A Flatlander in the Woods

According to old custom, newcomers to Vermont are called “flatlanders.” Because our family recently moved here from Montana, where the elevation of many riverbanks is a good deal higher than the peak of Mount Mansfield, I consider that a peculiar term. But, since I’m undeniably an outsider, I’ll save that discussion for another day.

This is not our first attempt to set up house here. In 1988, a few months before we left New England for the second time, we scanned the real-estate ads with eager eyes, looking for anything within 30 miles of Woodstock that might prove affordable on a teacher’s salary.

As you might expect, we didn’t have much luck, although one enterprising agent did show us a derelict farmhouse with running water in the cellar. It was more of a brook, actually, and made a pleasant sound as it burbled through the foundation stones.

I was tempted by the prospect of flyfishing from the basement steps, but we couldn’t manage the mortgage. And in any case, there was barely room for a backcast.

So we headed west to Montana, where we fished, hunted, rowed, paddled, hiked, skied, collected fossils, mined crystals, and gathered mushrooms. Anything that took us outside, alone or as a family, including woodcutting and gardening and even ditch-digging.

Now that we’ve committed to at least four seasons in Vermont, I want to do all of those things again (with the possible exception of ditch-digging). But everything’s different here, of course: climate, landscape, habitat, behavior.

It’s not that I’m a creature of strict habit. I’ve worked as a fishing guide in Florida, Wyoming, and Mongolia. Hunted elk in the high country, snow geese on the northern prairie, antelope in the sagebrush. But what to do in these forests of birch and maple?

When I look around me, I sometimes try to imagine what a stocked trout feels in its new environment. The transplant’s initial confusion—and then what? Possibility, promise? Both of these perhaps, combined with apprehension, followed by hope, then hunger.

I’m a flatlander, a stranger to these woods, but there’s nothing like a good meal to help a guest feel at home.