I launch my canoe, enter it, put down my paddle, pull against the water, and slide down forward into the unknown … I have been paddling since early morning. The muscles in my arms are weary; my legs, which I have alternately stretched and tucked under the seat of my canoe, are cramped; and I am hungry. I have passed through early mists down the winding Kawishiwi River, have glided so stealthily past a bull moose feeding on water plants in a marsh that I did not disturb his breakfast, have examined the residences of beavers, have admired the bloom of irises, have savored the melody of a white crowned sparrow, have made the acquaintance of a loon so near that I could peer into the startling scarlet of its eye, have threaded a bewildering maze of islands and ventured across open water in the dazzling glare of the high morning sun: I stop out of consideration for all that has transpired, that I might lock it in memory … [I] have vanished into the forest, taken a proper place in it. [I] stand there belonging, anointed with the heavenly, the homely, grace of wildness.