I like prose which adheres to the "as simple as possible, but no simpler" rule. I'm well aware this is a matter of taste.
1. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
2. This is not to disparage technical writing. It is a craft in itself, but it, intentionally, is not given life.
1. "Diversion of the field, as fowling, hunting, fishing, racing, games, and the like, esp. when money is staked."
Yes, indeed, "a diversion of the field" sounds nice. The words have a pleasant ring to them. But they are, as it happens, completely inapplicable to canoeing.
Perhaps McPhee or Somers or both would consider this mere pedantry, worthy only of technical writing. I dare to suggest that their heroes Webster and Johnson would disagree.
I have to say that the paragraph about the canoeing strikes me as wrongheaded in another respect. "Simply a rite of oneness with certain terrain", writes McPhee. Wait, what? Simply? In what hierarchy of value or complexity or whatever it is that "simply" indicates a lack of does getting efficiently from A to B rank above a "rite of oneness" with the terrain in between?
Furthermore, let's return to Webster's definition of "fustian", which he defines as "a kind of writing in which high-sounding words are used, above the dignity of the thoughts or subject". The subject, in this case, is the fact that people take canoeing trips for reasons other than efficient travel. Fair enough; worth pointing out, in its context; but it's a pretty good example of a subject that doesn't demand "high-sounding words".
(I have to say that I'm not entirely convinced that what determines the appropriateness of high-sounding words is the dignity of the thoughts or subject. In -- for instance -- a religious ritual, a national celebration, or a musical performance, high-sounding words might be appropriate even for rather unexciting thoughts. Make it "the dignity of the thoughts, subject, and occasion" and I'd agree. So maybe there's something about McPhee's piece that makes elevated language appropriate even for its mundane topic. But I would prefer the elevation of the language not to compromise its meaning, which it has in this case.)
Obviously what one prefers when reading is a highly subjective thing, but I can't even fathom the problem you have with "simply a rite of oneness with certain terrain". Having spent a lot of time in wilderness, I can't think of many phrases that more appropriately describe the experience. It can be a near religious experience. shrug
The problem I have with simply a rite of oneness with certain terrain" is precisely with the word "simply". What McPhee wrote suggests that a "rite of oneness with certain terrain" is somehow lesser, simpler, less rich, than getting efficiently from A to B. Whereas, in fact, it's quite the opposite.
In other words: I'm agreeing with you that it can be a near religious experience, and I'm saying that for that very reason McPhee's description seems to me to be tone-deaf. "X has become simply Y", to me, suggests that X used to be something more interesting but has (so to speak) come down in the world.
On the Field and Stream, see my other comment nearby that has the full definition from the dictionary used. If you've ever seen Field and Stream magazine, you know the fields it talks about are not football fields, which is an incredibly narrow definition of the word 'field'.
Looking at the other comment you mention, I suppose perhaps you infer from Webster's inclusion of fishing as a "diversion of the field" that "of the field" for him means something very, very broad like "outdoors". I suppose it's possible that it does; but if so I can only say that whatever it may have meant for Webster, it certainly doesn't mean that for me, and I doubt it could mean it for any reader of McPhee who was actually paying attention to the meaning of his words rather than their sound.
You may well be right about what McPhee is getting at with the word "simply". I don't find myself able to read it that way. Especially if I assume for the sake of argument that Somers's interpretation of what McPhee says about "sport" is right -- i.e., that McPhee wanted something that means more or less the same as "sport" but sounds better. For me, though perhaps not for everyone, sport goes in an entirely different category from quasi-religious experience-distilled-down-to-its-essence.
"Football, cricket, baseball, sprinting, javelin throwing: these are all diversions of the field, for sure."
There's where I got it from. One of the Webster's definitions for field is An open space; an extent; an expanse, and that, for whatever reason, was the connotation I read into the passage (probably because I was thinking of the expanses of the Boundary Waters as I read it).
I wonder if the introduction to the passage is what soured the passage for you. If, instead of hearing about how the author built the passage, with a set of connotation applicable to that, you had started with the passage as written, if that would changed things. It shows the power that a turn of phrase can have, that's for sure.
Personally I adore a poetic turn of phrase. Something about the syllabary, the variance in tone and metre, causes resonances in my brain that bely understanding. Words that can usher in melancholy or elation as a lover tempting their beloved. Make love to your darlings, not war?
"Horses for courses". Generally online I dumb down, narrow my vocabulary, often Americanize. But not all prose is simply about transmission of the informational content of the words themselves.
TL;DR (all darlings dead) I like poetry.