On Being Sharp

Open a kitchen drawer in anyone’s home, and count how many knives you find that will shave strips from a sheet of paper. It’s a statistical truth that you aren’t likely to find even one, not unless it’s new and has never been used. There was a time, before the late...

The basic three for morel hunters

The family was miles from their car when I found them, tired and sweaty from busting through the bush of Michigan’s Jordan Valley State Forest with three children in tow, one of them an exhausted toddler who had to be carried. These morel mushroom hunters...

Living with Wolves

Wolves Always Choose The Path Of Least Resistance… Luminous numbers on my bedside clock told me that it was just four a.m. when I awoke to the frantic barking of sled dogs from their chain-link kennels next to the house. Like any parent, I could differentiate...

The real poop on scats

Legitimate Valuable Information… When a metropolitan Detroit newspaper reviewed the book Encyclopedia of Tracks & Scats, the reviewer joked that it might be better titled “Prints & Poop.” He was understandably amused that a large...