21st Century Rules

Near the end of the last millennium, upon getting to the bottom of the precipitous stairs and before setting foot on the bridge suspended over the Presque Isle River, I paused and surveyed the scene below. Folk's attention was drawn to the riverbed. Of course, that drew mine.

It's a magnificent place, well beyond the methods and means of humans to translate. Death's there too, make no mistake.

Below, two men crouched on a slate shelf hard to the swirling current, about opposite where the much missed Dick from Wakefield fished. One man was older and the other younger, though even he was older than me.

Together, the men offered sacred ceremony. They made no effort to hide their love.

Roughly put, Presque Isle means almost island. The bridge over the river and the almost island beyond fairly bustled with tourists that day. Some of them stopped to gawk. A mean sliver of those chose to mock the Indians for being Indians at a place that nurtured them first.

They're called Native Americans for a reason. The few mouthy tourists made no effort to hide their disdain.

I took a position on a high rock and sat very still. I love my river. Anyone come to respect it in any way shape or form's all right by me. Neither had I ever seen such a thing as those two men on any river, making me just another tourist that day.

Later I learned the older man was a shaman and the younger his traveling companion. They'd made the long trip from Canada to honor the river of the old man's ancestors. As it happened, they invited me to walk the trail with them, down to the big lake.

In the woods they spoke, I listened. They observed. I realized how piss poor my vision is. At the lakeshore, we went separate ways with well wishes all around.

At a placid pool that's occasionally a raging river but almost always isn't (thus Presque Isle), using a fallen branch I saved a white dragonfly from drowning. I set it on a safe, warm place to dry.

Headed back to the bridge, I again crossed paths with the two men. I asked the elder if he thought I'd been wrong, to intercede with death on behalf of the swamped dragonfly.

Should I have just let nature take its course?

Not counting certain tourists, no one wants to be seen as arrogant in front of an Ojibwa shaman.

Humans have done such terrible damage to life, we now must do everything we can to help it, the shaman answered. Or words to that effect.

"Old rules no longer apply," he said. As long ago as the 2nd millennium, a wise old man said that to me.

For sure, I knew it was true before he said it. That's why I lifted the dragonfly from impending death, after all. But considering the source, it felt good to be let off the hook just the same.

 

During the high dry heat this past August, I came across a cicada on my sidewalk. It stood motionless in the afternoon sun.

That was just a few feet away from where a couple weeks prior, an adolescent robin landed when it fell dying from the sky. I stood over the bird. It breathed. I hurriedly returned carrying a box lined with a soft towel for creature comfort.

By then the young robin was dead. It felt like she didn't want me to see her die.

I watched the cicada on the sidewalk for a while and decided things just didn't look right with it. Usually when you pick up a cicada, the fierce grip they take on your finger reminds you they spend most of their active lives clinging to tree bark, through all sorts of weather. They're tough little buggers.

This cicada managed an abrupt squawk. Then it rolled over onto its back in the palm of my hand and lay still.

Around here, sparrows gorge on cicadas. Typically, the cicada screams bloody murder until the sparrow picks it down to the hard bits that can't scream. I determined not leave this one laid out in the sun on my hot concrete for some passing Velociraptor to claim.

After I set the cicada in one of our garden boxes where I thought the birds wouldn't easily spot it, I periodically kept an eye on the thing for an hour or so. It moved, a little. Just so much that I knew it still lived.

Then I looked out again and it was gone. If a sparrow found and claimed him, so be it. If the cicada flew away and later that evening sang more cicada song, so much the better.

The inescapably dead robin lies a safe distance into the earth beneath our garden. Above it, a transplanted sprig of Lamb's Ear has already taken. Next year that should sprout a profusion of tiny purple flowers, upon which hungry bees will feast.

The late great teacher and poet Patrick O'Neill wrote, "Death is life."

He was right, of course. Yet as pithy and wonderful and absolutely true though that line is, it's merely half the equation. And the utterly predictable half, at that.

Being human, the metaphysical must be given at least equal weight. Or we aren't what we pretend to be, we never were, there is no god and there never was.

Hell of a choice, right? But if we can't think our way through it using the gifts we've been blessed with, we're no damned good to anyone.

Collectively, we must again learn to treat life – all life – with surpassingly intuitive respect. Then we'll no longer be trapped into parsing the theoretical value of individual existence just so to justify killing it on the altar of some supposed common good.

It's okay to be a predator. Stupid predators don't last long.

"The old rules no longer apply."

In fact, here in the 21^st Century they're demonstrably false and our hewing to them is aggressively ignorant. Terminally arrogant, even.

Truth is, it's new rules from here on and for the duration, whether you like it or not. Two millennia of old world order and it's host of prior restrictions need no longer apply. And science or the news or politicians or your social media feed needn't prove it to anyone's satisfaction, either. There is but to look.

In the end, it won't make a spit of difference if you greet death with equanimity or not. But embrace life while still a sentient part of it, then you stand to make all the difference in the world.

We can help fuel life by individually working every day in ways large and small for its collective future, or lie down and be fuel.

It's your choice. Whichever, there's no third way.

All life matters. Welcome to the 21^st Century, finally begun in earnest...

Shining Light on the Prairie - Summer's End

Summer's officially over, the weatherman says so.

While it's true we might hang our hats on celestial events yet in the offing, this year above all years I'm going with science. And though on general principles I never wish time away, the faster we push through the dark season, the sooner we'll know where we're at and who we'll be on the other side.

Claire Hintz up at Elsewhere Farms recently posted that this year she harvested her pears two weeks earlier than last. That about reflects the state of things on the prairie, too.

Even had I not spent these last months in relative sequestration watching light change on a daily basis, when the wind sends a rustle through the tallgrass and it crinkles the evening voice of trees, that seals the deal no matter what we might otherwise choose to believe.

Already well into the pandemic, this spring stayed resolutely cold and wet, right until it didn't. People around here like to complain We went straight from winter into summer with no spring between, but they're mistaken.

What they really mean is that spring pretty well sucked. This year more than most, eh?

Middle of May, the world turned hot and in June the sun beat down hard upon the land. By August, the land grew parched. I've been thankful everyday for our drought resistant native plants. As have the myriad butterflies, bees and other critters that as soon as it grew hot, showed up in droves.

Each year after a cold miserable winter leaches well into what we'd like to think of as spring, I fret over the life we host. Then, there it all is. This summer that included not one but two litters of baby rabbits, the first birthed in the same garden box as the Great Black Wasps bring their young to feast.

In 2020 I'll not stand in awe amidst northern wilderness, nor catch Superior on the breeze. Unless I convince myself a stiff north wind carries its distinctive freshwater scent all the hundreds of miles down to the prairie, which I sometimes do.

Instead I've looked for recompense on prairie remnants, oak savannas and the backyard garden. The relationship with my native black dirt's stronger and more intimate now than at any time since I was a kid who once thought it might be a good idea to eat some.

The first thing I noticed when the plaque hit this spring was that the world fell quiet. The next thing I noticed was that nothing changed, really. With each passing day, more life returned to the land. As light climbed higher into the sky, summer unfolded just as it would have, pandemic or no.

Now we've entered meteorological autumn. There's no turning back. There's never any turning back.

A few of the local trees are giving it up already. I suppose they're stressed for lack of rain. Crickets sing in the morning brightness. Cicadas all day, desperate to make hay. Goldfinches tear at the bones of Echinacea. The last honeysuckle blossoms falter. Hummingbirds take jealous advantage even as they do. From sunrise to sunset, bees rake up whatever's left that they can find.

None of these creatures need be told it's high time they adapt to changing conditions. How is it so many of us do?

Autumn's long been my favorite season, from back when as a melancholic teen I wallowed in adolescent despair. As a young adult I embraced Superior and year upon year upon year of camping in the northwoods back when late September was the problematic edge of winter made me a lifer.

Diving deep into the golden season along Superior has always made my winters easier to take. This year consigned to the prairie, it's hard to resist rushing through autumn so to endure the inevitable cold as ever, then maybe finding out come spring that the world's not changed overmuch after all.

As able, I'll continue watching the light change day by day. Sometimes even capturing near perfect moments of that, as it reveals life. Through fair weather and foul, good times, hard times and all seasons between, it seems the thing to do.

Not a bad way to live. Or a bad way to go either, so best get it while we can.

Onward.

Show & Tell - A Baker's Dozen

I'd considered ignoring the 200^th post mile marker, much like I ignore milestone birthdays. After a while, it's all of a piece. But with my 65^th birthday fast approaching as well, significant numbers suddenly loom large.

"Memory is a stranger, history is for fools…" Or, so I've heard.

Don't take this as a 'best of' list. Rather, it's a necessarily non-inclusive selection of images that proved important to me. For instance, the repurposed gas station at the top taught me I really could be a proper, large format architectural photographer.

You know, had I wanted to.

*

Headed from someplace to someplace else, I booked one night in Houghton.

Prior to check-in, I planned on working S-63, a dirt/gravel road also known as 'Covered Drive' because a great arch of forest blots out the sky along stretches of it. That done, I'd head west and maybe finagle my way down to the lakeside ruins at remote, mysterious Freda.

The afternoon came and rolling thunderstorms with it.

In danger of being rained out, I ventured back and forth between Houghton and the sodden forest at least twice. That means I passed the scene below three times before at the very last I thought Ah, screw it.

Plainly put, it wasn't part of the plan so I didn't 'see' it. Nor was the place abandoned, in which case I'd have reflexively jumped all over it. Now the image is among three fine art prints of my work that'll hang on any wall of mine.

Likewise the pair of dead geese I dared shoot backlit, as they wavered in a slight breeze.

I once witnessed a woman enter a packed gallery, scan the room, then cut through the crowd to stand directly in front of this and stare.

She didn't buy it, which is why dead geese hang in my office today. First print I hung. Glad to have it, expertly framed. Thanks, lady.

During my initial trip with the Linhof, I exposed six sheets of film. It was vacation and I was uncertain about the new format, so went at it cautiously. Four days after returning home, I'd three keepers. My career large format shooting ratio of roughly 2:1 was set right from the start.

I thought, Okay, maybe I can make this work…

As with the Houghton trip, rain played a serendipitous role with this next. Heather and I were hunkered down at a waterfront restaurant in Bayfield, hoping storms would soon pass. Had it not rained, we'd have been on our way back to Bessemer by then.

In the middle of a fine whitefish lunch, I looked out the window and bolted. There was just time to set up and rip off three quick exposures. This one's the best:

There's a spot on the Presque Isle River along US-2 where the river feeds a wetland. One spring morning found the spot bathed in glittering light. I knew it'd be a challange, for transparency film.

Nonetheless, I stowed the car off the road and mindful of traffic periodically flying past @ 70 mph, walked out and captured this:

Returning to the car, a State Trooper idled beside it. He posed the single most inexplicable question that I've been asked multiple times, while hauling around 50# of large format photographic gear.

"What're you doing?"

To which I could only point to my burden and shrug.

"Well, be careful" the Trooper helpfully added as yet another speeder sped by.

"Always," I said. "Thanks."

Perhaps the most confounding thing a fellow shooter's ever said to me came in the parking lot of Hunter's Point at Copper Harbor. While gearing up the Mamiya, a woman lugging a high end digital outfit came off the trail.

The only digital I'd shot by then was with the Toy Canon. I was sore impressed by her gear.

"Light's awful out there," she said. "Good luck."

"Thanks," I answered. "Guess we'll see, eh?"

No farther in than at the trailhead, I captured what'd become the third fine art print of mine that'll always hang on my walls.

When I happen see it there, I still sometimes wonder What was she seeing?

Occasionally I shot what I knew needed to be writ large, so it could truly seen. This one is called Rebar Roots:

No single image of mine exposes the mad juxtaposition of the real world eating our failures than that. Had I ever gotten around to striking a fine art print of it – say 30" long dimension at the very least – it'd hang on my wall too.

But, alas.

Streams big and small replenish most all the northwoods lakes. Much of that flow is seasonally gifted and during those times, in some places wood sprites might live.

Visible from the road through the woods only at select times of year, a little stream helps feed my beloved Bobcat Lake. This creek and others give the best they have, at the far end beavers pile the water high for safekeeping and voilà, a relatively stable little gem of a lake.

Some say the U.P.'s state bird is the mosquito. Generally, marsh marigold's and mosquitoes hang together. The first year I lugged the Linhof in here I fled back to the car like I'd been bit, as pretty much every square inch of me was.

The second year I again took my chances and failed.

Third year, I prepped as if for war. Donned chest waders and boots. Protected my upper body with impenatrable layers. Wore fingerless gloves. And on my head, mosquito netting covered by a canvas cap pulled down tight.

I slogged in, stood firm against the marauders and came away victorious.

Now, I'm not telling you wood sprites definitely live there. But should you insist on insisting they don't, then you'd best come prepared to impossibly prove the negative.

Yes, we live in that sort of time.

We must welcome possibility, even when remote. When we refuse to embrace opportunities amid hard places and times, then they're only hard. Dreaming big is better.

Even when I do get the shot, returning to certain sites has been particularly rewarding. Different seasons make fresh light and in a sense, that remakes the subject. Not to mention the passing years inevitably alters all things.

I worked the well-hidden gem below for nearly a decade before the Mamiya finally liberated me to simply throw film at it. So this one grey and nondescript day I didn't care that the world wasn't still to infinity, and the scene came alive.

Our best days together were yet to come, as the old Ford lasted well into the digital age. But that day I knew I was right about it all along.

Now, it's gone. The record I've made remains.

When time came to spend my last 4x5 transparency ever, I chose a nondescript portion of the Presque Isle River near Bobcat Lake to spend it on. Honestly, the day ran short and that's where it caught me.

Then I was done.

Months later, Heather suggested I transition over to digital capture. I traded the Mamiya and two lenses to defer the cost of a spiffy new Nikon.

And here we are.

Digital capture prompted in me a creative growth spurt not entirely dissimilar to what the Linhof did, in its time. That evolution and this revolution alike required that I learn to see the world more fully, on the fly. In the process, opportunity flowed forth.

Now I shoot botanicals. Like I did with my 1^st six sheets of 4x5 back when, then didn't much again after the dark mysteries of abandonment caught and held my eye.

The nimble Nikon paired to great glass also drew me to what at a glance seems small, but on close inspection is foundational life thriving all around us, no matter our many grievous sins against it:

Bereft of majestic Superior and the northwoods during this year of the plague, rather than mourn my sight has refocused to what's in arm's reach. I see the ground better now than ever. My goodness, it's alive.

Spun of numerical magic, digitally translated light is at inception divorced from light itself and thus is in no way shape or form necessarily beholden to any truth. We must never again expect it is.

Remember that when evildoers flood the ether with credibly faked fake news.

But that same deceitful dexterity also readily translates and portrays ecstatic truth. More readily and often better than large format film ever did. That's no mean feat.

Like the sparkling day - directly opposite that dark place where a few marigolds swarmed by mosquitoes are maybe visited by wood sprites - I dove in chasing light and mere minutes later, emerged with this:

I could almost sorta kinda have held my breath for so long as that took to capture. Probably, for some of the time I was in there, I did just that.

It never occurred to me when I started this project that it'd reach 200 posts. Things change.

We change with them, or are eaten. Onward toward 200,000 total hits.

Hope to see you all there.

Lake Superior Day, 2020 - A Circle Tour

Text and Images by Philip J. Kucera, except as noted.

The First People named the lake Kitchi-gummi, or Great Water. In 1620 - the same year pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock - when arriving at what's today called Sault Ste. Marie, the Jesuit missionary Etienne Brûlé dubbed the inland sea beyond the Soo rapids Supérieur. The Upper Lake.

Later, English landlords as they're wont to do, simplified that to Superior. And so it is.

We northerners pay homage to Lake Superior on the third Sunday of July each year. Personally, I carry a large garbage bag when visiting a beach or two. Superior's shores stay amazingly clean year 'round, thanks to efforts made by hoards of locals and visitors...out of respect.

This year Frank and I, along with some guidance provided by time travelers, invite you on a tour of favorite stops around the big lake. We'll start our trip going clockwise from Sault Ste. Marie. From there in 1659-60, the two French explorers Radisson and Groseilliers were the first to skirt the entire south shore. Along the way they traded with Native inhabitants, European goods for furs.

Translated from Radisson's manuscript: "It was to us like a terrestrial paradise. We went along the coasts, which are most delightful and wondrous, for its Nature that made it so pleasant to the eye, the spirit, and the belly".

In 1721 Pierre Charlevoix cautioned: "when a storm is about to rise, you are advertized of it... two days before, you perceive a gentle murmuring on the surface of the water...the day after, the lake is covered with large waves. But on the third day...the lake becomes all on fire; the ocean in its greatest rage is not more tossed....

A south shore fisherman working out of Black River Harbor once told me, "When you look out there at the lakes' end and you see pimples all across that long line, it's time to head for shore fast, cause a big blow is coming pretty quick."

An English gentleman, Frederick Marryat traveled the south shore in a birchbark canoe in 1837, along with two hunting companions and five crewmen. All were amazed at the wonders of nature.

"We landed at dusk, much fatigued; but the aurora borealis flashed in the heavens, spreading out like a vast plume of ostrich feathers across the sky, every minute changing its beautiful and fanciful forms...we watched it for hours....

From Father Dablon, in the 'Jesuit Relations, 1610-1791': "...extensive fishing is carried on...of a kind of fish found usually only in Lake Superior and Huron...called in the native language Atticameg, and in ours 'whitefish,' because in truth it is very white: and it is most excellent...

Did I mention there are incredible restaurants along the entire lake shore, many of them off the beaten path? Some still serve fresh fish.

Colonel Camille Pisani, journaling Prince Napoleon's tour of Superior, wintered over in 1861-62. "The inhabitants of the region are...as the crew of a ship caught in the ice of the polar seas and forced to hibernate. Their winter is terrible. The temperature often lowers to the freezing point of mercury. The lake is covered with a very thick layer of ice, increased by heavy snowfalls...terrifying storms break the ice crust; the stormy lake piles up the ruins of its prison on the shores...

The Minnesota shore is a nearly unbroken rock wall from Duluth all the way to the Canadian border. Between rising stone and big water, in many places there's just sufficient room for the famous Highway 61 to weave it's way north.  With enough trees to give the surroundings at least a half wild look the entire 150 miles, it's one of the most scenic shoreline drives in the country.

Count two dozen state parks and scenic waysides, with a like number of fishing hamlets along the way. Among those is tiny Hovland, located about a dozen miles short of the Canadian Border, on Chicago (Horseshoe) Bay.

The day before Thanksgiving 1958, young Carl Hammer headed out in his 16' open skiff to pull nets before a major nor'wester struck. The storm arrived early. Worried  his fishing partner hadn't returned, Norwegian born 63-year-old Helmer Aakvik set out in his old wooden skiff to find Carl, but he and his boat were gone. Helmer worked the lake for over 28 hours in gale force winds, 20-24 foot seas and temperatures all the while well below freezing, searching for his friend.

You can listen to the story here.

F. Hutton

There's something to be said about the tenacity of the inhabitants of the Lake Superior Basin.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017, a buoy set in eastern Lake Superior by Northern Michigan University, recorded a storm wave of 28.8 feet in height and hurricane force winds clocking just under 80mph.

Both the day prior and the day after the storm, seas were near calm. What we call a White Squall.

On the Canadian shore, Rossport once supported a large commercial fishery and was a prime source for whitefish. A former Canadian Pacific rail stop, today the scenic town attracts tourists arriving by boat or auto.

Fish tugs still head out from the port, in calm weather and not. Boats working Canadian waters are generally larger than their counterparts in the U.S. Northwest gales have a tremendous reach across the northern half of the lake as they batter the east shore.

Now we're almost back to the Soo, with just one more stop to make.

F. Hutton

On the face of Agawa Rock in Lake Superior Provincial Park, amid dozens of red ocher pictographs, is an image of Mishipeshu, the Great Underwater Panther, the ancient Spirit of Lake Superior. Mishipeshu is Lake Superior. Angered, it will upset a 40 foot birch bark Montreal Canoe in a moment. A proper offering—Kinnikinick (tobacco) perhaps, or a treasured trinket, might smooth 30 foot seas in like time.

And now we've reached the end of the road…

Every day, a visit to Lake Superior is a celebration. This was fun. See you on the lake.

*

Philip Kucera's been my dear friend and mentor for longer than either of us should like to think on. From Phil I've learned more about the Superior Basin and fine art than anyone else, by far. It's my distinct pleasure to have turned over this space to him, for Lake Superior's namesake day.

#lakesuperiorday2020 #lakesuperiorcircletour #lakesuperior

Interdependent Days

Go with a loved one this 4^th of July to a Lake Superior beach and Covid-19 won't find you. This dread virus isn't so novel that it lurks there waiting to kill.

For that you'll need neighbors. Fellow citizens, mostly.

Specifically, you'll need neighbors whose terminal self-regard demands they endanger your life for their convenience. They're also blind to how liberty works. That's a deadly combination.

Certainly, individuals have every right to risk their own lives or even waste them, as they choose. More critical to liberty's cause, no one has any right to risk your life for you. Otherwise, thus do demagogues rise to dictators and democratic republics fall.

The hard case is that politics and plague notwithstanding, the personal liberty angrily claimed by the most recalcitrant among us isn't theirs alone. It belongs to us.

Together we empower and sustain American style liberty. You simply can't hold that ground on your own. Today, anyone still in possession of even half the good sense they were born with knows that in their bones.

The word for acting in total disregard for your neighbors isn't liberty, it's license. Of the fabled Deadly Sins, that's an operative in six of seven and even sloth is basically a libertine's choice.

Ants don't know from license. Intuitively, each ant at its core understands and accepts that continued ant success requires they each pursue collective purpose.

Of course ants aren't an ideal metaphor for humans. Their slavish devotion to royalty alone ruins the notion, as the Declaration of Independence reminds us.

Except humans believe themselves exponentially better in all ways than ants. Right?

If you claim the liberty that's yours as a human being, prove it by being better at living together than ants. Exercise your individual will to pull with the rest of us in the only viable direction left.

Remember - it's life then liberty as recorded in freedom's Holy Writ, after which comes everything else. Only with the first can the second exist, much less we get to chase after happiness in our spare time.

So wear a damned mask. Then maybe you'll still be around to help when we the people once again make something necessarily new out of the old, outdated us.

Choose instead to place your neighbors at risk through your moral vanity and - provided you don't first die of stupidity - in the future you'll be on your own. Because those free people who survive as witness to such aggressively ignorant folly as yours, they'll remember.

Expect a run on sackcloth. There'll be no shortage of ash.

#wearthemask #independenceday #liberty