Seventeen pages into (Grove/Atlantic, $26), Ojibwe writer finds himself in his grandfather’s shack, cleaning the old man’s brains off the floor. The 83-year-old had shot himself in the head the day before. But Rez Life isn’t another voyeuristic march through Indian country’s wrenching ills. While Treuer doesn’t shy from the miserable side of Indian life, he unveils a world—grounded in , where he grew up—that is complex and rich. Scenes of him catching walleye, for example, segue into examinations of tribal treaty rights. At times you want a bit more on Treuer’s journey—his mother was an Ojibwe judge, his father an Austrian Jew, and he attended Princeton. Still, Treuer manages to write a book about Indian life that is often fun and occasionally hilarious. At a powwow held at Minnesota’s Mystic Lake Casino resort, owned by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux, “everything is pleasantly backward,” Treuer writes. The parking lot is full of Hummers, and white employees hustle to serve their native guests. “Most of the time,” Treuer notes, “the Indians don’t tip.”

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THE HYPERACTIVE WEEKEND

Muscling through the powerhouse run on Washington’s Snoqualmie River.

FORGET FIGHTING Friday’s post-work traffic—leave at 6 a.m. Saturday instead. Drive 25 miles east on I-90, take exit 25, continue about five miles, and drop your bags at the Salish Lodge and Spa, which overlooks 268-foot Snoqualmie Falls (doubles, $259-$359; 800-826-6124, ). From there, follow Washington 202 toward Fall City for three miles and go east on Fish Hatchery Road to reach the put-in for the Snoqualmie River’s Class II Powerhouse kayak run, at the base of the falls. Paddle until 11 a.m., backtrack to I-90, head east for about 20 miles, and follow signs to Alpental ski area at exit 52. Hike the Snow Lake Trail for three miles, then follow the Source Lake Overlook Trail to The Tooth, a rock pyramid visible a mile across the valley (Snoqualmie Ranger District; 425-888-1421, ). Climb the four pitches, rated 5.3 to 5.6, for great views into the central Cascades. Rappel back to the trail by 4 p.m. and drive five miles west on I-90 to the Denny Creek exit, start of the Granite Mountain Fire Lookout Trail (which branches off the Pratt Lake Trail, 1.2 miles in). Speed-hike the four miles and 3,800 feet of elevation gain to watch the sun set behind the Olympics.

The next morning, head east with your mountain bike to exit 38 off I-90 to access the Iron Horse Trailhead. Spin up the old railroad tracks, now compact gravel doubletrack that never ascends more than a 2 percent grade. Bike about 16 miles to Snoqualmie Pass and the 2.3-mile tunnel that goes under it. Once through the tunnel, turn around for a gentle downhill ride back to the car. Next, drive four miles west on I-90 to exit 34 and follow signs to the Dutch Miller Gap Trail, 25 miles ahead. Hike along the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River until you find a hole teeming with rainbows. Catch a few for lunch. Return to the car by 4 p.m., drive 17 miles west on I-90, exit on Issaquah’s Front Street, and follow it three miles to Seattle Paragliding.com ($125-$145 per person; 206-467-5944). Hanging at 4,000 feet in a harness, you’ll see much of the wilderness you kayaked, hiked, climbed, fished, and biked in the last 36 hours.
THE WILDERNESS FORAY
IT’S A 20-MILE round-trip paddle from Anacortes, north of Seattle, to the tip of 15-square-mile Cypress Island, the largest undeveloped isle in the San Juan archipelago. The wildlife is what makes this adventure extra special: Orcas migrate down the west coast, and bald eagles nest in the evergreens and junipers. Contact Island Outfitters ($195 per person for a two-day trip; 866-445-7506, ).

THE NEW, NEW THING
CAREEN DOWN Whistler Mountain, catch air at the jump park, or ride Vancouver’s famed North Shore with the pros at just-opened Whistler Bike Camp in British Columbia. End your three-day stay with a little “heli-biking.” A chopper pilot will grab you, your three or four friends, and a guide and drop you at a trail outside of Whistler for at least two hours of brake-burning downhill (three-day camp, $330; heli-biking, $80; 866-788-2453, ).

THE RECHARGE SPOT
AT THE 104-YEAR-OLD North Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Residence ($252 per night, two-night minimum; 360-642-3078), four hours south of Seattle where the Columbia River meets the Pacific, you’ll find three bedrooms, one bath, and blissful solitude. Hike the woods of Fort Canby State Park, then head to the two-mile-long sand beach—the perfect spot to fly a kite—or perch on the rocky headland and take in the view that thrilled Lewis and Clark.

Washington, D.C.

TIRED OF SWEATING OUT the armpits of every shirt you own? Life around the capital can get sticky. Here’s your new national policy initiative: Get out of town for a blast of freewheeling enterprise.

Beltway begone: Hiking in Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, Virgina.

THE HYPERACTIVE WEEKEND
POINT YOUR CAR WEST on I-66, then south on I-81 three hours to Marion, Virginia, for a final 20-mile stint south on Virginia 16 to the Fox Hill Inn (doubles, $80-$90, including breakfast; 800-874-3313, ). Ask for room six, where, tucked into a four-poster bed, you’ll wake to a sunrise view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Polish off a plate of pecan-and-blue-berry whole-wheat pancakes, then drive 15 miles on Virginia 16 south and U.S. 58 west to Grayson Highlands State Park and the trailhead for Mount Rogers in Mount Rogers National Recreation Area (entrance fee, $3; 276-783-5196, ). Summit, descend, then saddle up with guides from Hopes and Dreams Unlimited ($60; 800-899-6554) for a 12-mile, three-hour horseback ride along the 67-mile Virginia Highlands Horse Trail. Later, continue west from Grayson Highlands 25 miles on U.S. 58 to Damascus, where you’ll meet up with Tom Horsch of ���ϳԹ��� Damascus, a mountain-biking fiend who will haul you and your bike 21 miles to White Top Station ($10; 888-595-2453, ). From there it’s a 17-mile, 1,600-vertical-foot plunge down an old railroad corridor back to town. Top off the day at the decadent River House Inn and Restaurant (336-982-2109, ) in Grassy Creek, just over the state line in North Carolina, 41 miles east of Damascus on U.S. 58, before crashing back at the Fox Hill Inn.
On Sunday, rendezvous with fly-fishing guru Bruce Wankel, who runs Trestle & Tailrace Fly Fishing in Abingdon, 30 miles west of the Fox Hill Inn on I-81, for private instruction on a nearby mountain trout stream ($200 per eight-hour day; 276-628-3826; ). In the afternoon, take a leisurely five-mile paddle down the Class I-II New River. The folks at New River Campground Canoeing and Kayaking, five miles south of Independence, Virginia, and 75 miles east of Abingdon, will rent you a boat and shuttle you to the put-in ($28-$38; 276-773-3412, ). Après-paddle, return to I-81 and drive north 90 miles to Roanoke, then east toward Lynchburg, home of High Peak Hang Gliding ($94; 804-401-3434, ). Learn the basics, then soar across the sky and soak up the hazy Blue Ridge Mountain views. Exhale and head for home.

THE CLASSIC
BEACH-BOUND ON U.S. 50/I-301, you’ll see signs near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge for the Harris Crab House (410-827-9500, ), the preeminent local eatery for gorging on Maryland’s state crustacean, the blue crab. Stop in and order at least a dozen.

THE ADRENALINE RUSH
A 10,000-FOOT, 45-second tandem free fall and subsequent six-minute paraglide over Maryland’s Assawoman Bay is sure to get the blood flowing. For $200, the Skydiving Center in Ocean City, Maryland, preps you with essential first-jump training, then tosses you out of a plane two miles above the Atlantic (410-213-1319, ).

THE RECHARGE SPOT
THE SPA AT the Hotel Hershey: A two-hour drive from D.C., east of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on U.S. 422, this 17,000-square-foot Hershey, Pennsylvania, spa can de-frazzle your body and soul with some downright bizarre cocoa-themed treatments. A la carte pampering: 60-minute chocolate fondue wrap ($114), cocoa latte frothing exfoliation ($66), or chocolate mud hydrotherapy ($66). (Doubles, $289-$319; 877-772-9988, .)

New York City

NEW YORK CITY HAS more than 1,700 designated green spaces, but spread those among 8,008,278 Gothamites and you barely have room to move. Our solutions: the Shawangunks, the Hudson River Gorge, fishing off Montauk Point…

Upward mobility: grabbing a hunk of the ‘Gunks

THE HYPERACTIVE WEEKEND
AFTER WORK ON FRIDAY, head two hours north on I-87 to New Paltz, New York, gateway to the Shawangunk Mountains. Grab essential gear at Rock and Snow, on Main Street (845-255-1311, ), and bed down at the New Paltz Hostel (bunks, $20 per person; doubles, $55-$75; 845-255-6676, ), with both private rooms and bunk-style digs.

Bright and early on Saturday, head for nearby 6,400-acre Mohonk Preserve (vehicle pass, $8; 845-255-0919, ), the epicenter of ‘Gunks climbing. Park at the West Trapps trailhead to access the Trapps, with 700 climbs on a mile-long quartzite stretch of cliffs, a half-mile in (for a guide, contact Mountain Skills, 845-687-9643, ). After a morning of trad-climbing anything from 5.0 to 5.13, head back to the car and drive about a half-mile to the Coxing Kill Trail parking lot. Take a dip in the Split Rock swimming hole, then picnic on the banks. After lunch, drive about 70 miles northwest (via I-87, New York 28, and New York 30) to the Plattekill ski area, take the chairlift up, and bomb down on your full-suspension ride (lift ticket, $23; single ride, $8; bike rentals available; 800-633-3275, ). In the late afternoon, go skydiving over the town of Gardiner, near New Paltz ($185 per person for a tandem jump with Skydive The Ranch; 845-255-4033, ).

On Sunday, start the day with a 3.5-mile trail run to Awosting Lake in the Minnewaska State Park Preserve, just west of town (entrance fee, $6; 845-255-0752, ). Later that morning, head a few miles north on I-87 and New York 28 to Onteora Lake, near Kingston, where you can click into some steep, rocky Catskills singletrack via a doubletrack trail from the parking lot (info at ). After lunch, head west on New York 28 to Phoenicia for a whitewater tube ride on the Esopus River (tubes, $12; Town Tinker Tube Rentals; 845-688-5553, ). Later, drive southwest on U.S. 209 to chill out in the Ellenville Ice Caves in Sam’s Point Preserve (The Nature Conservancy; parking fee, $5; 914-244-3271), a short hike from the parking lot. Back in New Paltz, trade tales over a plate of jaeger schnitzel and a Three Pines IPA at the Gilded Otter Brewing Company (845-256-1700, ) before heading back to the city.

THE ADRENALINE RUSH
RAFT THE 17-mile, Class III-IV Upper Hudson River Gorge, a few hours north of Manhattan. Overnight guided trips run the gorge and sections below it ($195 per person) or take a two-day intensive skills kayak clinic ($200) with Wild Waters Outdoor Center in Warrensburg (800-867-2335, ).

THE NEW, NEW THING
THE ADIRONDACKS ARE New York’s answer to Moab, sort of. The Speculator Loop, completed in June, is the beginning of what will be a 40-mile network of singletrack, doubletrack, and dirt roads spiraling from the town of Speculator. From the Oak Mountain Ski Area parking lot, ride 15.4 miles past Elm Lake and along the Kunjamuk River. From I-90 take exit 27 to New York 30 north to Speculator. Stop in at the Speculator chamber of commerce (518-548-4521; ) for a free map.

THE RECHARGE SPOT
SHELBURNE FARMS, a Vanderbilt-Webb estate built in 1886 on Lake Champlain in Shelburne, Vermont (doubles, $95-$365; 802-985-8498, ), is now a nonprofit that promotes conservation and sustainable forestry. The 1,400-acre farm is crisscrossed with patches of pristine woods, gardens, and fields, and the restaurant of the 24-room inn features farm-raised all-organic dairy products, garden greens, and free-range meats.

Boston

A MAZE OF one-way streets and the interminable Big Dig, a 14-year tunnel project, have turned Boston into the hectic city you love. But sometimes you gotta have elbow room; here’s where to find it, from Vermont’s hills to Martha’s Vineyard’s cliffs.

Pedaling off that cheddar in Vermont.

THE HYPERACTIVE WEEKEND
BLOW OUT OF TOWN on Friday afternoon heading north to Quechee, Vermont (I-93 to I-89 to U.S. 4 west), a tranquil pocket of gentlemen’s farms and general stores two hours and 20 minutes from Boston. Check into the white clapboard Quechee Inn at Marshland Farm (doubles, $90-$240, including breakfast; 802-295-3133, ). Grab your fishing gear (or rent it from Wilderness Trails, $6-$30; 802-295-7620; in the red barn in back of the inn) and cross the street to the edge of Dewey’s Mills Pond for a little pre-dinner bass fishing.

After a 7 a.m. breakfast, hop on your road bike and turn right on Main Street to kick off a somewhat hilly 25-mile, three-hour loop through the rolling farmlands of Woodstock, South Pomfret, and North Pomfret. Post-pedal, pick up Vermont cheddar and munchies at the Taftsville Country Store on U.S. 4 (800-854-0013), then head for the Kedron Valley Stables in South Woodstock, about 12 miles away, for a one-hour trail ride ($35 per person; 802-457-1480, ). If you’re game for a four-mile paddle on the Connecticut River, drive about 25 miles to the North Star Canoe Livery in Cornish, New Hampshire (canoe rental, $15 per person; 603-542-5802, ); the put-in is just north of the 450-foot Cornish-Windsor covered bridge, the nation’s longest. After you take out, drive five miles north to Plainfield and the Home Hill Inn, a trs French provincial mansion across the road from the river (doubles, $175-$325; 603-675-6165, ).
On Sunday morning, drive south about 20 miles on New Hampshire 12A to the Morningside Flight Park in Charlestown for a 20-minute tandem hang-gliding aero-tow flight ($125 per person; 603-542-4416, ). Back on earth, cross the Connecticut River to Vermont and head for 3,144-foot Mount Ascutney, which you can climb via the Windsor Trail (5.5 miles, round-trip). After descending, cross back into New Hampshire and follow New Hampshire 11 to Lake Sunapee, about 50 minutes away. Rent a kayak in George’s Mills at Sargents Marina ($25 per half-day; 603-763-5036, ) to paddle around Sunapee Harbor before heading back to Boston.

THE ADRENALINE RUSH
THIRTY-THREE TIMES A YEAR, from May through October, scheduled dam releases turn the Monroe Bridge Dryway on the Deerfield River in western Massachusetts (a little less than three hours from Boston) into ripping, technical Class IV whitewater—and the most exciting rafting in New England. If you don’t want to go it alone, join Zoar Outdoor ($93-$97 per person, including lunch; 800-532-7483, ).

THE NEW, NEW THING
CHECK OUT THE LATEST all-terrain toy at Sunday River Ski Resort in Bethel, Maine—the Diggler Mountain Scooter, which carves like a snowboard and tracks like a bike. Hit the jumps, ramps, and rolls of the lift-served (and newly expanded) South Ridge mountain park ($35 per day, including rental, lift, and trail access; 207-824-3000).

THE RECHARGE SPOT
THE OUTERMOST INN (doubles, $210-$340, including breakfast; 508-645-3511, ) sits alone on 20 Martha’s Vineyard acres atop the red-clay Gay Head Cliffs. Owners Jeanne and Hugh Taylor (yes, brother of James) have kept the place free of the cute-bombs that have gone off in other island inns. Walls are painted white, wood floors are exposed, and curtainless picture windows frame sensational water views in three directions. And there’s a quiet beach below the cliffs, a ten-minute walk away.

Los Angeles

IN THIS PARKLAND-POOR metropolis, it's easy to forget that escape is only a freeway away. The green Santa Monica Mountains to the northwest roll into khaki beaches. Eastward lie the San Bernardino Mountains, and to the west is the blue Pacific. So don't let the city limits limit you.

SoCal’s big, blue backyard: surfing C Street, Ventura

THE HYPERACTIVE WEEKEND
LEAVE THE OFFICE EARLY on Friday and drive up California 1 to Leo Carrillo State Park, 28 miles northwest of Santa Monica. Drop your camping gear (tent sites, $12; 805-488-5223, ) and go directly to the beach. Surf until the sun sets. Rent boards at Zuma Jay’s ($20 per day; 310-456-8044) in Malibu.

No time for pancakes—you’re on the road by 8 a.m. on Saturday. Drive five miles to Point Mugu State Park (parking, $3; 818-880-0350, ) for a mountain-bike ride on the six-mile Overlook Trail. Two hours later you’re back on California 1, continuing north 15 miles to Oxnard. From there, head north on U.S. 101 and east on California 33 to Ojai, and check into the Emerald Iguana Inn (doubles, $105-$165, including breakfast; 805-646-5277, ), an artsy enclave with eight cottages. Don’t get sidetracked by the pepper-tree- shaded Jacuzzi. Dump your bags, unload your bike, and cycle scenic California 150 seven miles to Lake Casitas Recreation Area (805-649-2233). Rent a kayak from Lake Casitas Marina ($12.50 per hour; 805-649-2043) for a leisurely paddle. Cycle back to the Emerald Iguana. Soak in the Jacuzzi.

Sunday, drive north on California 33 about 20 miles to Sespe Gorge in Los Padres National Forest (entry fee, $5; 805-968-6640, ). Climb the cracks on the 300-foot granite face until your fingers cramp. Then drive back through Ojai to Ventura, about 35 miles, for a surf at the “C Street” beach (board rentals, $15 at Ventura Surf Shop, 805-643-1062). Take the coast route home, stopping at Point Dume State Beach (310-457-8143) to hike the two-mile Point Dume Bluff Trail. Take your time getting back to the car; the weekend’s a goner.

THE NEW, NEW THING
THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL took 70 years to complete. By those standards, the California Coastal Trail is way ahead of schedule. For 20 years, coastal-access advocates have been building a path that parallels California’s 1,200-mile coastline, starting at Borderfield State Park south of San Diego and ending at Pelican Bay State Beach, Oregon. Hikers can further the cause by becoming volunteer mappers, using GPS units and cameras to pinpoint gaps in the trail. For information, contact Coastwalk at 800-550-6854 or .

THE CLASSIC
BEST PLACE TO CONVERT anyone who thinks they hate L.A.: Malibu’s Charmlee Wilderness Park (parking, $3; 310-457-7247). The fact that this 590-acre reserve sees so little foot and bike traffic is one of L.A.’s greatest mysteries. A narrow 3.1-mile path from the visitor center spits you onto an ocean overlook with views of the Channel Islands.

THE RECHARGE SPOT
BY THE TIME you reach Gold Mountain Manor (doubles, $125-$225, including breakfast; 800-509-2604, ), a 1928 log-cabin inn on the north side of pine-rimmed Big Bear Lake, two hours east of Los Angeles, the transformation from cranky commuter to mellow mountain dweller should be complete. Any remaining stress can be treated with the owner’s homemade milk bath dissolved in a claw-foot tub. Wrap yourself in a plush robe and doze off next to the in-room fireplace. Wake to a candle-lit breakfast of banana fritters and strawberry crepes. Then hike it off on a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail, which passes through the San Bernardino National Forest in the inn’s backyard.

Chicago

MAN-MADE PINNACLES crowd the lakefront skyline, but every so often Second City inhabitants need to see nature’s peaks. And if too many late-night dogs at Wiener’s Circle have left your body nitrate-saturated, detox with a ramble to the rolling hinterland.

Wicked vista: Devil’s Lake State Park, Wisconsin.

THE HYPERACTIVE WEEKEND
ON FRIDAY afternoon your derriere is nestled into leather, cruising 190 miles west on I-90 toward a campsite in Tower Hill State Park, three miles south of Spring Green, Wisconsin (tent sites, $9-$11; vehicle pass, $10 per day; 608-588-2116, ). Pull up to your oak-shaded pad and snuggle in for the night.

Saturday morning, carbo-load tofu chilaquiles and home fries at the Spring Green Café and General Store, a five-minute drive up Wisconsin 23. Then grab your bike and pedal a half-mile to the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center, starting point for the Frank Lloyd Wright Tour, a 20-mile-loop road ride that winds over velvety green-gold hills on farm roads (for directions, order a copy of the Wisconsin Biking Guide, free; 800-432-8747). Later, drive Wisconsin 23 north to Bob’s Riverside Resort (canoe rental, $20; shuttle, $26; 888-844-2206, ) for a 15-mile paddle down the Lower Wisconsin. Pull out in Gotham and take Bob’s shuttle back to your car. Pack up and drive south on Wisconsin 23 about 15 miles to Governor Dodge State Park to pitch a tent at Cox Hollow Campground (tent sites, $10-$13; 888-947-2757, ). Hike until the sun sets along the 8.1-mile Lost Canyon Trail.

Sunday: Hop on your fat-tire beast for a workout at the Governor Dodge knobbydrome. Warm up on 3.3-mile Mill Creek Loop singletrack, then link with 6.8-mile Meadow Valley Trail doubletrack, hammering through grass meadows and up sandstone bluffs. Next, drive north up Wisconsin 23, head east on U.S. 14, and take a right on South Valley Road (35 miles total) to fish for wild browns from Black Earth Creek (guiding and instruction by Madison Outfitters, $175 per half-day; 608-833-1359, ). Once you’ve snagged your third box elder, it’s time to go. Replenish caffeine reserves at the Lunch Bucket Café in Black Earth on your way west along U.S. 14, then north on Wisconsin 78. It’s just 26 miles to tendon-popping fun on more than 1,500 climbs over red-purple quartzite at Devil’s Lake State Park (vehicle pass, $10 per day; 608-356-8301). Hit the East Bluff’s west-facing climbs to catch the last rays before hitting the citybound lanes of I-90.
THE NEW, NEW THING
IN NOVEMBER 2001, LaPorte County, Indiana, finished mapping and signing 400-plus miles of backroads cycling routes. It’s easy to connect the 20 color-coded loops (from 12 to 33 miles) or hook up with routes in neighboring Berrien County, Michigan. On the 27-mile Heston loop you’ll pump past apple and peach orchards and horse farms. Head west to camp at one of 25 walk-in sites at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s Dunewood Campground (sites, $10; 219-926-7561, ). For maps, contact the LaPorte County Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-634-2650, ).

THE CLASSIC
BEST NATURAL PHENOMENON: the sandhill crane migration at Indiana’s Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area, about 90 miles southeast of Chicago (219-843-4841, ). Up to 15,000 cranes stage on the marshy fields; the numbers peak in late October.

THE RECHARGE SPOT
JUST 90 MILES SOFT of the Loop, circled by 32 acres of Illinois corn and soybeans, is The Heartland Spa, a retreat with zero attitude. In the barn, soak in the whirlpool, work out, or balance your chakras with a hot-basalt and cold-marble-stone massage. After a tough day of tai chi, yoga, and meditation classes, claim a sofa for napping in the Quiet Room. Mountain bikes are also available to tool around Gilman’s stick-straight farm roads (doubles, $920 per weekend; 800-545-4853, ).

Minneapolis

IN THE WARMER MONTHS, Twin Cities denizens tumble out of their houses like snow melting off a roof. Unless you feel rejuvenated by the tangled web of training wheels, 20-foot dog leashes, and entwined lovers around the Minneapolis lakes, it’s time to get away. Hear the wind blow through prairie grass, feel the river sand between your, and let the only sweat you

Fire, the ice: maples ablaze in northern Minnesota.

THE HYPERACTIVE WEEKEND
PICK UP YOUR GANG BY 5 p.m. on Friday and drive 45 miles south on U.S. 52 to Cannon Falls for a quick in-line skate along the 19.7-mile Cannon Valley Trail ($3; ). Grab a burger at the Mill Street Tavern and hop back on U.S. 52 for the two-hour drive to Harvest Farm Campground (tent sites, $10-$14; 563-883-8562, ), five miles south of Harmony.

On Saturday, bike 12 miles on the Harmony-Preston Bike Trail, accessible from downtown Harmony. At Preston, head up Filmore Street, turn right on St. Paul Avenue, and head to Minnesota 16 via U.S. 52. Bike 12 miles through rolling farm country on Minnesota 5 to Forestville State Park ($4; 507-765-2785, ), an 1860s-era trading outpost. Hike a steep one-mile path to the spooky hilltop cemetery. Back in Forestville, straddle your bike and follow signs to Mystery Cave, ten miles away ($7; 507-937-3251, ). Take a two-hour guided tour of Minnesota’s largest cavern, then bike 28 miles back to Harvest Farm via Minnesota 44, eat s’mores, enjoy the blissful wind-down, then gratefully hit the sack.

On Sunday morning, drive 15 minutes to Kendallville, Iowa, on Iowa 139 to paddle on the swift Class I-II water of the Upper Iowa River past limestone palisades to Bluffton (canoe rental at Hruska’s Canoe Livery, $37, including shuttle; 563-547-4566, www.bluffcountry.com/hruska’s.htm). After the shuttle drops you at your car, drive three hours north on U.S. 52 to Nerstrand Big Woods State Park ($4; 507-334-8848, ). Hike the 1.5-mile Fox Trail in the last remains of the Minnesota Big Woods, what was once a 3,000-mile swath of thick forest. Drive 20 minutes to Northfield to nosh on bar snacks at The Tavern, then hike up the hill to join Carleton College students playing Ultimate. Postpone Monday by staying Sunday night at the Archer Historic Inn, a 100-year-old French Revival manor on Northfield’s Main Street (doubles, $75-$140; 800-247-2235, ). Get up at 6 a.m., drive an hour back to Minneapolis, suck down a Turtle Mocha from Caribou Coffee, and let the caffeine work its magic.

THE ADRENALINE RUSH
LAKE WACONIA, 30 miles west of Minneapolis, is the Midwest’s answer to Maui’s Kanaha Beach Park. But Hawaiians, take note: Minnesota kitesurfers are getting big air on that chilly lake water—must be those prairie typhoons (lessons with Scuba Center Windsurfing, $75-$100 per hour; 612-925-4812, ).

THE WILDERNESS FORAY
IF A FIVE-HOUR drive north to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness sounds daunting, get your paddling fix on the Upper St. Croix River, only 70 miles from downtown St. Paul. Put in at Thayers Landing, near Danbury, Wisconsin, and you’ll paddle past rocky pine islands and blazing maples. Camp at one of 15 primitive sites along the way, and be sure to bring a fishing rod—walleye and smallmouth bass love that clean St. Croix water. On Sunday, 32 miles downstream, pull out at Minnesota 70.

THE RECHARGE SPOT
THE MOMENT YOU STEP onto the Stout’s Island ferry, 2.5 hours from the Twin Cities in Birchwood, Wisconsin, life’s hassles melt away. After all, you’re headed for “The Island of Happy Days.” The private 26-acre rock in Red Cedar Lake is home to Stout’s Island Lodge (doubles, $179-$229, including breakfast; 715-354-3646, ), a 100-year-old Adirondack-style retreat on the National Registry of Historic Places, with 42 guest rooms. On crisp fall evenings eat fresh walleye, fall veggies, and artery-clogging Wisconsin cheeses next to a roaring fire. Work it off the next morning by doing laps on the one-mile path that circumnavigates the island. Then indulge in a facial in the renovated boathouse spa.

Denver

THE SIGHT OF the Rockies gleaming behind downtown Denver’s skyline is inexorably pulling you westward. We say don’t resist.

wheels up, west of Winter Park.

THE HYPERACTIVE WEEKEND
ABOUT FOUR HOURS northwest of Denver, feel your shoulders relax as you cross 9,426-foot Rabbit Ears Pass, about 2,600 feet above Steamboat Springs. In town, find the Steamboat Bed and Breakfast, a butter-colored Victorian house with green trim and seven guest rooms, on Pine Street (doubles, $99-$169; 877-335-4321, ).

Take an early Saturday morning bike ride a couple of miles out of town for the 7 a.m. balloon departure with Wild West Balloon ���ϳԹ���s ($110 per adult for a half-hour flight; 970-879-7219, ). Drift 3,000 feet above the Yampa River valley, toast your landing with champagne, and pedal back through downtown to Elk Park. Meet the fly-fishing folks from Straightline Outdoor Sports (970-879-7568, ), who’ll supply you with a flyless rod and teach you to cast into a pond. The two-hour clinic is free, but you need to make reservations. After lunch, drive 30 miles northeast to the Slavonia trailhead just outside the Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area (Routt National Forest: 970-879-1870, ), put on your skivvies, and take a nine-mile trail run to Gilpin Lake, over the 9,840-foot saddle behind it, and down the Gold Creek Lake Trail back to your car. Then head to Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs, as relaxing as any martini ($10; 970-879-0342, ), which also has a platoon of massage therapists on hand. Go back to your B&B. Sleep.
On Sunday, take an early-morning, 56-mile road-bike ride through ranchland along County Road 129 to Steamboat Lake and back. Then wind down with a little in-line skating on the municipal bike path, which follows the Yampa River for five miles. After lunch, climb the 5.8-5.10 routes of Seedhouse Rock, about 20 miles north of town, under the watchful eyes of the climbing instructors from Rocky Mountain Ventures ($65 per person for a group of two to five, equipment and transportation included; 970-870-8440, ). As the day fades, head back into town and place your tired and grateful self on the back of a horse from Sombrero Ranch, next to the rodeo grounds ($45 per person, including dinner; 970-879-2306, ). Ride through the dusk along the flanks of 7,136-foot Emerald Mountain. An hour into the ride, dismount and dig into the guide-prepared steak dinner.

THE ADRENALINE RUSH
CAPITAL PEAK RISES 14,130 feet from deep in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area (for trail information, contact the Aspen Ranger District, 970-925-3445), about five hours southwest of Denver. Near the summit is an unavoidable, highly exposed knife-edge ridge that plunks even the most cavalier mountaineer onto her butt. If you drop your trail mix here, let it slide.

THE NEW, NEW THING
THERE’S A BRAND-NEW addition to the 600-mile trail system around Winter Park, which a growing corps of mountain bikers believe is the best in the state. The wide, flat spur runs eight miles from Fraser toward Granby—great access for mountain bikers staying at Fraser’s Anna Leah, a five-room bed-and-breakfast with a whopping mountain view (doubles, $110-$195; 970-726-4414, ), or Devil’s Thumb Ranch, near Fraser, a 3,700-acre spread with 14 lodge rooms and seven cabins (doubles, $69-$119; cabins, $139-$279; 800-933-4339, ).

THE CLASSIC
IN THE FALL, Rocky Mountain National Park’s aspens are in golden splendor, and many members of its resident 3,000-strong elk herd are busy mating, strutting, hooting, and hollering. Though the meadows are off-limits from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. to give the elk a little privacy, you can watch from the sidelines. Best viewing times: dusk and dawn (Rocky Mountain National Park: $15 for a one- to seven-day pass; camping, $18 per site; 970-586-1206, ).

San Francisco

IF YOU’VE HAD your fill of lingering summer fog, yoga-mat gridlock, and a whole lotta dazed and confused former dotcommers, now’s the time to leave your heart in San Francisco but take the rest of you out yonder to Sierra peaks and serene redwood forests.

Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn

THE HYPERACTIVE WEEKEND
LEAVE THE CITY BY 3 p.m. on Friday and head 55 miles south on California 1 to Costanoa Coastal Lodge and Camp, a sprawling 40-acre compound near Pescadero with a 40-room lodge, cabins, tent cabins, and RV and tent sites surrounded by 30,000 acres of trails (tent sites to premium lodge rooms, $30-$240; 650-879-1100, ). Drop off your bags and ride your mountain bike 9.5 miles from Costanoa to Big Basin Redwoods State Park (831-338-8860, ), turning around at Sunset Camp.

On Saturday, hike the three-mile Ohlone Ridge Loop from Costanoa before driving a half-hour to Santa Cruz for a lesson at the Richard Schmidt Surf School ($80 per hour; 831-423-0928, ). Then head 25 minutes south on California 1 to Kayak Connection, the first driveway past Moss Landing State Beach. Rent a kayak ($30 per four hours; 831-724-5692, ) and paddle alongside the sea otters, pelicans, and seals of the Elkhorn Slough Sanctuary (831-728-2822, ). Later, drive six miles past Carmel on California 1 and look for pull-out parking on the left near a row of cypress trees. Hike the 4.5-mile Rocky Ridge loop trail up into Soberanes Canyon in Garrapata State Park (831-624-4909). From there it’s 30 minutes south on California 1 to Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn, a rustic, Norwegian-style lodge tucked into Castro Canyon (doubles, $75-$195; 831-667-2377, ).
Next morning, drive ten minutes south to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (831-667-2315) for a hike along the 4.5-mile redwood-canopied Ewoldsen Trail before turning your car northward. Just east of Monterey, take California 68 toward Salinas, stopping off at Fort Ord Public Lands (831-394-8314, ), an untamed wilderness with some 90 miles of trails. Mountain bike the double- and singletrack Guidotti Goat Trail Loop for 13 miles of Salinas Valley views. Continue about 45 minutes to Hollister and a 6 p.m. skydiving date ($239 per person, oxygen included; ���ϳԹ��� Center Skydiving, 800-386-5867) before the 1.5-hour drive via U.S. 101 back home.

THE WILDERNESS FORAY
THE BIG PICTURE: Caught in the crawl space between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite, the Mokelumne Wilderness straddles the central Sierra Nevada with 100-plus miles of difficult trails. A sampler: a 20-mile round-trip summit of 9,332-foot Moke-lumne Peak. Resources: Pick up a USGS Mokelumne Wilderness map and your free overnight permit at the Amador District Ranger Office, about 20 miles east of Jackson on California 88 (209-295-4251).

THE NEW, NEW THING
TWENTY YEARS and 10,000 volunteers later, the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail, a hiking, biking, and equestrian loop that circumnavigates Lake Tahoe, is open for business. One particularly salivating overnight stretch: Christopher’s Loop, a 1.2-mile spur trail 12 miles in from the Spooner Summit North trailhead. The hike is at 8,600 feet, but it seems you can almost reach out and touch the aquamarine water, 6,300 feet below (775-588-0686, ).

THE RECHARGE SPOT
ONE GUEST-BOOK notation reads, “I feel like creamed corn.” No doubt you, too, will feel mushy at the Milliken Creek Inn, a 12-room hideaway that opened in August 2001, five minutes east of Napa, set on three acres of oak and pine alongside the Napa River (doubles, $295-$525; 707- 255-1197, ). If the mellow background jazz and the pillow menu at check-in don’t hook you, the breakfast served anywhere you want it, candlelit Jacuzzis, custom massages, and private yoga lessons will.

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DESPITE THE NORTH PACIFIC storms circling off the coast like jets in a holding pattern, our guide, Gord Pincock, is doing his best to see us through our eight-day kayak expedition in British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands, also known as Haida Gwaii. For the past three days, six of us paddlers from the United States and Japan, plus Pincock and his assistant, Suzane Couture, have been pinned down on a sheltered beach waiting for a weather window to open and let us continue to SGang Gwaay, an island at the southwestern tip of the 180-island archipelago. SGang Gwaay was named for the sighing sound made when 40-foot storm surf rolls across a reef, but this is a wonder that Pincock, who has been paddling in Haida Gwaii for half his life, doesn’t want us to experience—this and something called “clapitus.”

Haida Gwaii’s Rose Harbor: summertime population: 6

Clapitus, he tells us, occurs when a large wave bounces off a cliff face and collides with the wave behind it, turning the sea into an aqueous trash compactor. It is hell on small craft: A 20-foot wave rebounding off a wall will head back to sea as a ten-footer, but when it butts heads with the next 20-footer the two will merge into a mountain of confused hydropower. The feeling aroused in the paddler as this bastard child of fluid dynamics first buries him and then sends him free-falling into the trough is, at best, one of exhilarated consternation, and at worst one of cotton-mouthed terror. The problem with clapitus is that it doesn’t stop. It runs its violent routine over and over again, until you flee far enough offshore or battle through it into a safe harbor.
Pincock, a solid, agile, ruddy-faced 38-year-old British Columbia native, first encountered clapitus on a scale he had previously experienced only in a recurring nightmare. “The swell was 30 feet,” he explained as we gathered around the campfire at a deserted Haida village site on Kunghit Island about five miles north of SGang Gwaay. “The mountains, the color of the sky—everything—was exactly as it had been in my dream. I was thinking to myself, ‘This time, you’ve really done it.'” Exhausted, seasick, and terrified, Pincock suddenly found himself surrounded by porpoises. Buoyed by the encounter, he surfed and submarined his way into the cove he’d been looking for. “Once I made landfall,” he said, “I didn’t leave my campsite again for five days.”


Lying 50 miles off the B.C. coast and 40 miles south of the Alaska border, Haida Gwaii resembles a disembodied wing flying west into the Pacific Ocean. We’re paddling the southern end of this chain, through Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. Nearly 5,000 people live on Haida Gwaii, and just less than half of them are directly descended from the islands’ original inhabitants, the Haida people, a tribe of seafaring warriors whose ferocity, mobility, and naval daring have drawn comparisons to the Vikings.


The Haida’s reputation isn’t well known south of the border, but their canoes, longhouses, and cedar totem poles represent a high point in North American art. It is because of these poles—the Angkor Wat of the Pacific Northwest—that we wait so patiently for a shot at SGang Gwaay. Cedar is exceptionally durable, but in Haida Gwaii—essentially a moated rainforest clinging to the shoulders of the snowcapped Queen Charlotte Mountains—a typical pole stands only about 150 years before it falls over and is consumed by moss. SGang Gwaay’s village of SGang Gwaay ‘Ilnagaay (aka Ninstints) contains the most famous and most intact of these poles—more than two dozen still stand—and the island has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


The Haida have survived against all odds, despite having their numbers reduced in the late 1800s from more than 10,000 to fewer than 600 in one generation of warfare and a biological holocaust of smallpox and influenza that came with the fur traders. As the Haida’s numbers have rebounded to about 2,000, so has their art of pole carving. Six poles were raised in the village of Skidegate on Graham Island in 2000, and dozens more have been carved since the Haida began the monumental task of cultural reclamation initiated by native artists in the fifties and sixties.


In 1985, after a long battle that pitted logging interests and the B.C. government against a coalition of Haida and other concerned preservation and environmental groups, Gwaii Haanas was made into a 138-island national park preserve. As such, it has been saved from the clear-cut logging that has razed forests in much of northern Haida Gwaii. In the park, the forest primeval still grows unchecked. There are cedars roomy enough to live in and spruce trees with more than a thousand growth rings. The deer and black bears, not to mention the killer whales, seals, and sea lions, have little fear of humans. There are no trails and no signs. In Gwaii Haanas, it is clear that nature rules and you are only a visitor. It’s an easy place to disappear.


If anything goes wrong out here, there is no cell-phone coverage, and many areas are blind to radio reception altogether. To get to Rose Harbour, the site of an abandoned whaling station on Kunghit Island at the southern end of the park, where Pincock keeps his kayaks, we flew from Vancouver to Sandspit, in the northern part of the Queen Charlottes, then traveled in a van 20 miles over logging roads, followed by more than 100 miles in a Zodiac. A friend who made the trip on a rough day said, “It was like sitting in front of a fire hose for four hours.” At that point, the journey has only just begun.

The British Columbia way: a centuries-old spruce on Moresby Island

ROSE HARBOUR IS AN odd place. The first thing that catches your eye in the sheltered cove is a pair of rusting boilers once used for rendering blubber from sperm, gray, and humpback whales. Closer inspection reveals a rocky beach littered with bone fragments and shards of metal from exploding harpoons. Beyond this wreckage are the furnaces. Until the 1940s, Rose Harbour had been a slaughter ground for whales. Today its calm waters feel like a sanctuary.

Only a handful of white people live in the village now, those who went back to the land in the seventies and stayed. In 1978, a small consortium of them bought 166 acres on Kunghit Island and homesteaded. The Rose Harbour Whaling Company, as the group is called, predates the creation of Gwaii Haanas and owns the only private land within park boundaries. Only six people remain.
The land and sea provide most of what Rose Harbourites need, but money for the outboard, the radio phone, and the children’s clothes has to come from somewhere. As the watery path to Haida Gwaii is taken by more tourists, Rose Harbour has turned increasingly to a service economy: If you need a shower, a room, a kayak, or a meal, Rose Harbour has it all.

Because of the manic-depressive weather, kayakers paddle these waters the way a mouse negotiates a kitchen patrolled by cats, darting furtively from one hiding place to another. It requires considerable patience—something that three days under a wind-battered, rain-beaten tarp will test. Witnessing a bald eagle execute a flawless barrel roll is a wonderful reward for being still, but not enough to keep restlessness from driving me into the freezing water—suitless and maskless—to dive for sea urchins.

On the fourth day the wind dies down enough to allow us across Houston Stewart Channel, the southern gateway to SGang Gwaay. We paddle five miles around the south end of Moresby Island through dense fog. We might as well be paddling through clouds. There is no other sound but the rhythmic dipping of paddles and the muffled roar of the surf breaking up on Adams Rocks a mile away. These moss-covered rocks are all that lie between us and SGang Gwaay. At the end of Louscoone Inlet, a craggy, tree-lined cove, we spot five of the largest and rarest birds in Haida Gwaii: sandhill cranes. Even Pincock has never seen so many in one place. It’s deemed a good omen and we camp there.

The skies clear during the night, and the following morning, squinting in the unfamiliar sunshine, we pack the kayaks for the one-and-a-half-mile paddle to SGang Gwaay. Today the sea is glassy and the waters around Adams Rocks seethe quietly as puffins hurtle back and forth like bumblebees on speed.

Circumnavigating SGang Gwaay, we feel the Pacific swell beneath us, but it’s only four to six feet today. We tie off to knobs of bull kelp and fish for greenling, rock cod, and maybe a salmon.

Today, the Haida sites are guarded during the summer by an organization called the Haida Watchmen, whose job it is to make sure they are treated in a respectful manner. It’s considered an honor, particularly for the watchmen who guard Ninstints. The village was evacuated in the late 1800s after smallpox wiped out all but 30 people. Nearly half the remaining poles here are fire-scarred because, according to local legend, once the village had been reduced to a mass grave, members of an enemy coastal tribe braved Hecate Strait, the shallow, storm-prone channel that separates the islands from the mainland, and set fire to the village in an act of posthumous revenge. In the 1950s, anthropologists carted off many of the finest surviving poles; you can find them today in museums around the world.

On this sunny August afternoon we look at what collectors and time have left behind. Bleached like bones, the fixed and staring faces of eagles, ravens, killer whales, frogs, bears, and beavers—heraldic crests of the previous inhabitants—gaze back at us from a forest of 40-foot poles. Their deftly carved features are exaggerated and intimidating: Tongues loll, nostrils flare, teeth are bared, but these expressions seem more the effects of rigor mortis than of the ferocity of life; this is a place of ghosts.

Back at our camp on Louscoone Inlet, a culture away, two doctors—an uncle and nephew from the States—discuss the relative merits of kayaking and motoring. Marty, the uncle, waxes eloquent on the joys of paddling, while his nephew, Jay, extols the virtues of the BassMaster motor. The uncle counters with the cardiovascular benefits of paddling for yourself. “Frankly,” says the nephew, “I’d just as soon go to the gym for two hours and then jump on my Jet Ski.” You can almost see the lightbulb go off: “That’s it! I’ll bring a Jet Ski up here. Then I could see everything.”

Pincock is listening to all this—it is impossible not to because we are sitting in the midst of a profound, Edenic silence. He crouches down to stir a pot on the fire. “It wouldn’t be worth the trouble,” he says, chuckling mirthlessly. “You’d be dodging too many bullets.”

Alone Among the Dunes

The Canadian Sahara can be reached by floatplane, but it’s way more fun getting there by boat

Saskatchewan's Fond du Lac River

THE SECOND TIME I RUN into Jean Graham, she still thinks I’m crazy. After five hours in a van dodging semi trucks freshly loaded with radioactive yellowcake from the uranium mine at the end of northern Saskatchewan’s Highway 905, I am once again at her dilapidated oasis of gas and essentials where river meets road. The last time I was here, three years ago, I had arrived by canoe. Five college-bound teenagers and I had just muscled 50 miles up the Johnson River, and Jean, the 53-year-old owner of the Johnson River Lodge, was amazed—she had never, ever heard of anyone ascending the waterfall-riddled Johnson. I explained we had 300 more miles to paddle, and that a ride 20 miles north to the Wollaston Lake bridge would help tremendously. She was shocked, but handed me the keys to her pickup truck, telling me to just leave it at the river; construction workers would drive it back. This is northern Canada: Dishonest people neither live nor travel here.

The second time around, she’s less surprised. Our shuttle driver needs gas. “You’re doing what?” Jean asks as we fuel up and John Stoddard, my paddling partner, wanders about the ramshackle compound of cabins, old cars, and odd hunks of metal. “We’re headed to Lake Athabasca…” I begin. “By canoe? This time of year?” she interrupts, rolling her eyes. “You really are nuts.”

It’s early September and the leaves have already turned orange, but we’re planning to canoe nearly 330 miles in less than a month. We’ll start at Hidden Bay, paddle across Wollaston Lake, run the Class I-III rapids of the 170-mile Fond du Lac River, and then head west into Lake Athabasca. There, stretching 60 miles along the southern shore, lies our goal: the surreal desertscape of Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Wilderness Park, one of the most northerly sets of major dunes in the world. No roads lead to them, and the handful of park visitors reach them by chartering a floatplane. I’ve been paddling canoes with John, a full-time NOLS instructor and part-time carpenter, since we were kids growing up in Wisconsin; between us we’ve logged more than 250 days on remote Canadian waters. The route is straightforward, and with 150 pounds of food, seven pounds of French-press coffee, a slew of books, and several bottles of scotch, we are well provisioned.

We don’t expect to start drinking and reading so early on, but the morning of day two, four-foot waves on 100-mile-long Wollaston Lake force us to crash-land on a tiny speck of reindeer moss and granite. Twenty-four hours later, the weather breaks, and we safely reach the headwaters of the Fond du Lac River. Flowing in and out of shallow lakes, the river follows a fault line between hard granite and soft sandstone formations through roadless, boreal-forested crown land.

Only a handful of people have ever paddled this river. Revered canoeing author Sig Olsen wrote of his 1963 trip, “If this place, I thought, should ever become a national park, the scene might become world famous.” Fortunately, it hasn’t. Except for evidence of the Chipewyan and other tribes who have lived here for centuries—a few well-used campsites and the odd trapper’s cabin—the river is almost exactly as it was in 1796 when Canadian explorer David Thompson and two Déné guides ran it for the first time. They almost perished lining up what is now called Thompson Rapids.

Our experience at Thompson is not so dramatic. We portage the first four-foot drop, then decide to take our chances with the rest of the Class III rapids. Despite my frantic draws, we plow into a series of standing waves that knock my paddle out of my hands. I manage to recover it, and just downstream we reach Manitou Falls, where we sign the unofficial registry—a notebook in a rusted-out coffee can lodged in a rock cairn with a handful of entries dating back to the 1970s.

We paddle on. Days blend together and we settle into familiar patterns. Then, as is the case with many expeditions, variables beyond our control take over. Northwesterly winds and an annoying mishap (I fall and fracture a tooth while scouting a rapid) delay us. To ensure our safe and timely arrival at the dunes, we leapfrog a short section of Lake Athabasca by floatplane, which we find at Stony Rapids, a Fond du Lac settlement and one of the only towns for hundreds of miles.

By any measure, Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Wilderness Park is a strange place. Imagine a small Sahara Desert on a desolate Caribbean coastline. Now remove the palm trees and add a conifer-forested, subarctic environment inhabited by moose, bears, and wolves. Finally, plop it all down on the shore of a massive lake. Local legend has it that a presumed-dead beaver, tossed there by a giant, formed the dunes by kicking up sand. In reality, the 8,000-year-old dunes are the result of retreating glaciers, northerly winds, wave action, and forest fires. They ripple snakelike across the landscape, towering hundreds of feet above the William River, one of two major waterways that flow into Lake Athabasca.

We begin battling with the lake on the western edge of the park. To reach our floatplane pickup on the MacFarlane River in 12 days, we will have to paddle 60 miles along the southern shoreline, camping on the beach as we go. Paddling on Lake Athabasca is a bumpy, touch-and-go affair. Its massive size (3,120 square miles—roughly as large as Rhode Island and Delaware combined) and lack of sheltered bays or islands allow Arctic-born storms to pummel the shallow, exposed southern shore.

Our drill is to wake early, check the weather, and decide if we should carve through the surf and get soaked or remain on the beach and stay dry. Often the decision is easy and we lie low, exploring the dunes by foot. Because the park is only ten years old and hard to reach, traces of humans are rare. Broad expanses of desert pavement, a delicate carpet of pebbles on which a footprint will remain for decades, often detour us.

As we poke our way down the coast, winter begins to arrive and snow flurries become more frequent. We jury-rig our tarp and sail for an afternoon, celebrating John’s 28th birthday with the last of the scotch and a perfectly baked devil’s food cake. We arrive at our pickup a few days early with barely enough food. But we don’t want to leave. The simplicity of life on the trail has finally overtaken us and we are just learning how to enjoy the big lake. Midafternoon on our last day, a pack of wolves rambles by only a hundred yards away. They howl, then pause for a long look at us before disappearing. We understand. We are in their backyard, and it is time to move on.

Canadian Bounty

Don’t miss out on this trio of premier paddling adventures

The Sluice Box along the Nahanni River

MAIN RIVER, NEWFOUNDLAND
Officially designated as a Canadian Heritage River last year, the 36-mile Main slices through Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula—a pristine wilderness of tundra, old-growth boreal forests, and grasslands. The first half is technical Class II-III whitewater. The grand finale is a nail-biter through a 14-mile, steep-cliffed gorge. The salmon fishing, black bear, moose, and caribou sightings, and frequent stops for scouting and portaging easily turn running the Main into a weeklong wilderness adventure.
SEASON: May and June.
DO-IT-YOURSELF: To reach the headwaters you must charter a floatplane (about $330 for two people and a canoe). Contact Parks and Natural Areas of Newfoundland & Labrador for permits, regulations, and services: 800-563-6353; . Guided Trips: Eastern Edge Kayak ���ϳԹ���s (709-782-5925; ) offers an eight-day trip for $760 per person.

SOUTH NAHANNI RIVER, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Tumbling through Nahanni National Park Reserve, the Class II-III South Nahanni River offers Grand Canyon thrills in an alpine tundra setting. In the shadow of the toothy 5,000-foot Mackenzie Mountains, the Nahanni snakes through 4,000-foot canyons and past fields of rare orchids. With highlights like 297-foot Virginia Falls (almost twice the height of Niagara Falls), numerous hot springs, and extensive cave systems, it’s no surprise the park was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
SEASON: Early July to late August.
DO-IT-YOURSELF: The 220-mile canoe trip from Rabbitkettle Lake to the Liard River takes about two weeks. Reservations and registration are required; call Nahanni National Park Reserve (867-695-3151).
GUIDED TRIPS: Nahanni Wilderness ���ϳԹ���s (888-897-5223; ) runs a raft-assisted canoe trip from Rabbitkettle Lake to the Liard River ($2,088 per person).
WABAKIMI WILDERNESS PARK, ONTARIO
Ontario’s 1.1-million-acre Quetico Provincial Park is a well-loved destination among avid wilderness canoeists. But double its size and remove 99 percent of the people, and you’ve got Wabakimi Wilderness Park, just 200 miles north of the Quetico. Established in 1983—and expanded sixfold in 1997—the park is rugged, remote, and accessible only by train, floatplane, or canoe. Including adjacent provincial wilderness parks, Wabakimi offers almost seven million acres of interconnected lakes and rivers, making it the largest wilderness-canoeing destination in the world.
SEASON: Late May to early September.
DO-IT-YOURSELF: A classic multiday trip down the Class II – IV Allanwater River and across various lakes begins with serious rapids and ends with placid water. The two-hour train ride in and floatplane out cost around $300 per person (canoe transport included). For information on permits call the park at 807-475-1634.
GUIDED TRIPS: For rental equipment and guided-trip information, contact Wabakimi WildWaters Canoe Outfitters (807-767-2022; ).

Lord of Your Own Fjord

Arctic pleasures in Newfoundland’s wet and wild Gros Morne National Park

Beachfront seclusion along Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park

WE HAD SET UP CAMP at dusk and gone in search of water when both of our flashlights went dead. Anywhere else, this would have been a mundane enough incident, but we were in western Newfoundland, where the spruce forest blotted out the remaining light like death itself. Our situation felt forbidding. It felt Arctic.

Forbidding had not been part of the plan. My boyfriend and I had come to 772-square-mile Gros Morne National Park strictly to relax, and that afternoon we’d loaded up on chocolate chips and declared our desire to spend four days toodling around the slopes of Gros Morne, Newfoundland’s second-highest peak and the park’s centerpiece. We chose the well-marked James Callaghan Trail, a ten-mile round-trip.

After less than an hour of stumbling through the dark, Gros Morne served us its first bit of odd grace: A man carrying a flashlight, a cooler, and an umbrella came whistling toward us. He gave us his spare batteries and disappeared into the blackness.

The next day, we continued into the waist-high mosaic of springy conifers locally called tuckamore. The place was strung with lakes. Lakes fringed with raspberry and blueberry bushes. Lakes with moose thrashing and bellowing in the shallows. Lakes with woodland caribou grazing quietly on the shore like the polite Canadians they are.

We climbed the rocky trail toward the shoulder of 2,644-foot Gros Morne and entered a misplaced slice of the Arctic. The frigid currents off Newfoundland keep temperatures low enough that animal residents of intemperate spots like Baffin Island make this their southernmost home. An arctic hare the size of a collie hurtled toward me. Clearing the shoulder, we saw the park’s famous Long Range: green-topped plateaus edged by cliffs that plunge 2,000 feet into deep-blue freshwater fjords. Although some of these waterways are ten miles long and 500 feet deep, park officials are quick to point out they aren’t technically fjords, because their water isn’t salty.

On the mountain’s cloud-shrouded uppermost reaches, the mood was funereal. While the rest of the Long Range is gray granite and gneiss, Gros Morne is rose-colored quartzite. The light was pink and ancient, somehow dim and bright at the same time. The cairns marking the trail looked like early Christian crosses. We crunched slowly across the rock, as awed and quiet as monks.

Lunkers Lurk Here

Casting for big ones at Treeline Lodge on remote Nueltin Lake

This way to paradise: a dock at Nueltin Fly-In Lodge

WHEN I WANT TO see envy plastered on the faces of my fishing pals, I mention that I’m heading to Treeline Lodge on Nueltin Lake in the roadless Manitoba wilderness to catch trout and pike longer than my legs—on a body of water that’s longer than the drive from Los Angeles to San Diego. Then I add that the last time I went fishing on Nueltin I hooked a small pike and was about to land it when a monster fish appeared, chomping the smaller one sideways like a shark. In the ensuing pandemonium, the piscine beast released the tiny fish to attack my lure. After running around the bay, it streaked past the boat, where the guide deftly intercepted it with the net. Together we hoisted the three-foot-long pike into the boat, drenching ourselves with spray.

There’s no better place than Nueltin Lake for catching northern pike and lake trout, and there’s no better lodge than Treeline from which to launch a fishing expedition. The log outpost and its surrounding clapboard cabins sit atop a sand esker 300 miles from the nearest road. It’s so remote that it has its own private airstrip and flies its guests in each Saturday via charter jet from Winnipeg.

Sure, Canada has its share of outback fishing lodges, but Treeline is one of the few facilities that replaces the motors on its boats every year, and its registered Chipewyan and Cree guides are among the country’s best. In 1978 it instituted a catch-and-release policy (everyone fishes with single barbless hooks to facilitate the unharmed release of fish, although keeping a five-pound or smaller fish for daily shore lunch is permitted), making Nueltin the first lake in Canada with such a distinction.

After a day fighting pike, anglers can return to private, heated cabins for a shower before gathering at the lodge. First, cocktails are served around a blaze in the stone fireplace, the warmth enhanced by floor-to-ceiling lake views and the wolf-and-bearskin-rug decor. Then there’s roast turkey, prime rib, or grilled steak for dinner. Afterward, guests can check e-mail or catch up on the news, thanks to a stealthy satellite connection, or head into the midnight sun to hit a few golf balls on the lodge’s driving range. But most visitors choose to wind down the way I do: lounging on the deck and basking in the memory of the day’s action while watching the faint glow from a sun that never sets.

Summer Splashdown

Get your feet wet in these undiscovered playgrounds

Isle Bonaventure Gaspe in Quebec

With more than 169 million acres of protected land, 12 times the coastline of the United States, and about two million lakes, Canada’s park system is one of the biggest and wettest on the planet. Despite its largesse, our good neighbor’s national and provincial park system is still growing. Here are a few of our favorite recent additions.

BRITISH COLUMBIA
By late 2002 (barring any bureaucratic snafus), British Columbia will be home to 14,579-acre Gulf Islands National Park, which will gather several existing parks under one umbrella, increasing the protected area by about 50 percent. To experience this surprisingly Mediterranean climate, gather seven friends and charter a stately 46-foot yacht for a week of swimming with harbor seals, diving in search of rare six-gill sharks, and sailing among the 14 scabrous islands.
OUTFITTER: Cooper Boating (888-999-6419; ).
PRICE: weekly charter for eight costs $3,100, crew not included.
The new Stikine River Provincial Park in northwestern British Columbia combines with Mount Edziza and Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Parks to form a 2.7-million-acre paddling extravaganza. One 12-day trip starts in Smithers, where you take a seaplane to Happy Lake in Spatsizi. Then canoe west for five days along the upper Stikine toward a hot meal and warm bed in your own small log cabin at Laslui Lake Lodge. From there return to the river for seven days of whitewater canoeing.
OUTFITTER: Spatsizi Wilderness Vacations (866-847-9692; ).
PRICE: $1,800 per person.

NUNAVUT
It’s three times the size of Texas but has fewer people than Northampton, Massachusetts. Auyuittuq (say “I-you-we-took”) and Quttinirpaaq (just say it fast) were both raised to national park status in April 1999 when Nunavut became Canada’s third territory. The two parks, totaling 14 million acres, offer mountain and tundra hiking across roaring glacial streams. Nunavut will soon add five or six more territorial parks, not to mention an additional 4.7-million-acre national park, Wager Bay, north of Hudson Bay, where polar sea kayaking is the sport of choice. The 5.4-million-acre Sirmilik National Park, on the northern tip of Baffin Island, certainly falls into the “untouched” category, and is another spot to sea kayak through deep fjords, then stretch your legs hiking and exploring hidden lakes.
OUTFITTER: Polar Sea ���ϳԹ���s (867-899-8870; ).
PRICE: $1,775 per person.

ONTARIO
Not to be outdone by its backwoods brothers, Ontario will add 61 new provincial parks this year. The Great Lakes Heritage Coast will stretch across 1,800 miles of Lake Superior and Lake Huron coastline, protecting 2.7 million acres from Thunder Bay to Port Severn. Sea kayak the remotest stretch, a 118-mile, 14-day paddle from Hattie Cove to Michipicoten Bay. En route, hike up to the base of 100-foot Dennison Falls, a favorite hideaway of Canadian paddling legend Bill Mason.
OUTFITTER: Naturally Superior ���ϳԹ���s (800-203-9092; ).
PRICE: $1,200 per person.

QUEBEC
Quebec has bolstered its already bountiful outdoor cachet by adding three new parks in two years: Parc National des Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivière-Malbaie, Parc National de Plaisance, and the 141,344-acre Parc National d’Anticosti, at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River. Sea kayak along 300-foot limestone cliffs on the northern shore of Anticosti Island, and look for blue, fin, humpback, and minke whales. All park activities are run by Sépaq, the province’s government parks division.
OUTFITTER: Sépaq (800-665-6527; ).
PRICE: $1,000 per person.
—Ryan Brandt and Dan Strumpf

Waterworld North

Mapping Canada’s Coolest Spots:

West Coast Sea Kayaking

1: Gwaii Hannas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site


Canoeing the Far North

2: Wollaston Lake
3: Fond du lac River
4: Athabasca Dans Dunes Provinvial Wilderness Park


More Premier Canoe Trips

5: Nahanni National Park Reserve
6: Wabakimi Wilderness Park
7: Main River


Backpacking Out East

8: Gros Morne National Park


Fly-Fishing Manitoba

9: Nueltin Lake


Canada’s Newest Parks:



British Columbia

10: Gulf Islands
11: Stikine River Provincial Park
12: Mount Edziza Provincial Park
13: Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Park


Nunavut

14: Auyuittuq National Park
15: Quttinirpaaq National Park
16: Wager Bay National Park
17: Sirmilik Naitonal Park


Ontario

18: Great Lakes Heritage Coast


Quebec

19: Parc National des Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Riviére-Malbaie
20: Parc National de Plaisance
21: Parc National D’Anticosti

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