Forty years ago, in the Far North, I first cast my eyes upon her.

I had ventured out with a wizened local friend who had said to a 22-year-old prowling for some remote land, "I may know just the place." We reached her via a logging bridge the ice would take out 18 months later.

Her beauty made the heart hammer. Love was in the air.

Within a month she was part of the family, acquired with earnings from two summers working Great Lakes ore boats. Terrific job for a college kid: hard work and union wages for 60 days, back when the steward would make you join the union or get off the boat. Receipts from thinning timber for two years reduced the final purchase cost to $1,500 for 35 acres in a state forest and a mile of river frontage.

Oh, and for a 25-year-old cabin, no electricity, no phone, no running water, and no neighbors for 10 miles. And, when the cables for the dilapidated suspension bridge came down, no access. In the winter you snowshoed in. In the summer you swam, fetched the canoe in the cabin and used it as a ferry while there - and, after stowing the canoe and closing the cabin, swam back. Still do.

Marriage and two sons followed - the only surpassing decisions in this blessedly lengthening life. We just returned, she and I (she loves the place too, but does like to say, ever true, "Aren't I a good sport?"), from the 150th visit made during 40 years - some for just days, some for weeks, some (early on) for months.

Things there are much as they were, but with more and less.

Bald eagles have come back. Salmon were introduced to counter lamprey eels, which persist. There are wolves now, and coyotes; more bears and otters; about the same number of deer, but smaller. Beavers are not so abundant, nor turtles, frogs, butterflies, crayfish, waxwings, nor whippoorwills.

Elms have gone; blight is reducing the birches and affecting the maples. There's greatly less snow. The river level, heavily sensitive to snowmelt and rain, seems ever lower - and sometimes so slow the river seems to flow in reverse.

The cabin has doubled in size. Tanks of propane - floated across the river and winched up the bank - provide for cooking, refrigeration, lights, and (yes!) an indoor commode. The place doesn't lack for much that matters.

So, 40 years of taking off the watch; settling in for downtime; recharging. Of pulling up the drawbridge against "civilizational" assaults and depredations. Of flying under the radar and off the screen. Of the simple joys of  living.

Of driving 22 hours each time - each way.

Of drinking from an old tin cup.

Of repairing river, animal and weather damage.

Of guerrilla war (or open combat, depending) with mice and porcupines.

Of felling trees and stoking fires.

Of canoeing, fishing, shooting, hiking and hammocking. Continued...