I posted this on October 9th, and come to it again today.
John Haines in The Stars, the Snow, the Fire, Twenty-Five Years in the Alaska Wilderness:
"It is often true that the best things we do in some strange way take place within us long before we come to the ground itself. The physical domain of this country had its counterpart in me. The trails I made led outward into the hills and swamps, but they led inward also. And from the study of things underfoot, and from reading and thinking, came a kind of exploration, myself and the land. In time the two became one in my mind. With the gathering force of an essential thing realizing itself out of early ground, I faced in myself a passionate and tenacious longing - to put away thought forever, and all the trouble it brings, all but the nearest desire, direct and searching. To take the trail and not look back. Whether on foot, on showshoes, or by sled, into the summer hills and their late-freezing shadows - a high blaze, a runner track in the snow would show where I had gone. Let the rest of mankind find me if it could."