Scottish conservationist John Muir would routinely walk with friends in the Sierra, taking more than an hour to cover a mile of linear distance. His fascination with everything natural in his path slowed progress to a crawl. To his old friends, this seemed a normal part of the Muir experience. To his new acquaintances, the walk seemed like an exercise in patience.

A close friend of mine practiced a modern version of the Muir mile, in his typical Andrew manner. Just when you thought you were making progress toward your final destination to lay your head down and contemplate tomorrow’s activity, the car would rapidly decelerate to marvel at the size of the trees or to stretch one’s legs by mucking through a wetland, looking for a diminutive gray tree frog. 

As the years passed, I became accustomed to the likelihood that, at any moment, progress would be halted for a glimpse of a snapping turtle nest or a tree with an active nuthatch cavity. We once stood along the shore of Fourth Machias Lake watching a red-breasted nuthatch enter and exit its home in a poplar for nearly an hour. Can you imagine anyone sitting for more than an hour watching a single bird fly in and out of a nesting cavity? 

These stewardship lessons were not limited to the woods of Maine. Moving water equally captured our imaginations, making our progress equally slow. Our enthusiasm for the Maine woods and its waterways had no boundaries because we were beginning to understand the stewardship connection between humans, rivers and lands. 

We once sat on a pile of cedar logs above the confluence of the Big Black River and the St. John River, discussing for several hours the dynamics of logging practices and their impact on the rivers, streams and brooks. It didn’t matter that thousands of our close friends, Prosimulium mixtum and Simulium venustum or Simulium jenningsi lingered, adding their singular comments in chorus. It wasn’t a river trip without black flies.

Years later, I stood alone at the same spot and looked over an area that had grown back in my absence from the St. John River. I thought long and hard about forestry and ecology, but those thoughts drifted away with the northwesterly winds. What remained was a canoeist pondering his own impact on the woods and waters of Maine, wishing his stewardship mentor had survived to help discuss the next steps.