Author: James MacDonald
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Backcountry Dinners
This could be a long post. So I’m cheating and I’ll share a video here on one method for cooking in the backwoods. This is my preferred method and it works for me. That said, one of the fun things about backcountry camping is figuring out what works. It is a series of little puzzles…
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Backcountry Tenting
One of my favourite places is the Bowron Lake canoe circuit. I’ve done the circuit many times and in an array of company. This summer we’ll make the trip with 14 of us spread across 5 family units. Our skills and experience with camping, canoeing, and other outdoor adventures, greatly vary. These next few posts…
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Adam’s Peak
As we wound our way along a gravel mountain road I marvelled at the rolling acres of tea plantations. Women worked the land, gathering immense cloth bundles of tea leaves they would carry from the fields on their heads. Our driver informed us that tea plantations largely employed only women as they could be paid…
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Picnic Boat
This blog recently auto-renewed itself. Had I been thinking ahead I might have returned the blog to a free state. Now I feel as though I need to make use of my inadvertent purchase. Like a new year’s resolution I move forward with naive determination. I’ve found myself ruminating on youthful experiences lately. The following…
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Refugee or Pioneer
Today is Pioneer day and a holiday here in Utah. It marks the entry of the saints into the Salt Lake Valley and coincidentally the day I arrived home from my two year mission. It is an auspicious day, indeed. I’ve learned that some Utahns are near sick of the pioneer stories and one can…
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Ragnar Wasatch Back
I’d been chasing that little red blinking light for a couple kilometers. A three quarter moon was shinning brightly and the once inky black sky was giving way to infinite deep blues. My last leg of Ragnar Wasatch Back was a little mind numbing. It followed an old train track with less than a 2…
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Ragnar Trail
I caught the Frontrunner train out of Salt Lake to Provo after work on Thursday. A borrowed backpack with its sleeping mat strapped to the side and a sleeping bag hanging from my arm painted a strange juxtaposition to my white shirt, tie and polished dress shoes. On the way out my colleague commented I…
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An unplanned adventure
I should have known something was wrong when I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything. I skipped breakfast and I knew that was a mistake. Adventures like these require fuel for the body, a steady supply, and I was starting out on the wrong foot. Brenton pulled up to my place a little after 7am…
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Chapter 1
The following post is a work of fiction – duh. I’ve toyed off and on over the years with writing a novel. I’ve even hashed out a chapter or two from time to time. This chapter I found amongst some old files and thought i’d post it here, hoping for some motivation. Writing is hard…
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A near death experience
I am in the hospital. This isn’t the type of place that I frequent, at least not as a patient. The heart rate monitor attached to my finger makes typing difficult but I suppose that is the least of my worries. Or perhaps it is my biggest worry at the moment? I feel great. It…
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