Day: September 2, 2025

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Pine Lake

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Pine Lake in the Independence River Wild Forest in the Western Adirondacks is located 1.5 miles south west of the Big Otter Lake Parking Area, which is 3.5 miles east of the wild forest boundary on Partridgeville Road. There is a lean-to and campsite located on this remote Adirondack lake.

Pine Lake

Miles from nowhere 🌲🏘️

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One of the problems I face with finding a home is the life I love is literally miles from nowhere. I spend so much time wilderness camping where often the nearest house is five miles or further away – and sometimes further. Usually the same is true with other campsites – miles away.

There is just very few places anywhere near the city that is like the life I spend up in the wilderness. Places where I can burn stuff and shoot as much as my heart desires without any neighbors nearby. Where I don’t have to think about how much noise or smoke I create.

It just seems like every house and land you look at is nearby another house, anywhere near the city. Maybe country lots are slightly larger than your typical suburban and urban lot but not by much. There is some half decent places but they’re all on the border of too far to reasonably commute on a daily basis.

The truth is that I need to look west where there is more land and things are more spread out. But that is going to take a complete reboot of my life, starting from scratch and that isn’t easy either. And it’s damn scary too.

How Alberta Won the Rat Race

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How Alberta Won the Rat Race

Along an 18-mile strip of land between the Canadian province of Alberta and its neighbor Saskatchewan, the rat patrol keeps guard. An eight-person team, armed with poison and shotguns, hunts daily for any sign of the rodent invaders.

The Alberta rat patrol checks more than 3,000 farms a year, but it rarely sees an actual rat. Alberta has 4.3 million people, 255,000 square miles, and no rats—bar the stray handful that make it into the killing zone each year. Ever since 1950, a sternly enforced program of exclusion and extermination has kept the province rat-free. Nowhere else in the world comes close; the only other rat-free areas are isolated islands such as the remote British territory of South Georgia.

Public support and education have been key to Alberta’s success. Locals use hotlines (310-RATS or 310-ARM) to report any sign of rodents, though false alarms are common. School programs educate kids about the telltale signs of the invaders. Keeping pet rats is banned and can earn you a fine of almost $4,000.