Nina Hance, II
Awe, Nice!
Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, we return to a conversation with Nina Hance, the backcountry guide from Montana. Nina and her husband have had several encounters with grizzlies. Once they were mountain biking and were bluff-charged. She estimates the sow, who had cubs with her, was 500 pounds or so. While the incident was short, it had a lasting impact on her psyche, including regular nightmares. Another time, she and Alex were hunting and were chased off while field dressing a deer. Because of these events and others, she tends...
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Nina Hance, I
Awe, Nice!
Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, I talked with Nina Hance. Nina is a backcountry guide certified by the American Mountain Guides Association. In the winter, she works for Beartooth Powder Guides as a lead guide. Nina shared two events. Her first moment was during a guiding trip outside of Cook City. Cook City (population about 70) is near the entrance to Yellowstone National Park and not far from the Wyoming border. She takes us to Woody Creek Cabin, a 20 x 24 foot, single room cabin which served as the group’s base camp. ...
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Jon Tanguay, II
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We’re featuring another moment with Maine lobsterman Jon Tanguay. It occurred around this time of year, early winter-late fall, when his traps were all dozens of miles offshore, taking several hours to get to them and to get back home. Some shorthand for a few things he mentions: At the time of this event, the strings laid down between two buoys consisted of 20 traps. Four strings would be 80 traps and it would take about an hour and 20 minutes to get through those 80 traps. Also, when he mentions hauling out, that is to say to bring his boat out of the water for maintenance. ...
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Jon Tanguay, I
Awe, Nice!
This week, I interviewed Jon Tanguay, for another segment from my native state. Jon lives in Harpswell, Maine. He’s been lobstering his whole life, since he was going out with his uncle at age three. He said his parents told him his first word as a baby was “boat.” He was lobstering on his own by age nine. Many lobstermen pick up their traps in the winter, but Jon has been lobstering year-round since about 1998. In colder months, lobster move off shore and lobstering becomes tougher, more expensive, more dangerous. Regarding terminology, steaming is when you’re headed to your...
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Terence Kenney
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This week, I interviewed Terence Kenney. Terence has lived his life in Harpswell, Maine, and is the third of what I hope will be regular interviewees from my home state. This is the first segment talking with someone who works on the water. Terence recounts a rough scalloping trip to Gouldsboro, up the coast from Harpswell by about 150 miles if you’re driving. It’s theoretically less if you’re traveling by boat, but remember, there are 4,600 islands off the coast of Maine. If you’re captaining a 40-foot boat, in a big storm, in the dark, that number can be pretty daunting. ...
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Mini-Awe-Polis 5
Awe, Nice!
It’s time for another Mini-Awe-Polis, a collection of observations, like hay in my jacket pockets. Lately, after more than two dozen successfully recorded moments for Awe, Nice! I have been having some short and stilted conversations with people who work outside, who spend their lives outside. These are folks who have done incredible feats, witnessed cool weather events, been part of amazing wildlife encounters. Yet, they struggle to identify and articulate a specific moment of wonder. I get it. As a young adult, I remember thinking Maine was pretty ho-hum. Nice ocean. Nice...
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Matt Barnes, II
Awe, Nice!
This week, we return to a conversation I had with Matt Barnes. Matt lives here in southwest Colorado. He’s been a rangeland scientist for years and has also worked as a ranch manager. In fact, this moment that we recorded is from a time several years ago when he was up in the mountains, working with cattle. Between a close encounter with a grizzly bear (which we hear about a few segments ago) and this one, I can say, “Matt, I’m glad you’re still here, man!” Matt told me he got Lichtenberg figures on his thigh from the lightning strike – these are weird, feathering or...
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Vicki Taussig
Awe, Nice!
This week, I interviewed Vicki Taussig. Vicki lives in Kremmling, Colorado. She narrated which is a short documentary directed by Beau Gaughran. I served as writer and a producer. We just learned it will be part of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour next year, which is pretty exciting. Vicki ranches with her daughter, , who was my first interviewee for Awe Nice. Here, Vicki shares a moment with her draft horse team of Push and Pull, two big beautiful Percherons. The pair spent their whole lives together and helped the Taussigs haul hay out to their livestock every...
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Matt Barnes
Awe, Nice!
Welcome to Awe Nice, that’s a-w-e-n-i-c-e, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, I interviewed . Like me, Matt lives here in southwestern Colorado. He’s been a rangeland scientist for years and has also worked as a ranch manager. His focus, as he mentions briefly and as has been shaped by his observations and experiences, has been hewn to how can we all get along on this planet. Specifically, how can us humans, especially those working the land, coexist with wildlife and choose practices that benefit not just us as well as domestic animals, but the land...
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Forrest Van Tuyl on Rock Jacks
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This week is a bit of a one-off as I’m sharing a few minutes with again. Forrest wrote the song Rock Jack and he sent the instrumental version to me for the intro and outro. In this segment, he talks about that song and the old-time and time-tested ranch structure that inspired it. Here is an excerpt of lyrics from the song: Fall settles in and the good work begins The gather the harvest the gleaning The day is shortening but the moon illumines the empty allotment you’re leaving Rimrock and red ponderosas live til you learn what you’re ‘sposed to Eat while there’s grass...
info_outlineWelcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We’re on the radio and we’re also on podcast platforms.
My name is Maddy Butcher. I live in southwestern Colorado and I’ve been a journalist for 40 years. Thus far, we’ve focused entirely on interviews with people working on the land, but soon we’ll have segments from folks who work on the water. Fresh water, salt water.
I grew up on the coast of Maine and today I wanted to share another mini-moment of awe. Yes, it’s time for Mini-Awe-Polis. Mini Awe Polis is a bundle of small wonders collected in my noggin. Like hay in my jacket pockets.
A few segments ago, I talked about experiences around tide. This week, I wanted to share another ocean-related thought. Fog.
Fog fosters uncertainty. It’s funny, even the etymology of fog is foggy. Danish, Old Norse, Old English, Dutch, and German languages all have somewhat similar words which, back in the 16th century meant things like spray, or damp, moist, or drifting snow storm.
Fog appears when water vapor, that’s water in gas form, condenses. Fog is tiny water droplets hanging in the air.
Fog often happens when there is a difference between the water temperature and the air temperature - like a cold morning on warmer water, or vice versa.
Fog hardly ever happens if there’s wind. So, if you’re sailing, for instance, and it’s foggy, forget about it. Some describe fog as being in the dark and that’s true. But, you know, when you’re walking in the dark you generally feel the ground beneath you. It’s a surface you can rely on. But if you’re on a boat and in the fog, you might be traveling through water with depths of 200 feet, 20 feet, or two feet. You might be heading towards the shore or away from it. Hard to say.
Fog can completely derail your plans for getting out on the water. Even if you know the area well, even if you have a depth finder, fog will make things difficult, if not impossible.
Unless you’re clamming. It’s good to be a clammer when there’s fog, you just need the tide to come at a decent time of day.
There are buoys and lighthouses and other marine markers to help if you can see. If you can’t see, there are bells as well as fog horns which mostly sound beautiful, low and regular, like a cow calling for her calf but without any urgency.
Horns and bells might drive some people nuts. Certainly fog has that tendency. You can’t rely on fog lifting at any time. It just will when it does.
I remember painting houses on Harpswell Neck when I was a teenager. We just couldn’t paint if it was foggy (which it often was). You might as well be painting in the rain. When I was working construction on the coast (but not painting) the fog would be so thick you’d need a towel to regularly wipe the moisture off your face.
I worked at Cook’s Lobster House out on Bailey Island in my 40's. It was, of course, right on the water. I should say almost everything on Bailey Island is right on the water. It’s an island which connects to Orr’s Island (which connects to Great Island and the mainland) by a cribstone bridge. A cribstone bridge is built from massive blocks of granite and water flows through them. Nothing but gravity holds it together. Of course, it’s paved on top but that doesn’t really count. It’s thought to be the only one of its kind in the world.
Anyway, lots and lots of tourists would come to Cook’s to sit in the booths or outside at tables, eat lobster, and look out the three sides of massive picture windows where they could see lobster boats, fishing boats, sail boats, motor boats coming and going. Except when it was foggy. Then you couldn’t see past the parking lot.
When will this fog go away?
Your guess is as good as mine. Can I get you another rum and Coke?
The poet Colin Sargent wrote:
One year the fog stayed all summer
As if it were a lodger
Picking his teeth after dinner,
Refusing to retire
To his room upstairs
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Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.