Where There's Smoke: Introduction
A Father And Daughter On The Trail To NH's Fire Towers
Welcome to Week One of Where There’s Smoke: On the Trail to New Hampshire’s Fire Tower, a weekly Wednesday publication brought exclusively to subscribers of Day By Day. We hope you enjoy this old is new memoir of a father and daughter’s adventure to all of the Granite State’s active lookouts. And while you all are getting these chapters first and we won’t be sharing across networks, the link is open should you want to share or pass on to someone who you think would be interested in subscribing. Please like and comment and let’s make this run a success!
And now, Week One: Introduction
Winning trophies or awards was a thing that was conspicuously absent in my childhood.
I have to think hard to recall trophies that I won – first place in the Cub Scout Pine Wood Derby one year, a trophy for largest bass caught in a season up at a Canadian fishing camp and two team trophies, one for my town soccer league and another for winning a local scavenger hunt race.
That’s pretty much it. In light of my four-year-old daughter earning her first award, a certificate and patch from the state for climbing five fire towers, I’m not sure what that says about her awardless father. Was I not dedicated? Did I not have incentive? Were awards harder to come by?
My daughter, Uma, calls it a “talent” award. My wife and I have already had a brief talk about setting aside some sort of ‘trophy’ area in her room, something that, honestly, I hadn’t expected to be thinking about until much later. If at all.
But, like her dad, she enjoys lists; the discipline of checking off a little box, the ecstatic comfort of seeing it and visiting it all. I understand.
And so, when the task of visiting each active fire tower in New Hampshire presented itself, my choice of hiking partner seemed clear. The hikes to the fire towers are, the most part, easy to moderate, accessible to the general public, offer excellent views for minor effort, and given my daughter’s adoration for bugs, seemed a perfect way to spend a summer.
I had already climbed to several of the towers, in a few cases with my other, older “daughter” Janelle, when her and I spent a year climbing a hiking list called the 52 With a View. That adventure resulted in my first book, The Adventures of Buffalo and Tough Cookie, and the possibility of a second list to climb with a second daughter felt exactly perfect.
While the new list was shorter, Uma’s age when we climbed them, four to five, made a big difference. When Janelle was climbing, she was nine to ten, allowing her at times to become almost a hiking partner. A four-year-old, it turns out, needed different incentive and guidance. But I soon learned that one of Uma’s favorite things about hiking to fire towers was to bring snacks and picnic at an upper platform with views – something I was able to accommodate quickly with her.
She also began to carry a field journal to draw little pictures of insects and the towers themselves. And I had to learn to become patient again. The hikes would draw out for the whole day with breaks, earth experiences and sketching.
It didn’t take us long, though, to figure each other out, to become an adventure team and I began to marvel to at how focused my daughter’s concentration could become if she were in the zone. On those days when we created a routine, took our time, made the hike about the journey instead of the summit, we were able to walk with clouds under our feet.
As it turned out, so many of the lessons I learned on that first round of hikes with a ten-year-old applied to a five-year-old. Don’t rush. Learn the ground. Bring snacks. Let her tell me how she feels.
I’d often think back on this little routine Uma and I had developed. Ever since she could talk, when I dropped her off at pre-school, I’d say, “What’s your name?”
“Uma!”
“What can you do?”
“Anything!”
And I do believe she can or will be able to do anything. Probably. Not long ago, we had a conversation about talents. The concept of there being things she’s GOOD at appears embedded in her head. I’m not entirely clear where that’s from – my wife and I have always encouraged her passions so it’s possible it came from there. And she certainly is fearless and curious.
But maybe all kids just have an inflated sense of what they can and can’t do. Maybe the things they like are all things they think they do well.
At any rate, I asked her to list her talents. There was a whole host of standards that I expected – eating ice cream, running, singing, dancing, drawing, swimming, that sort of thing.
But she listed a few others that surprised me. Baking was one. Doing what she called “hoopty loop” is another, which is her word for hula-hooping. Hiking wasn’t on that list, but maybe it will be after all this is done. Or maybe, as it often does, she’ll recognize that being in the wilderness is a reward in and of itself.
I think of the songwriter Rufus Wainwright and his lyrics, “Life is a game and true love is a trophy” and I want to believe that at some stage, she’ll see that just being better than the day before ought to be enough of a reward.
Perhaps these (mostly) short, friendly hikes to historic towers will be the first step in her connection to wildness and that being outside will become not a special, occasional talent, but a way of life. Perhaps the spiders and the grasshoppers will speak to her. Or perhaps, as it did for her dad, the trail will be a way to center her mind, a place of harmony against a hectic world.
But I don’t know any of that. I know only that over the course of about a year, in the middle of an unprecedented global pandemic, my daughter and I took refuge amid the steel beams and granite stones of fire towers, sheltering as high as we could, as often as was safe, with snacks and dirty fingernails and a desire only to see the world above the trees as purely as we were able.
In the chapters ahead, you’ll read our story and follow us up to all of New Hampshire’s active fire towers. In some cases, we drove. In others we hiked. A few, we hiked with friends. In all, we found a way to slow down, to appreciate history. And I marveled as my tiny hiker became stronger and more accomplished.
There’s no one map that illustrates all the trails available to all these hikes, but in the pages ahead, I’ll tell you about our routes, and about some other possible hikes as well.
(Editorial Notes: Since this book was written, some trails, parking areas, and yes, even fire towers, have been updated or outright replaced. Best to keep that in mind!)
A strong, veteran hiker could tag all these summits in a long weekend. A family could take much longer. Each of these mountains, even if a mere hill, is as worthy a destination as their higher, White Mountain, cousins. For nearly a century, generations of men and woman have been climbing these little mountains to look out over the same landscape, to bear witness to the rolling hills and find the smoke. To protect the land.
And now we’re part of that line of explorers, and soon you will be as well. The hot steel and long views are waiting for you. Bring a picnic blanket, strap on your binoculars and come along to see for yourself!
COMING UP NEXT: Join us on Wednesday, May 7 for Chapter One of Where’s There’s Smoke: Warner Hill, Derry.
And if you enjoy what you’re reading and wish to check out Dan and Uma’s Bookstore or Buy Us a Coffee or a Slurpee, we’d be forever grateful!
Love it! And I'll have to make a note of some of these for when the grandchildren visit!
I look forward to the first adventure!