place entry 8

I was sorely tempted to range beyond the boundaries of my property and head to the broad, open wetland that is the heart of Hartley Nature Center. The nature center is across my neighbor’s property, a five minute walk. I was relishing the descriptive possibilities, the mounded beaver dam, the bent and swaying grass, the meandering stream. The open and expansive wetland, ringed by hills, gives one the feeling of truly being away from it all.

But then I saw the ducks. They waddled to the edge of our yard, as they have the past two springs, and sat down, webbed feet disappearing beneath them. Mallards. The male with a striking green head, yellow beak, brown breast, and mottled white body. The female, slightly drabber with a sort of camouflaged array of brown feathers. Every year they herald the true arrival of spring, finding a quiet corner of our property to sit and rest.

After a few minutes they waddled back off into the brush. My boys and I decided to look for them. Soren, age 5, insisted on bringing his spear—a long wooden branch with a fork duct taped to the end (long story), even though I implored him that we were just out to look at the birds, not to disturb (or kill) them. We ducked around our pitched and leaning garage, as stealthily as we could. Gingerly parting thorny plants, we came upon the stagnant little pool, and there they were.

‘Shhhhhhhh’, Soren whispered. Eli pointed wildly, but miraculously did not make a sound. We hunched down to get a better look. They were within ten feet of us. The female’s head was rooting about underwater, in search of food. The male, its luminous green head turning back and forth, was keeping watch.

The three of us watched, silent and transfixed. What an odd little patch of the earth to hunker down in, I thought. The stagnant water is barely ten feet around, tucked behind a decaying garage, surrounded by brambles. Given the wetland of the Nature Center close by, our little swamp seemed like a sub-par choice. But they have claimed it as their own, as have we.

As we padded silently away, Soren turned to look back. Overcome with the pent up silence, he finally gave in to his impulses. He advanced a few steps towards the swamp and let out a loud whoop. The ducks took to the air and flew away.

prompt entry 8

I have learned to slow down. I have learned to sit still. I have learned that the winter woods contain marvels. I have learned that blue moss grows on some of the trees on my property. I have learned that I don’t need to be gone for a month to be recharged by the natural world; a few focused minutes might even suffice. I have learned to listen, to look, to quell the internal chatter that draws a curtain between myself the world. I have learned that my trees have burls. I have learned that my little parcel of earth is big enough to pique my curiosity for years, provided I pay attention. I have learned that others find the notion of escaping to the wilderness to be an archaic, worn cliché. I have learned that I still want to escape to the wilderness. I have learned that blighted, overlooked landscapes can be rendered beautifully, but that such a rendering requires love and dutiful attention. I have learned, again, that my obsession with canoes is unbounded. I have learned that the sight of my own kids tromping about outside fills me with an unspeakable joy. I have learned that sometimes it is o.k. to rage and rant; I have learned that sometimes ranting defeats the purpose. I have learned that there used to be a river in L.A., and then there wasn’t, though there might be again. I have learned that one can write interestingly about nature in L.A. I have learned that I enjoy the lyrical, provided I get heaping doses of bedrock to anchor it. I have learned that my own interests tend towards the margins. I have learned Annie Dillard is a liar. I have learned that Updike’s characters have ‘burnished feces’. I have learned that I’d much rather sit with people face to face than communicate over the ‘interwebs’. I have learned that having to slow down and write out my thoughts crystallizes them in a way that blathering on in a classroom doesn’t. I have learned that I still miss the classroom. I have learned of a great many writers new to me. I have learned that those familiar to me still seem like old friends. I have learned that my ambitions are modest, though I may be feinting a bit. I have learned that an engaged instructor makes a lot of difference. I have learned to appreciate, to question, to defend, to defer, to speak up, to pipe down, to expand, to explore. I have learned. And for that I am thankful.

place entry #7

The snow is gone now. The bullfrogs are croaking in the swamp by the garage. Purple crocuses are pushing up from the earth, little cups of beauty in the drab, brown world. The trees are still bud-less and barren, though I’m on the lookout for new shoots. At the edge of my yard, past a tangle of brush at the edge of the swamp, sits a pile of garbage. There is a rusted out water heater, mottled and flaking; a Minnesota license plate from 1974, the year after I was born, which gives me a sort of carbon dating to the pile strewn about; a coil of rusty barbed wire, balled up like a tumbleweed; the remains of an old picket fence; broken glass, a green wine bottle half buried in the dirt, two tires, and a stack of moldering lumber.

Each spring I tell myself that I’m going to rent a dumpster and clean up the place, but for some reason I keep putting it off. The pile is out of the way and inconspicuous; you’d have to know it was there to find it. I wonder what prompted my great-aunt to discard things in the woods; she kept an immaculate garden, and planted row after row of flowers. The garbage in the woods seems inconsistent with what I’ve heard and know about her.

Some of the trash, I assume, predates the license plate, is of a time when our land was a working farm and garbage collection a city construct. The garbage, however unsightly, is in a sense a link to the past, and a link to my ancestors. It reminds me of a time when the land was worked and used, not just appreciated as an aesthetically pleasing place to sip coffee and gaze out the picture windows. Besides, would taking it to a landfill be any different? Maybe I’ll keep it here and see how long the earth takes to reclaim it all. As a reminder of our past, and our future.

prompt entry 7

My kids call it the ‘poking tree’; the old dead oak in the woods behind our house. The tree is thick enough that I can’t link my arms around it. Looking up from the base, its branches splay out to the sky, dwarfing the other trees in the immediate vicinity. There three ragged gashes at the base of the tree, the biggest about a foot wide, extending about 10 feet in the air. The heart-wood, in these exposed sections, has mostly decayed and spilled out in a saw-dusty pile around the base of the tree, which allows a clear view through the gaping holes. The remaining heart-wood is dried out and brittle; we reach in and dislodge large chunks; they are honeycombed and as light as Styrofoam.

Each time I go to the woods I half expect the tree to be toppled over and resting on the leaf strewn ground. The whole weight of the tree is dependent on the exterior bark, which is deeply ridged and fissured, about two inches thick. But it seems impossible that the tree can buck the wind with so little anchoring it the earth. Yet there it is every time, still upright, majestic at a distance, critically injured up close.

I think of our own lives, of the roots that we sink, and the foundations we use to help us reach skyward. Can we be similarly eaten away from the inside, whittled down to an exterior husk, and yet remain standing? Without exterior cracks, a means to survey the damage inside, do we have any way of knowing who is alive and growing, and who is already stunted and dead?

My kids grab sticks and poke at the holes in the tree. Sawdust spills out and falls to the ground. I want to grab a pile of sawdust, a hunk of honey-combed wood, the tree’s lifeblood scattered uselessly on the ground, and shout, ‘Don’t ever let this happen to you.’ But they are mere saplings, supple and strong, too young to be hollowed out and decayed. I let them take in the dappled sunlight, and hope my own looming shadow doesn't get in the way.

I grab a stick and join in the fun.

Place entry #6

What a difference a few weeks makes. Duluth is in the thick of the warmest March in recorded history. The high temperature has been above freezing since February 26. We’ve even bumped up against sixty degrees. As a result, our snow is all but gone, except for a dirty patch on the north side of the house that is shrinking daily. Last year, we had snow in the yard past Easter.

The grass has not yet recovered. It is dull brown, as flat and matted as slept on hair. But there is some give to the ground now, and the faint earth smell—life and decay—a welcome change from winter’s sterility. It seems cliché to gauge your life by the seasons. But it also seems perfectly natural. The changing seasons provide a backdrop to measure against, a change that prompts thinking about more and other changes.

Today the boys and I played in the yard. Eli is big enough to climb the small ladder to the playground; last year he more or less rode on our hips. Soren can swing under his own power, one of many things he can do on his own. Our boys are growing up. Eli, at two, parrots everything he hears in a lilting, sing-song voice. Soren, at five, questions everything. Both are learning to be independent, are already growing away from us, as they ought to.

Crows caw noisily from the red pines. Eli shoots back a perfect imitation that warms my heart. Last year at this time spring was a cruel joke; winter still held us fast and would not relent. At the cemetery where we buried my dad, the wind whipped the priest’s words away as soon as they left his mouth. The color guard blew a hurried taps and retreated to a van. Our own grief and solemnity was scuttled by the cold; we bobbed from left to right, drew inward, stomped feet, and fled to the cars the moment things ended.

For weeks afterward I felt that numbness, the cold having worked its way to my core.

This year, with my boys twirling in circles together, and falling in a heap in the brown grass, I can see that spring is the season of new life after all.

Prompt entry #6

I am drawn to wild rivers. Rivers are the highways of the boreal forest, and the canoe is the perfect vehicle. For me there is nothing like tracing a river from source to outlet, sampling its various moods along the way. When you dip your hand over the gunwale you can feel the river pulsing with life.

On placid stretches, we lie back and let the current do the work. The canoe becomes a piece of driftwood, pushed wide on the bends, spun slowly in swirling eddies. Putting paddle to water is a means of imposing your will. There is risk in this, as it can cultivate an attitude of fighting against the river. To paddle is to eventually learn that the river cannot be conquered; it is bigger and deeper and more powerful than we are. It is best to work with the river, to use the inexorable current to help us place our canoe where we need it. This can involve some paradox; if we are caught in a fast moving stretch of water, and need to move towards the left bank of the river without slipping further downstream, we cannot simply paddle harder to power our way over, though this is a common instinct. If we do, we will get flushed downriver more quickly, toward the very thing we want to avoid.

The best strategy is to paddle backwards, keeping even with the shore—neither slipping downstream or working our way back upstream—and to angle the stern of the canoe towards the place we want to go (in strong current the angle needs to be small, lest we get spun around). As we paddle to keep the canoe in place, the current catches on our angled stern and ferries us to the spot we need to be. At the first few backward strokes, when we are trying to halt the canoe’s momentum, we will feel as though we are fighting the river—surely this can’t be the right strategy. But when the current grabs that angled end and we sense ourselves being moved to the left without so much as a stroke in that direction, we know the river is on our side, that canoe and water are one.

At the approach of rapids, I get a hollow ache in my gut, something like an acidic spurt of acid courses through my system. I am not an adrenaline junky; the river is not my wild version of an amusement park ride. I hear the rapids before I can see them, like a train in the distance. As I gaze ahead, moving slowly now, careful not to drift past the point of no return, I spot the dancing waves glinting in the sunshine. We pull over, drag the canoe half out of the water, and make our way downstream on foot, hopping from rock to rock, or bashing through thick riverside alders. It is important to go all the way to the end of the rapids, no matter how laborious, and asses it from the bottom up, plotting a strategy and gauging landmarks as we go. If the rapids are too big or complex, it is time to take to the woods and hope for a well-worn portage trail. More than likely, however, the portage will be a faint meandering thing, thick with mosquitoes and chock-full of blown down trees. No matter. Better to spend a grueling hour to get past 100 yards of churning river, than lose our boat and gear in a capsize.

If we do decide to run it, there is always fear in the gut and a hollowed out feeling in the arms. Back in the canoe, at the top of the rapids where the current runs strong and black, before the frothy turbulence, nothing is as it seems. The landmarks that stood out so clearly from the riverbank are obscured by our water-level vantage point. Often, at the brink, one of us is forced to stand—a frantic, wobbly move—in a last attempt to get our bearings. By then we are committed, and plunge into the dancing waves.

********************************

On the last night of our honeymoon, close the terminus of where the river flows into Hudson Bay, 10 miles or so upriver from the little town with its little airstrip where we would be ending our trip, we camped on a small island covered in long, swaying grass. It was early September and the nights were getting cold. We went to bed early with that feeling of anxiousness and excitement that accompanies transitions. We had been on the river close to a month; our daily routine had become a lifestyle, as automatic as breathing.

Sometime in the night I awoke, unzipped the tent, and gazed out. Our tent faced upstream, only a few feet from the water’s edge. The river was swift and shallow, undulating in the moonlight and spilling past our little island on its course to the bay. Tomorrow we would rejoin the flow, but tonight we were perched on the edge of it. I looked upstream to where the river turned round a bend, and thought about the miles that had led us to this spot: the glass calm lakes, the damnable wind, the days of bright, unbroken sky, the calluses etched on our hands from thousands of paddle strokes. We had spent days paddling in silence, had learned to make decisions with an unspoken nod, had started conversations that lasted for a week or more. I felt sure, sitting there in the moonlight on that little island, that the river had worked its way into us somehow, that we were all forever intertwined. Though we would leave and fly away and the river would freeze and thaw and flow again, I knew we would still be able to draw strength from it, even years from then.

And I was right. We did. We do. I gave silent thanks to the river, zipped the tent shut, and went back to bed.

Prompt entry #5

Ah, the flush of a toilet. What could be easier? Pull a lever and the refuse swirls away forever. No need to think about it. Gone are the days of the outhouse, the sprinkling of lye, the pervasive odor, the mound of refuse so disgustingly visible. The sewage treatment plant; it is one of the sure signs that we live packed together. Sewage treatment is inherently a good thing, of course. 80,000 people congregated in one spot are bound to produce a lot of shit and piss. But our own implementation of that sewer system was far from perfect.

Duluth has a sewer run-off problem. Houses built before 1970 had foundation footing drains connected directly to the sanitary sewer system which, during periods of heavy rain or melting snow, can overload the system, producing sewage backups that eventually make their way into Lake Superior.

Like many environmental problems, there isn’t one simple, easy fix, nor is there one culprit that can shoulder both the blame and the cost. Should the cash-strapped city of Duluth pony up or should its cash-strapped citizens? I wonder, though, about the decision to hook the sewers up this way in the first place. Was it an act of ignorance? An expedient short cut? Short term thinking? Or was it simply an honest mistake?

Since the majority of Duluth is perched on a hilltop overlooking Lake Superior, sewage run-off finds a quick and easy path directly to the lake. Given Lake Superior’s size, it is tempting to think that our sewage overflow is mere drop in the bucket; the fact that Lake Superior is the cleanest of all the Great Lakes makes this a tempting mindset to adopt. But, of course, we must act. After all, what better example can there be for environmental irresponsibility than to foul up the source of your own drinking water with excrement.

The outhouse carries some of the same risks. If improperly constructed or placed, it can leech harmful bacteria into the water supply. Of course this happens on a one to one scale, providing the outhouse builder with an incentive to do the job right. A well placed outhouse, one that does not receive too much use and is placed in the right soil, will harmlessly break down the refuse. There is a lot to be said for this simple, organic solution. There is even something to be said for the smells of an outhouse, and the view to the outside world an outhouse normally provides. It is a humbling reminder that we are of this earth, that we, too, are animals that piss and shit. That our waste must be accounted for.

place entry #5

I am out tonight under the full moon, peering from behind a birch tree. The birch tree’s curled and peeling bark reminds me of the wallpaper in my hundred year old house. The sky is clear, the moon luminous; beyond the faint city glow lone stars pulse in the blue-black night. The moon is bright enough that the trees throw their shadows across the snow. I strain to hear movement, the scrape of claws on bark or the crunch of hooves on snow, but only register the blood whooshing in my ears, a sort of non-sound sound, like the hum from noiseless stereo speakers, an almost preternatural stillness that allows you to hear the inner functioning of your own human machinery.

The world is a John Muir print, black, white and grey; snow, shadow and moonlight. Winter is minimalist in that way. Winter conceals. The colors of the world seem to hibernate along with the bears, and the wan light leeches away what little vibrancy remains. Last week I came upon a photograph of our yard in the summer--the trees thick with leaves, the technicolor grass, the whole scene messy with life. I stood there with the picture in my hands, dumbfounded. What part of the world is this?

It seems impossible that an animal would break this silence; my own footfalls on the walk out felt like sacrilege. Again this week I approached the pines indirectly, taking the snow-packed path at the edge of the property line, through the cluster of wrist thick poplars. Moonlight pooled in the leafless woods.

I hesitated when I drew near the pines. The space beneath was ink black and undecipherable, devoid of moonlight. I imagined deer bedded down there, curled up like dogs in their hoof scraped beds. I stepped gingerly towards the darkness, my eyes alert for any movement, but the effort left me feeling more oafish and lumbering. Nothing stirred. I stood in the darkened grove. After a few minutes my eyes adjusted. Even so, I felt the urge to be back amidst the moonlight. I plodded on and took up residence behind the thigh-thick birch.

I scan the still woods. To my left I see the orange halo of a far off streetlamp. To the right, my own yellow porch light glows like a lantern. A dog barks. Now that I am still, I hear the Doppler rise and fall of far-off traffic. I imagine this spot in summer; the leafy woods blotting out the streetlights, frogs croaking, birds chirruping, squirrels rustling, mosquitoes hovering in the warm air. The night animals—raccoons, skunks—scurrying about in search of food. Tonight all is still, the world laid bare. Winter can reveal, too. The illusion of my wild five acres shatters like a chunk of ice dropped on the hard ground. I turn and walk back to the house.

Prompt entry #4

Bears have been on my mind lately. A few months back Lily, one of the residents of the North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota, gave birth to cubs. Oddly, you could watch the action in real time via a den web cam. I didn’t tune in, as it struck me as voyeuristic, even for a captive bear. Our local public radio channel gave the birth plenty of coverage.

I have a complicated relationship with bears. In my neck of the woods black bears are some of the biggest animals around, putting them in the mega-fauna category. Unlike wolves, though, which are rarely glimpsed, black bears often get habituated to human food, and can become like oversized mice.

These stories are clichéd, but they are true, too.

We were windbound in a patch of thick alders on a river in northern Saskatchewan. Our canoe was half in and half out of the water, rocked back and forth by the whitecaps. I’m convinced the bear hadn’t smelled us when she nosed through the alders to our little clearing. She wheeled when she saw us and crashed back through the alders in the direction she had come from. My friend actually uttered, ‘she’s more afraid of us than we are of her.’ Which I believe generally might be true. But not this time. Not this bear. A minute later she approached from a different direction; we shouted and she again wheeled and ran off. This happened four or five times, the bear inching closer at every encounter. Finally, I grabbed the shotgun from the canoe. My friend stood his ground as the bear approached. He pointed the gun in the air and squeezed off a warning shot. I fully expected the bear to run off, but there was an eerie silence after the shot rang out. She hadn’t budged. Another deafening shot—BLAM—and the bear again stood her ground. She inched closer. My friend took aim, paused, and fired. The bear rolled backwards, stood up. He fired again and this time she was down for good…

The bear cubs have found the hammock in our yard; they paw at it, push it back and forth, test their weight against it. One climbs in, the hammock upends and the little cub tumbles to the grass. We sip our coffee, stare out the window, and laugh.

My wife and a group of teenagers are in a little cabin on the shores of Hudson Bay. They have paddled a river to the delta, and will be picked up by boat the next morning. In the middle of the night they were awakened by scratching. Polar bear? She grabbed the gun, cocked it, tensed and ready. The scratching continued, no more urgent than before. The group was edgy and tired. Hours went by. Nothing happened. The kids gave in to sleep. My wife kept vigil on an overturned five gallon bucket, gun across her lap. At the first light of dawn, she cracked the door and peeked out. The noise was a piece of tarpaper rubbing against the cabin in the wind.

Teddy Bear. Winnie the Pooh. Cold-blooded killer. We project so much onto bears. We are dismayed when they act like wild animals, and we are bothered when they don’t. We want them to be wild but not too wild. We might want to glimpse them, but we demand they be more scared of us than we are of them. When they are not, we kill. When they raid our garbage they are pests. We put them in zoos and give them beach balls to play with. They are both commonplace and awe inspiring. Much like us.

Place entry #4

35 degrees. Sunny and calm.

This is dangerous weather. The staccato dripping of the icicled eaves; snow slides off the roof with a hiss. The dirt road is a quagmire of brown puddles, deep ruts and mud. I’m in danger of letting my guard down, of being lulled into the belief that winter is on its way out; that the green shoots of spring are just around the corner.

I’ve lived around here long enough to know better. I cannot hope for spring; if I do, my heart will break when the snow falls again or the thermostat plunges, when winter wraps us up once more in its icy grip, as it surely will do. The best bet is to live in the moment, to take this day as a pleasant aberration and nothing more.

Today I will sit. Usually the woods are a backdrop to my body in motion. I hike and snowshoe, and swish past on skis. Part of this movement is born of necessity; it is usually too cold to sit still for long. Since today’s weather does not demand constant movement, I’ve opted for stillness.

I cut across the yard in my mukluks and head straight for the pines. The sun is as high in the southern sky as it will get. The pine’s shadows stretch out on the white snow. I walk to the spot of my future shack—woodstove, bookcase, desk and chair—a little octagon clearing hemmed in by red pines.

I turn in the direction I envision my window someday to be, towards a little rise that gives way to the neighbor’s property. Once the memory of my crunching footfalls recedes, I hear the birds. High pitched, squeaky and soft, they are diminutive sounds. I can’t spot them at first; I crane left and right at the volley of calls. Finally, there is the light scrape of claws on bark.

It is a black-capped chickadee; black head, off-white underbelly, grey wings, and puffy little chest. The songs are different in pitch and duration; some sound oddly electronic, like a phone ringtone. I spot a few more chickadees, flitting from branch to branch. I have been immobile long enough to feel completely unobtrusive, a feeling I don’t ever get banging around in the woods.

Suddenly a chickadee flits a little too close to my head. I duck and fling my hands into the air, but by then the chickadee is off on another branch. My heart is racing. I feel foolish to be startled by such a small critter. It hits me then that part of the reason I am so rarely still in the woods is because I want the animals to know I’m there.

Hiking through Yellowstone, scared witless of grizzlies, I played a kazoo incessantly, hoping to head off any animal encounters. But I’m not just fearful of ‘mega-fauna’. A chickadee is enough to set my heart fluttering.

I stay rooted in the spot, amongst the shadows and sunlight; I need to court stillness, to sit still. To overcome fear.

Place entry #3

Duluth, MN. 16 degrees. Wind: 17 mph. Overcast.

Today I recruited a self-described ‘expert tracker’ to go walking in the woods with me. I’ve been in the woods with him before, and have been impressed with his ability to spot things that I would otherwise miss. Unfortunately, like me, he’s often at a loss to provide context or explain what he sees. But his powers of observation alone make him a worthwhile companion.

We decide to skirt the edge of the property, to traverse the maze of wrist-thick poplars and young pines, an area I don’t often visit. My usual inclination is to cut straight across the open yard to the stand of red pines, the ‘big ticket item’ on my land The pines are mature--if not quite majestic--and spaced far apart, providing good walking and an uncluttered and pleasant view.

We stroll down the dirt road, to the edge of the property line, and clamber over the head-high snowbank. Before us a deer packed trail meanders through the snowy woods, which spares us the trouble of breaking trail. Almost immediately we arrive at a cluster of deer poop. Ever curious, my partner drops to his knees for a closer look. I follow suit. There are probably 30 or so pellets. They look remarkably like coffee beans, oily sheen and all.

We rise, brush the snow from our knees, and continue along. The trail cuts left and right, a series of flat switchbacks, the chosen path of least resistance. Above us branches clatter and sway in the wind, but at ground level all is still. The dense woods feel fort-like. I understand why animals often sleep in thick cover.

Some of the trees are splotched with lichen (or moss, I’m not quite sure—my partner is equally ignorant). One is the color of fancy mustard, a muted yellow with a hint of brown; the other looks like mold. Up close they resemble coral, with ridged and overlapping petals. My partner unsheathes his hand from his mitten and scrapes at the lichen with his fingernails. A few flakes fall off.

On the base of a dead tree two mushrooms are attached like barnacles on a ship. They look like half-opened Chinese fans, but the undersides are curved like seashells, like cupped hands. The tops are shelf-flat; each supports a little mound of snow.

We go out the way we came in. Before we are back at the road, in the last little clearing, we plop down in the snow to rest. I dig a thermos of hot cocoa from my jacket, unscrew the lid. The thermos exhales. My partner’s eyes grow wide. With mitted hands, I pass it over. He sniffs, registers the smell.

“Thanks Dad!” he says.

We pass the thermos back and forth until it is empty, and trudge back to the road.

prompt entry #3

I am both connected and estranged from the boreal forest.

When I think of intimacy I think of connection, a sense of easy rapport, a comfort born of a long association. To be intimate is to trust. To risk. To know a thing deeply on a level that transcends language. Intimacy can be felt in the bones, at the very center of yourself. To court intimacy is to throw your body and mind in the fray, to offer yourself up unbidden, and to accept what gets flung back in return.

My connection with the boreal forest is a connection born of my body, consummated through movement, punctuated with stillness. I have bashed my shins to pulp hauling a canoe up shallow rapids; have hooked thrashing fish in calm black pools, and filleted them on flat rocks—blood and offal left for the gulls. Like the caribou I have been driven wild-eyed and scrabbling in a frenzy of thrumming mosquitoes, have run heedless and panicked through the blown-down woods in search of some small reprieve. I have cowered in the wet woods as rain lashed down in undulating sheets, as trees bowed and the lake churned, as lightning flashed its forked tongue across the blue-black sky; I have sprawled naked on a flat rock as the sun beat down and the river rolled by, rock-heat and sun-heat coalescing to where I didn’t know if I was flesh or rock or sunshine.

I cannot name the molting birds pushed downriver by our advancing canoe, a caterwauling mass of feathers and futile wing beats. Wolf prints etched in the sand, our first discovery upon waking. What else have we slept through? We are forever churning downriver, marking progress in the tent at night by inches advanced on the map; our human need to schedule and push onward, a marauding army that takes but does not give.

Once, we misjudge a set of rapids; we scout from a cliff-side a hundred yards off, determine the pitch and swell is run-able, the distance so great, in fact, that the whole scene is rendered static, a snapshot. In the end, the depth and distance betray us. The seething river delivers us into the maw, a sickening seesaw of crest and trough, before the canoe lurches and tips. Floundering, we paw our way to shore as our lives drift off downriver. Along the rocky bank, our clothes hanging like chainmail, we gather up the wreckage. It is then we know we are foreign to this place. We are a lunar expedition whose radio is blown, a downy newborn doe whose ears prick at the howling of wolves.

Place entry #2

Today I am studying burls. I’ve seen burls on some of the pine trees on my property, but had never known what caused them or, for that matter, what they were called. After years of ignorance, I finally decided to investigate—online and in the woods.

Burls are like tree goiters—round masses of wood and bark. And, like goiters, they stand out unnaturally, an unpleasant deformity. Almost any time I am out hiking with someone in my prized woods, they invariably ask, with a mixture of curiosity and mild revulsion: ‘What is wrong with your trees?’

Not knowing why the trees are bulbous and distended, I casually shrug my shoulders, though inside I feel a wave of mild embarrassment, as though the burls are growths on my own chin. What is wrong with my trees, anyway?

Well, burls are in fact a sort of deformity, a reaction to stress. Most often they are formed in response to mold or insect infestation—a sort of tree scab. The good news is that, in most cases, burls are merely a cosmetic issue; most trees with burls are otherwise healthy.

The ones in the woods behind my house vary in appearance. Some wrap all the way around the base of the tree, enclosing it like a Christmas tree stand, while others bulge out from one side like a cauliflower ear. The red pines appear to be unaffected; the burls are only apparent on the handful of jack pines. One burl in particular gives me pause. It is one that wraps around the base of the tree. There are two spots where the bark looks split open and wound-like, revealing lighter wood inside. Have deer been scraping their antlers against the burl? Did the pressure build up to the point where it split like a popped balloon? Furthermore—how could I have not noticed this before—the tree is needleless and seemingly dead, as though the burl has already choked the life out it.

Ironically, given their appearance, burls are much coveted by woodworkers due to their (potentially) unique grain. They are considered rare and valuable. Burls are best 'harvested' when the tree is dead, as removing a burl from a live tree is likely to kill it.

I am struck by my own ignorance. I've walked past those burls hundreds of times without so much as the language to name them. Burls are not goiters after all; they are rare pearls.

Prompt entry #2

To stick your hands into the river is to feel the cords that bind the earth together in one piece.
-- Barry Lopez

What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other travel. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature.
--Pierre Elliott Trudeau

Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing- absolutely nothing- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
-- Water Rat from Wind in the Willows

In the same way I briefly ponder what my life would be like had my wife and I never met, I wonder if I would have discovered my love for the boreal forest without the canoe, or if I would have been wooed and won over by another landscape. Or none at all.

A recurring image: I recline in the stern of the canoe; my wife sits in the bow. My paddle lies in repose across the gunwales. The river is wide but not so wide as to be impersonal. The current sweeps us along, past poplars and birch and gnarled stunted pines. A breeze keeps the bugs at bay. I close my eyes and feel the gentle rocking, a rhythmic yaw as ripples gurgle beneath the hull. My world is framed from beneath a wide brimmed hat; a shard of bright cerulean sky, gauzy clouds, blue water, rocky shore.

The gap between us is filled with gear—tents, sleeping bags, pots, skillet, books, journal, map, sunscreen and bug spray, noodles, pancake mix, crackers and jam. Each item stowed neatly in canvas Duluth packs—everything in its proper place. That is the first gift of a canoe trip; the winnowing of stuff, the flotsam of life pared down to the essentials. The knowledge that one doesn’t need to be bloated and bursting with things, that life can be simple after all.

Each night we make home anew. We find a flat spot for our tent, with a rocky outcropping sloping to the waters edge. We unload the canoe, set up the tent, and gather armfuls of firewood. We peel off clothes and plunge into the water, rinsing off the exertion of the day. Later, after supper is cooked and eaten, the dishes rinsed, the food packed up and stowed away, we sip tea as the sun sinks below the far horizon. Tomorrow we will do it all over again, an act of repetition that remains more ritual than routine.

Rivers, lakes, forests, canoe, my wife and I. Those are the ingredients of home, of the best of what life has to offer.

Place entry 1

Duluth, MN. -8 degrees. Calm.

Today is a snowshoe day. Yesterday’s storm dumped over eight inches of new snow, adding to the two feet already on the ground. Like a fresh coat of paint in an old room, a dusting of new snow recasts things; the pines sagging, the skeletal trees retaining a fine layer of snow in their crooks and along their branches. The details of the world suddenly stand in sharp relief. Tracks are erased and winter is new again.

My hands throb with the cold as I remove my mittens and cinch the straps on my snowshoes. Mine are not the wood and babiche variety; they are metal and modern and much colder to the touch. As I make my way across the yard towards the woods, the snow yields a few inches with each step. But the snowshoes do their job, dispersing my weight enough to keep me from 'post-holing' up to my thighs.

As I reach the edge of the red pines two deer stand up and lock onto my every move. I am surprised they chose the pines to lay down and rest; usually when it is cold they cluster in a grove of cedars on the lee side of a nearby hill. I talk softly as I advance, "Don't worry about me, just passing through." When I cross the invisible threshold of their comfort zones, they bound about 30 yards away--white tails flashing--before stopping again.

We continue this dance through the woods; I advance, they retreat. An age old choreography, each of us acting our part. Finally, they top out over a nearby rise and disappear.

Deer are so common in these woods--in yards too, for that matter--that I rarely give them a second glance. To address the overpopulation issue, last fall a bow hunt was allowed within city limits. Shortly after the hunt was announced, a man knocked on my door and asked me if he could hunt on our land. I didn't care too strongly one way or the other, and was about to say yes; but then I thought of my great aunt who lived in this house for 94 years, and who was known to put out a constant stream of birdseed for the deer, sacks and sacks of it to help sustain them through the winter. She was an unconditional animal lover who once soaked a loaf of bread in bacon grease to feed to a visiting bear (Our back door has claw marks and just last spring we had a bear on our back steps, rooting around in our recycling. Our house probably lives on in bear lore).

In the end, I turned the man down.

I sit down in the snow, my back against a red pine, and look out at the seemingly empty woods. This little grove of red pines is a favorite spot of mine. The trees are spaced apart and there is little undergrowth; it is a nice place to walk around. I am thankful to whoever in my family planted these trees many years ago. They may not have lived to see their majesty, but I take advantage every chance I get.

Unmoving, sitting there in the snow, I feel the cold working its way into my body. I think of the deer, crisscrossing the woods all winter long, trying to escape from the wind, or in search of some greenery to sustain them. Their coats do not seem thick to me, not thick enough anyway to have any semblance of comfort at eight below. I think of my geat aunt Ella drinking a cup of coffee at the kitchen table, gazing out the picture window at the deer in the yard.

Recently, I saw a deer eating the leaves of cedar tree. It would rear up on its hind legs, scrabbling its front legs like a bucking horse in an attempt to maintain balance, and pull down a sprig at a time before breaking through the crusty snow.

There are reports of an increase in coyotes within city limits, too.

I rise, my legs stiff with cold, and walk back toward the house, leaving the woods to the deer.

Prompt entry #1

Northeastern Minnesota. Land of glacier scoured lakes, swamps, streams, bogs. The Southern terminus of the boreal forest and Precambrian shield. Thin soil, protruding bedrock. Long, dark, cold winters. A difficult place to sink roots into, metaphorically and otherwise.

Duluth, Minnesota. Southwestern tip of Lake Superior—world’s largest freshwater lake. Port city; iron ore, grain, coal. In spring, streams tumble over basalt ledges. In the dead of winter, downtown manholes exhale steam. Foghorns moan in summer, as ore boats chug through the ship canal. A land of displaced Finns, summer tourists, lake effect snow. A blue collar ethos pervades—smokestacks and the sickly sweet smell of paper mills—but underneath the gruff exterior beats a progressive, back-to-the-land heart.

It is not, by mountain lover standards, a picturesque place; there are few awe inspiring vistas. If you are of a certain temperament, I suppose, you could argue that one lake more or less resembles the next one. There are few swaths of majestic white pines left. Much of this area is second or third growth—stunted pines and birches.

That doesn’t matter to me; I am smitten by the maze of lakes, the lichen covered ground and pine studded shores. I embrace the seasons, although spring spans a muddy week and fall around the same.

Despite being an inland port, the nearest saltwater is Hudson Bay to the north. Some of the streams in Northern Minnesota flow to Hudson Bay. As a canoeist, this fact comforts me. My interior compass points north, too. Like a stick tossed in the current, I have followed by canoe three rivers that flow to Hudson Bay, through the living, breathing heart of the boreal forest.

Barton Sutter wrote a book about Duluth, entitled Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map. For me, though, Duluth is not at the top of the map at all. In the map of my homeland Duluth is at the bottom; the top stretches beyond the Arctic Circle, at the far end of the northern treeline.

In animal terms, I guess you could say Duluth is the southern end of my range.