The Wire Cover Story, June 18, 2004

On the evening of March 5th, 1873, the first calm night of spring after a long, bitter winter, an event took place that made tiny Smuttynose Island in the Isles of Shoals the center of the biggest media frenzy in America.

I want to follow in the murderer’s path and repeat his journey to see what it must have been like, knowing that any trip in a nineteenth-century row boat made of thick wood and weighing several hundred pounds would have been much tougher than any trip in my well-equipped and lightweight touring kayak...

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The Wire, January 7, 2004

I shiver as I rinse my cereal bowl under the cold tap. “Brrr, that's cold,” I think, before pulling my hands out of the water. It’s just a small taste of what’s ahead.

Downstairs, even inanimate objects seem to protest as I detangle and remove my 17-foot-long touring kayak from the dark confines of the basement, where it thinks it's supposed to be hibernating for the winter. It knocks over several bikes, a snowboard, and a big painting canvas on the way out...