Your Scribe recently heard a reading of “Backcast,” a fishing-adventure memoir by Lou Ureneck (pictured here). He is former editor of the Portland Press Herald, and a dedicated fly fisherman. (An aside: We don’t talk much fishing, since I haven’t evolved beyond worms and a few unconvincing plugs. But at our last meeting he did toss me a bone, if I may mix metaphors, when he noted the excellence of the Hendrickson Fly).

The book is a great read, as it focuses on Ureneck and his young adult son, Adam, as they take a fishing-camping trip down a river in Alaska. It is part adventure, part reflection on family.

And what adventure. They catch lunker salmon, co-exist with bears that covet those salmon, develop neurosis about which branch of the river to take and somehow find their way to the end of the waterway.

The trip was so packed with peril and derring-do that I knew I didn’t want to take a similar one – such a depiction is a credit to the author.

It made me wonder what such adventures we have in upcountry Maine.

There is whitewater rafting on the upper reaches of the Kennebec. That seems like a dazzling activity if the action photos can be believed. And such trips always seem to end with a gleeful waterfront cookout, which is an appropriate culmination in my book.

Another adventure would be canoeing the Allagash or the St. John. Those rivers are remote and challenging, with just enough civilization to ensure that a campsite can be found.

Or, here’s one: the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. This 740-mile float involves paddling waterways through Maine, New Hampshire, Quebec, Vermont and ends in New York state. Most paddlers travel only part of this lengthy trip but a select few have completed the entire route.

The adventures are all out there, to confront (or ignore) as one chooses.

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