Pat Neal

PAT NEAL: What Thanksgiving means to me

THANK YOU FOR reading this. Writing our nation’s only wilderness gossip column is not easy. It took me years to become an overnight success with… Continue reading

 

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 your body parts seem to work. You… Continue reading

 

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 method of dealing with a devastating threat… Continue reading

 

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 a driftwood fire on a river- bank,… Continue reading

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 led to so much trouble. I could… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: Singing the birdfeeder blues

THIS IS THE season of one of the greatest migrations on Earth happening right now. We’ve all heard of the epic flights of migrating waterfowl… Continue reading

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 at sunrise, that this season could be… Continue reading

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 better, it did with the opening of… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: The great mushroom hunt

FALL MUST BE my favorite time of year. Could be because I like the rain? People who love rain are called Pluviophiles or Mossbacks, or… Continue reading

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 had been sent to map the interior… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: A winter weather prediction

THE SIGNS OF the impending season are unmistakable and should not be ignored. The vine maples are red. The cottonwood trees are yellow. The old… Continue reading

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 lowlands beneath a dusting of fresh snow… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: A proud Peninsula pioneer tradition

IT WAS DAYLIGHT on the water when I awakened to a nightmare that was all too real. A blurred vision on a pounding deck with… Continue reading

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, but it never snows in summer and… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: The problem with cougars

ONE OF THE most popular questions that we in the trenches of the tourist industry routinely answer is, “Are cougars dangerous?” This is a perfectly… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: Fire Season

IT’S THAT TIME of year we star gazers wait for. When we journey to the mountain tops to witness the best meteor shower of the… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: The simple pleasures of camping

IT’S THE SIMPLE pleasures of camping that I enjoy most. There’s the smell of burning driftwood and watching the sparks from the fire shoot up… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: Finding blackberry heaven

I THOUGHT I had died and gone to blackberry heaven. It all started when I fell into a hole in a brush-covered slash pit. This… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: A short history of fraud

WHEN VIEWED THROUGH the lens of history, today’s current events are no mystery. In last week’s column, we tore the dirty laundry from the seamy… Continue reading

PAT NEAL: The New Carpetbaggers

THANK YOU FOR reading this. Sometimes I think if you didn’t read this ,no one would, but you do. I know this from all of… Continue reading