Island of Misfit Stories #7
The return of the stories that slipped through the cracks!
howdy
Hey all!
So, as I mentioned last week, I’m on deadline for a magazine project and getting kicked off on a corporate writing gig that will take me through the next few weeks, so this week’s newsletter is going to be a bit of a throwback.
Instead of the usual stuff, I figured I would do something a little different and do a bit of spring housecleaning of some older stories that didn’t make it into the newsletter for one reason or another. Sometimes they just didn’t quite fit in with a particular week, or it would have offset the balance of stories, or maybe they just weren’t timely enough … but all of these stories are still interesting and worth reading!
If you’ve been around for a while, you know I used to do these things as occasional bonus issues for paid subscribers called “Island of Misfit Stories.” But because I’ve just been a bit swamped this month, I’m opening up this edition to everyone right now.
Enjoy! And remember … you can still support this newsletter by becoming a paid subscriber. The more folks who support me here, the less I’ll have to reach out for other gigs that interrupt the newsletter production schedule …
I’ll be back next week with another regular edition of the newsletter before I head up to Vancouver for the first time (!). If you have any good Vancouver-area recommendations, leave ‘em in the comments!
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Follow the Money
The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is a landmark piece of outdoor legislation that taxes the money generated from oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf to fund a vast array of outdoor and recreation projects all across the country. Since its inception in 1964, the fund has distributed over $5.2 billion from those leases, with states currently receiving a combined $360 million annually for projects as intense as long-distance bike trails or as small as new water fountains in places like LA’s Griffith Park.
Unfortunately some of that money could be in jeopardy because of bad bookkeeping by the National Park Service, according to a piece in the National Parks Traveler. An investigation found that the National Park Service does a pretty poor job of tracking where its LWCF money goes, which increases the chances that some of it lost to waste, corruption, and general bungling that often leaves states paying the bills for things that should be covered by the fund.
These kinds of stories are not always the sexiest or most exciting stories to read about, but it’s important to know some of the behind-the-scenes machinations on how our parks get built and funded. Plus, that’s a lot of money flying around!
Nick Offerman Canoes the L.A. River
You know Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation or Fargo or The Last of Us or his many appearances in offbeat comedy things. He is also a bona-fide woodworker and has a side business building boats, so why not have him build a beautiful wooden canoe and have him take it down the Los Angeles River? This piece in Outside magazine written by Offerman is a great read (no surprise), and the battle scars the canoe gets from the rough-bottom and concrete of the L.A. River are impressive.
Interested in boating the L.A. River yourself? Be sure to check out the LA River Kayak Safari. I did this years ago and honestly I consider it one of the most transformative experiences I had in L.A.
Don’t Get FKTed
Again, if you’ve been reading this for a while, or following me on the ruins of social media, you know I have my … opinions … about TechBros getting involved with the outdoors. Maybe it’s just because they kind of have a track record of ruining every single thing they touch, but I enjoyed this essay in the San Francisco Chronicle even though it really only tenuously connects “optimization” to the outdoors via tech culture.
The author seems to have more of an issue with FKTs, or “Fastest Known Times,” which is what people are going for when they try to cram a long-distance trail into the shortest amount of time (for instance, the 223-mile long John Muir Trail currently has an FKT of 2 days, 19 hours and 26 minutes). He notes the majority of FKTs are in the United States, with a high concentration on the West Coast.
I’m a big proponent of people hiking their own hikes, and if you want to see how fast you can do a particular trail I really have no problem with that. Do I feel someone who rockets up the Mount Whitney Trail before sunrise to do it in less than a day is missing most of what makes that particular trail peaceful and special? Yes, absolutely. But I know everyone hikes for their own reasons, and if you see Mount Whitney as more of a physical challenge than a spiritual beacon, that’s cool, too!
Death Valley as the Future
I love the desert, and California’s Death Valley National Park remains one of my favorite places on earth. In this lovely piece from Zócalo Public Square, writer Joe Mathews argues it may also provide an important window into the future of greater California—not simply as a dried out desert but rather a land prone to unpredictable weather extremes.
The writing in the piece is terrific, as Mathews makes his way down into Death Valley in time to visit ephemeral Lake Manly.
Run Toward Creativity
Here in Portland, we had a brief respite from winter, which meant the running shoes came out of the basement for a few days. I have a 10k coming up next month, but over the past year or so of learning how to enjoy running, one of the things I do like the most is when my brain just kind of zones out into flow state and surprises me with something creative.
Now, the challenge then is remembering whatever that thing is for the rest of the run until I can get somewhere to write it down. But that’s a good problem to have! In Runner’s World UK, author and runner Adharanand Finn has a long-form piece, talking to a wide range of creatives and digging into their running routines and what they like about them, as well as some of the science behind it all.