Opinion
PAT NEAL: Interpreting the weather report
ONCE UPON A time, anthropologists somehow determined that the Eskimos have 50 different words for snow.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: A rainforest expedition
IT WAS A dark and stormy night. Inside the cabin, the wood stove glowed red with venison stew…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: What Thanksgiving means to me
THANK YOU FOR reading this. Writing our nation’s only wilderness gossip column is not easy.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: You could be spawned out
MAYBE YOU’VE HAD one of those days. You wake up in the morning and everything hurts. None of…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: This otter work
WHO SAYS THERE’S no good news? Lately, the co-managers of our natural resources have stumbled upon a unique…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: A bad day on the river
THIS TIME OF year brings back a lot of memories. These can be triggered by the smell of…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The Halloween hunt for Bigfoot
I WON’T BORE you, dear reader(s), with the petty details of my ill-fated, underfunded hunt for Bigfoot that’s…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Singing the birdfeeder blues
THIS IS THE season of one of the greatest migrations on Earth happening right now.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The great deer hunt of 2025
OPENING DAY. IT’S a day when anything can happen. I was hoping, if for only a brief moment…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The great clam hunt of 2025
THIS MUST BE the best autumn weather in years. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The great mushroom hunt
FALL MUST BE my favorite time of year. Could be because I like the rain?
Opinion
PAT NEAL: A requiem for a river
IN SEPTEMBER OF 1890, Pvt. Harry Fisher, a member of Lt. Joseph P. O’Neil’s U.S. Army expedition that…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: A winter weather prediction
THE SIGNS OF the impending season are unmistakable and should not be ignored.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Getting the fall chores done
AUTUMN IS A beautiful time to enjoy the Olympic Peninsula. The changing colors of the leaves in the…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: A proud Peninsula pioneer tradition
IT WAS DAYLIGHT on the water when I awakened to a nightmare that was all too real.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The joys of summer fishing
IT’S SUMMERTIME AND the fishing is easy. The fishing might not be any better than in the winter,…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The problem with cougars
ONE OF THE most popular questions that we in the trenches of the tourist industry routinely answer is,…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Fire Season
IT’S THAT TIME of year we star gazers wait for. When we journey to the mountain tops to…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The simple pleasures of camping
IT’S THE SIMPLE pleasures of camping that I enjoy most.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Finding blackberry heaven
I THOUGHT I had died and gone to blackberry heaven. It all started when I fell into a…