"To play it safe is not to play."
Altman, Robert (1925 - 2007)
"He who laughs, lasts."
Anonymous
"Never turn your back on the ... river. She's full of surprises."
Auel, Jean M (From: The Valley of Horses, 1982)
"That was it, the sum total of her possessions, all she needed to survive - that and knowledge, skill, experience, intelligence, determination and courage."
Auel, Jean M (From: The Valley of Horses, 1982)
"There's a storm movin' in
And the thunder rolls
And the lightnin' strikes
As the storm blows on
Out of control
The thunder rolls"
Brooks, Garth (From: "The Thunder Rolls", song sung by Garth Brooks, written by Patrick Alger and Garth Brooks, 1991)
"Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning."
Carlin, George (1937 - 2008)
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."
"Broadly speaking short words are best and the old words when short, are best of all."
"Difficulties mastered are opportunities won."
"Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."
"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."
"Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others."
"If you’re going through hell, keep going."
"It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required."
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
"There is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure."
"This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense."
"To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to change often."
Churchill, Winston (1874 - 1965)
"There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb
...
Keep on moving, keep climbing
Keep the faith, baby
It's all about, it's all about the climb
Keep your faith, keep your faith"
Cyrus, Miley (From: The Climb song sung by Miley Cyrus, written by Jessi Leigh Alexander and Jon Clifton Mabe, 2009)
"... everything connects to everything else."
da Vinci, Leonardo (1452 - 1519)
"Whatever will be will be."
Day, Doris [From: Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) song sung by Doris Day, written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, 1956]
"Let no man disguise the secret hints and notices of danger, which sometimes are given him ..."
Defoe, Daniel (From: Robinson Crusoe, 1719)
"We're all travelers in this world. From the sweet grass to the packing house. Birth 'til death. We travel between the eternities."
Duvall, Robert (From: Broken Trail movie, 2006, written by Alan Geoffrion)
"Confidence is ten percent hard work and 90 percent delusion."
Tina Fey (From: Vogue Interview, 2010)
"Whiteman goes some place, he takes hell of a pile of stuff. Indian goes some place, he goes tough."
"We were in no rush. Life is for living. The river is for traveling. There is no hurry essential to either."
"The river ... has witnessed much of courage and rather more of folly. She was here before men found her, she'll be here when they are gone."
You are "... constantly half-anxious about what a bear is going to do next. You leave a camp unattended, and he tears it up; you cache some meat and you don't return in time, and he's dragged it off to bury it somewhere. But worst of all, you never know when he will attack you. For he is the one animal ... who does not always turn away from man. You may encounter him anywhere - in your camp, at your fishing place, inadvertently at his own kill - and he may attack."
Fry, Alan (From: Come a Long Journey, 1971)
"So we need good clothing and gear, we need to have developed skills which will afford us confidence in ourselves, and we need discipline. Given these, we can face an emergency with rapid, yet sound, assessment, followed by prompt, yet thorough, action, and without the complications brought on by fear and undisciplined behavior. Our venturing into the bush will be certainly safe and probably comfortable, even in the event of the unexpected. We want to go well. With preparation we will go well."
"Now, however much at home you feel in the bush and however confident you are about your gear and your skills, you still may experience fear, unexpectedly, when an accident happens or when the awesome power of nature strikes you in some sudden fashion. High on a ridge top in a developing storm, with the wind whipping your jacket and screaming in your ears, you may suddenly be overcome with a sense of your puniness in the vast universe which surrounds you. Once, as a young man, I was returning to my cabin across a wide and open swamp land. The day was late and a storm grew swiftly out of nowhere, filling the sky with black and threatening clouds. The wind picked up to lash the aspen trees at the meadow's edge, tearing some to the ground in its growing fury. A killdeer, flying across my path to cover, shrieked in high, shrill protest against the chaos. I was in the bush land of my boyhood and not a mile from my cabin. No one could have been more surely in his own home ground, yet my scalp crawled and a scream rose up in my throat. Only by a deliberate imposition of my will on my rising fear did I keep both the fear and some irrational response at bay. Afterward I puzzled how, in such a harmless situation, I could have had such a sense of danger. How much more discipline would have been needed had I been miles from the security of my cabin, with night falling and with little means of making shelter."
Fry, Alan (From: Wilderness Survival Handbook, 1982)
"He'd learned ... not to anticipate more than one unpleasant contingency at a time. Do what must be done, and then deal with the consequences."
Gabaldon, Diana (From: Lord John and the Private Matter, 2003)
"If ever you find yourself in the midst of a paradox, you can be sure you stand on the edge of truth."
"Comb snakes from your hair."
Cherokee expression meaning to relieve the mind of worry, anger, fear, possession by demons.
Gabaldon, Diana (From: An Echo in the Bone, 2009)
"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road."
Hawking, Stephen (1942 - 2018)
"In the city ... that many people about ... I had to take big steps and little 'uns, then big steps and little 'uns again. Couldn't get goin'."
Herriot, James (James Alfred Wight) (From: All Things Bright and Beautiful, 1974)
"We learn not to make mistakes ... by making mistakes."
"It might be good fishing, just not good catching."
Hill, Barry (From: journal, July 2020)
"Memorize places. Settle your eyes on a place and learn it. When you are far away, you can call it back. When you need it, it is there, in your mind."
Hillerman, Tony (From: "The Ghostway", 1984)
"Movement is my medicine."
Hughes, Clara (2014)
"I don't know where I am, but at least I'm not lost."
Hyde, Dayton O (From: Strange Companion: A Story of Survival, 1975)
"'Think', that always sees you through."
Isherwood, Constance Dora (1920-2021) (was still working at 101 years old)
"Make the most of every sense, glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty the world reveals to you. Use your sense as if tomorrow you would be stricken."
Keller, Helen (From: Three Days to See, The Atlantic Monthly, 1933)
"The less a man carries in his pack, the more he must carry in his head."
"The simpler the outfit, the more skill it takes to manage it, and the more pleasure one gets in his achievements."
"The knack of camp outfitting consists in getting the best kit in the least weight and bulk."
Kephart, Horace (From: Camp Cookery, 1910)
"I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who."
Kipling, Rudyard (From: The Elephant's Child, in Just So Stories, 1902) [attributed to Aristotle (384-322 BC) from Nicomachean Ethics)]
"Don't let them tell you it can't be done."
Layton, Jack (From: letter to Canadians, 2011)
"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."
Lloyd, Christopher (playing the part of Doc in Back to the Future movie, 1985, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale)
"If you think you have it tough, read history books."
Maher, Bill (2011)
"Most beautiful of all were the lights — lights that the Inuit said were the torches held by the dead to help the living hunt — the aurora borealis, whose pale green and rose-colored flags streamed and undulated across the skies."
McGregor, Elizabeth (From: The Ice Child, 2001)
"Cutting portage trails is a lot like shovelling snow. You may do a perfect job of it but it never lasts."
McIlmoyl, Dave (From: Facebook, November 2020)
"I think I’ve figured out why you participate in such arduous, difficult trips ... because it feels so good when you stop."
McIlmoyl, Dave (From: Facebook, December 2020)
"tassall" used by Sam Bigears to "... dismiss a world of worries ...":
"Blackflies are BAD. Wear headnet, tassall."
"Rained all day. Wear raingear, tassall."
"Dark early. Start lantern early, tassall."
"When you confront a grizzly ... You can do three things. Run away and be killed. Climb a tree and maybe live. Or stand and talk to the bear, making him think you're bigger than you are." "Nancy said ... Sir Bear, do not be afraid. We are your friends and we mean you no harm. Stop where you are, Sir Bear. Go to your berry spot and may the feeding be good."
"... exceptional beauty that enveloped the land during a few trembling weeks in late August and September. Then shrub alders turned a flaming gold, blueberry bushes a fiery red, while stately spruce provided a majestic green background ...".
Michener, James A (From: Alaska, 1988)
"Permanent is not, impermanent is not, not self is not, self is not, impure is not, pure is not, pleasure is not, and suffering is not."
Nagarjuna (a Buddhist philosopher, circa 150 - 250) (From: Sunyatasaptati [Seventy Verses on Emptiness])
"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."
Norton, Thomas and Thomas Sackville (From: The Tragedie of Gorbuduc, 1561)
"If you get lost in the woods, a compass can help you get lost more north."
Phillips, Will (From Twitter, @TheThryll, 2017)
"I'm heading back to the north country
With the cold wind in my eye
...
Rustlin' leaves are on the ground
A cold rain coming down
Sleeping there on the dark, damp earth
For what it's worth
no reason can be found
This crazy feeling hangin' round
I'll remember now and then
But don't ask when I'll be back again
...
I'll be back again."
Rankin, Jimmy (sung by The Rankin Family) (From: North Country, 1993)
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones."
Rumsfeld, Donald (From: News briefing, 2002)
"... the Four Hills that all men must face; the first to be climbed in infancy, the second in youth, the third in middle age, the fourth in old age. The fourth hill is the most frightening, the steepest of all, with the sharpest rocks."
Salerino, Nan F and Rosamond M Vanderburgh (From Shaman's Daughter, 1979)
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
Seneca, attributed to, Roman philosopher (4 BC - 65 AD)
"All's well that ends well."
Shakespeare, William (From: All's Well That Ends Well, 1623)
"A canoe on land is safe, but that is not what canoes are built for."
Shedd, John A (1928), modified from
"... easy things are not worth pursuing."
Tan, Amy (From: The Joy Luck Club, 1989)
"What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature. For it is a condition of such a trip that you entrust yourself, stripped of your worldly goods, to nature. Canoe and paddle, blanket and knife, salt pork and flour, fishing rod and rifle; that is about the extent of your wealth. To remove all the useless material baggage from a man's heritage is, at the same time, to free his mind from petty preoccupations, calculations and memories."
Trudeau, Pierre Elliott (From: Exhaustion and Fulfillment: The Ascetic in a Canoe, 1944)
"One of the diseases of modernity is an inordinate longing for the primitive. I had fallen victim to that disease long ago."
"You don't have to be careful - just don't lose your canoe. 'Being careful' was the wrong state of mind. It betokened worry, which was no good. Instead we would have to do things to stay safe rather than adopting a disabling mental posture."
"If you've been lost a lot in various wilderness places, as I have, being lost is like being somewhat familiar, in that all the places you've been lost in seem part of the same world, which obeys its own strange laws. Lostworld. Because it doesn't fit the map, or fits it but with so many inconsistencies, Lostworld appears like unexplored territory. You keep trying different orientations and these instantly alter what is in front of your eyes. Valleys and hills are where they shouldn't be, surely unnamed virgin peaks that have never been mapped or even seen by another human? Rivers run backwards in Lostworld and the snow has melted on mountains that should be white. Paths peter out and go nowhere, or suddenly, with no warning or meaning, become well-made roads leading in the wrong direction. Fields become forests which can break out into a logged wilderness or the blackened remnants of a fire, or a lake from nowhere, so vast - could it be the sea? ... I've been here [to Lostworld] so many times I should be able to recognize where I am."
"Getting lost in the real wilderness is like having hypothermia; you just can't think straight, however hard you try; indeed, the harder you try, the harder it is."
"I saw why we got lost. You go round a tree because it's in the way. You think you can remember the direction you were formerly going in and so you don't check. You can be off by thirty degrees and not even notice, especially if the sun isn't shining and the land is flat. And anyway, when you're lost you don't notice the more subtle direction markers anyway. Thirty degrees for every tree or log or marsh you skirt, very soon you can be heading in exactly the wrong direction and it still feels fine."
"Feels good to see a bear that scared of you, doesn't it?"
Twigger, Robert (From: Voyageur: Across the Rocky Mountains in a Birchbark Canoe, 2006)
"Next to a Labrador sunset, what is more beautiful than a Labrador sunrise? The gorgeous colorings of morning melting away from orange to cream, then the sun in all his glory bursting upon the world beyond, over the waters of a placid lake, lighting the dark fir trees on the other shore, making silver of the lake that, since moonset, has been so dark and bottomless. And the crisp moss crackles under your feet - crisp where it is hoarfrost - and you take lung-deep breaths that you may inhale your full share of the clear bracing atmosphere that acts as a tonic to you as you come from your blanket and the tent."
Wallace, Dillon (From: journal entry September 1905, as recorded in Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure by James West Davidson and John Rugge, 1988)
"... think about the next step. Just the next step. ... just step. Then step again. Don’t think about the end. The end is another world. All there is is here."
Warnica, Richard (From: The Further Shore, National Post, 2020 May 11)
"To live alone you must have a clean spirit."
Wiebe, Rudy (From: The Mad Trapper, 1980)
"A man is only as good as his tools."
Wolf, Emmert (attributed to, 1894 - 1968?)
"Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else."
Wright, Jim (From: On Second Thought, The Dallas Morning News, 1971 March 13)