paint most of the pictures with my words. Yeah. And we'll set the tone with these few drawings at the beginning and the end. And, and I hope that people will be satisfied with that. If they wanna see more of my drawings, they can read some of my other books, I guess. Yeah. <laugh>
Speaker 6 00:48:40 Well, no, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's amazing. I, I was just, as I was reading it, I was thinking, I wonder if part of the calculation that went into this was if I show people these fabulous places with pictures, they're gonna wanna come up here and they're not gonna be as isolated and pristine as they once were. And so I was, I was thinking along those lines, like maybe they,
Speaker 5 00:48:59 You know, that wasn't, that wasn't part of the deal. Yeah. But, but you have touched on something many of the essays, although I describe in great detail, the places where we are and the things that we're seeing and smelling and hearing, and the feelings we're experiencing many of the essays, I don't name the places mm-hmm <affirmative>. And that was a conscious decision. Partly as you say, to, to, to not have all kinds of folks going to a particular favorite place of mine, but more because I wanted folks to be conscious of the spiritual and mental journey that was taking place and not so much running to that particular lake or trying to know which particular Portage, uh, Douglas Wood was on when he wrote about this mm-hmm <affirmative> because many of them are the same. Right. They may not be precisely the same, but there's a Portage that you've taken in your past that might ring a bell when you read my essay on a Portage. And that's the feeling I wanted readers to have that. Yeah. Maybe I've been there. I think I remember that. I remember that spotter or someplace very much like it.
Speaker 6 00:50:03 Right. That's the thing I've noticed about being up there is that there's a similarity to it all, it's all granite and Pines. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and Rocky beaches for the most part, occasionally a sand beach and mm-hmm <affirmative> and yet they all have their own unique, uh, aspect to them. And, and you basically say the same thing about people you've noticed as you've guided over the years, that we're all unique. And yet we're all very similar in many ways.
Speaker 5 00:50:29 Yes, we all, we all are taking this same journey together. We, we all, um, are the same trail of life. We're all walking the same Portage. We're all paddling the same path of waters. We may be in slightly different places on the journey and experiencing it differently. And each of us is a unique person, but if we weren't taking the same journey, if we weren't, uh, encountering the same aspects of, of triumph and loss and sadness and joy, we wouldn't be able to have the conversation. We wouldn't understand one another it's because we are traveling together, uh, that, that were able to, to have the conversation and read a book and understand what's written in the book. Uh, Robert Frost wrote a wonderful poem about it, about the T of flowers, how, uh, how, uh, someone had left someone with a sight who was clearing a meadow, had left auf of little flowers and, and Frost's, um, statement. I'm sure I won't get it exactly right. Is even though we are, even though we are separate, we, we, we travel together something along those lines. Yeah. And I like that thought a lot.
Speaker 6 00:51:35 Yeah. Well, we're out of times, we're gonna have to leave it at that. This is Steve. Well,
Speaker 5 00:51:39 That went fast.
Speaker 6 00:51:39 Yes. Yes. It always does. This is Steve Mac Fromm speaking with Douglas Wood about his new memoir, deep woods, wild waters, Douglas Wood. Thanks for being on right on radio.
Speaker 5 00:51:50 Thanks so much, Steve. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 6 00:51:51 Yeah. And now this,
Speaker 7 00:52:11 You are listening to right on radio on K 90.3, FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Weber with, to take our special guest tonight, Kurt and Ellie Johnson, and all of our listeners that your support and donations cafe will not be possible. If you can find more news and info about right on radio at K right.org/right on radio, you can listen to all of your favorite, right on radio episodes on Spotify, iTunes, Google podcast, apple podcast, and so on.
