FARMINGTON, Maine -- You have to follow the curves of Temple Stream to reach the old farmhouse where Bill Roorbach has lived for 14 years. Heading out of Farmington, the route starts on Temple Road and branches to a winding country lane that goes along a fork of the stream.
A bit uphill, sitting on the left and close to the road, is the modest 132-year-old home Roorbach, a writer and teacher, shares with his wife, Juliet Karelsen, an artist, and their daughter, Elysia, who is almost 6 .
Out back, down the sloping backyard, past the garden, and through the western Maine woods -- ``400 paces altogether," Roorbach writes -- is the stream, ``our point of contact with all the waters of the world."
Roorbach, 52, chronicled his relationship with the water, the woods, and the state in his eighth book, ``Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey " (Dial Press, 2005). Out in paperback this summer, it won the 2006 Maine Literary Award for best nonfiction book. Roorbach also writes novels, short stories, essays, and has two instructional writing books to his credit. In the fall, he will start his third of five years as holder of the Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where he teaches writing.
While Roorbach is soft-spoken in person, his writing booms with delight in the outdoors. That exuberance has been quieted somewhat by events of the past half year, however. In April, his mother, Reba Roorbach, to whom he credits his love of the written word and of nature, died after a long illness. And the two beloved family dogs, Wally and Desi, who appear in many of his essays and books, and for years accompanied Roorbach on hundreds of walks, died within a few months of each other.
``My mother was a real nature person. She always had a stick to show you or an insect or a cool rock or a plant in the sink. I've been very sad," Roorbach said.
But on this sunny, warm day blanketed in new-spring green, Roorbach is happy to lead a walk through the woods and along Temple Stream. Joining us are fellow nature lovers Drew Barton and Robert Kimber, friends with whom Roorbach frequently enjoys the outdoors and who play important roles in the book.
Barton, 49, is a forest ecologist and a biology professor at the University of Maine in Farmington, where Roorbach was on the faculty from 1991- 95. (Roorbach spent five early years in Needham, Mass., and the rest of his childhood in New Canaan, Conn.)
Kimber, 71, also a writer, is an expert outdoorsman. He's the old-timer, having moved here with his wife in 1971. His house, too, sits near Temple Stream, which is a tributary of the Sandy River.
``One day I called Bob and said, `There's a bald eagle coming up the stream, ' and he said, `Yep, there it goes,' " Roorbach recalled.
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