John D. Robins (1884–1952)

From the book:

"It is one of the supremest joys of life to be thoroughly fit. Joy is really wellbeing. Ready to meet with a spring everything and anything the hour may bring you. To wake and be willing to spring from your spruce bed ready for your morning dive, ready for sowbelly and blackstrap and flapjack with a fish, if you are lucky, ten minutes from the hook to the pan (...) And, best of all, I have learned something about a canoe. No man lives long enough to learn everything about a canoe. But I can paddle her, bow or stern, with head wind, side wind, tail wind in anything but white water (...) And therefore I am happy, all day long from dawn to dark, ready for anything and the bigger the better, and this is not bragging. It is simply feeling fit, being right with yourself and your world. It is being as God meant you to be".

"A frozen creek off Woman River
was windswept clear of all its snow
my lead-dog here stopped, all a-quiver,
and when I tried to make him go,
He scratched the ice and gave a bark
that sounded like a curt remark.
I came to look. The little creek
had frozen solid in its bed
and in the ice, not far to seek,
were six fresh pickerel, frozen dead.
Thus I had chopped, five minutes later,
from this first-class refrigerator,
a savoury dinner for my dogs
and for myself. I split some logs,
built up a fire and fried a fish
finer than any king could wish".… (altro)