Sidetrack -- Full Moons over the Colorado

We boarded the legendary California Zephyr at Union Station in Chicago. Took a sleeper car and headed west, with Heather a reasonable approximation of Eva Marie Saint and I, sadly for Heather, what passed for Cary Grant.

Bridge repair across the Mississippi forced a detour straight out of Chicago. We ran non-stop all the way to Omaha NE on Union Pacific rail, the 1^st time passengers have ridden that track since 1955, or so I was told. Should you think that unimportant or obscure, try telling it to the folk gathered at odd spots along the way to record the event for digital posterity.

We disrespect the railroad in America. That’s extraordinary, considering its outsized role in our history.

Most old depots have long since fallen to decrepitude, with shells of some now retrofitted into sparkling cloaks for shopping malls promised to revitalize faded downtowns. From track level, the old Union Pacific Station in Omaha is a rusted derelict hulk, though I hear it remains magnificent inside. I’d have happily shown you a haunting image of the thing except both times we paused in Omaha it was but briefly and in dark of night. Still, I saw enough as we went to know that riding the rails expressly to pick over the bones of Railroad Barons’ grandiose monuments to themselves would be an interesting gig.

America’s collective back is turned to the railroads that built the larger part of it. Instead of stopping near city squares first brought to existence ‘cause the train stopped there, rails course past backyards and junkyards and endless remnants of once vital industry, offering a ghost tour through the echoes of an America much different than today’s.

Even with all that, the Zephyr lives up to its legend.

Climbing through serpentine switchbacks out of Denver, the train then traverses once all but impassible mountains. And amidst such wild magnificence are found cultural curiosities, like this whimsical fence near the station in Fraser CO.

Along the way there’s much to marvel at, not least the incredible ingenuity it took for folk to cut track through mountains. Notable is the Moffat Tunnel, completed in 1927. At 6.21 miles in length and topping out at an elevation of 9,234’ it’s the highest elevated, third longest passenger tunnel in America. And should you think that unimportant or obscure; by turning a key in Washington D.C., President Calvin Coolidge set off the final blast that “holed through” the Moffat Tunnel while from the heart of the mountain that signal event was broadcast nationwide via radio.

Once the Zephyr deposited us in Salt Lake City, we rented a car and toured a bit. In Park City we saw more old hippies, new hippies and wannabe hippies gathered in one place than at any time since 1974. It was there I wandered into the shop of Michael Fatali and there was reminded that for all the antique craft applied and the various trials that inform my own field work, when put next to an authentic Master Photographer/Printer, I’m a documentarian.

Humbling aesthetic context aside, the next morning we headed off to our cabin in Zion National Park.

I have to think that when white folk first wandered up the Virgin River and found themselves in its great canyon, some fell straight to their knees with the sight. Towering above the river and the elegant Cottonwoods that flourish beside it, great towers of rock rise to the sky like mighty sentinels celebrated by Greeks in ancient myth.

Of the ‘Big Three’ critters that roam Zion, I saw two: the Bighorn Sheep, of which by the 1950’s there were none left in the Park and a California Condor(!), of which there remained only 22 free flying in the entire world as recently as 1987. Today the sheep are returned home and some 130 California Condors again soar over the vast American West, including the one I saw off Angel’s Landing.

The 3^rd beastie of that aforementioned Big Three is the Mountain Lion and as I’m not anxious to meet one face to face whether in Utah or the U.P, it’s all good.

In a robust day and a half I made 200 exposures using the Mamiya. Later I learned that Kodak’s discontinued the film I used. Thankfully, there remain other good options on the market. But like the railroad during decades past, what practical cultural value film retains is fading ever faster. And with that my creative obsolescence gains speed by rolling downhill.

I can’t burden Zion with interpretation. That’s a task best left to poets and painters. But in honor of having ended more than 40 years association with Kodak product while there, here’s a short shot of spring at Zion National Park -- captured with a Mamiya RZ67 Pro II D shooting 120mm Kodak E100G transparency film, requiescat in pace:

I closed my stay in Zion by shooting ancient petroglyphs in high desert on a sparkling morning. We found these courtesy of a fellow traveler’s detailed instructions. All roadside signage is removed, due the casual disrespect shown by tourists when signage leads them too easily to sacred places.

Then after a fine weekend passed in the company of creatives gathered together in Salt Lake, we boarded the train home. Of everything we experienced, perhaps the most curious was cultural.

For a lengthy stretch, the California Zephyr follows the path cut by the Colorado River. This includes through canyons inaccessible except by kayak, raft or train. For reasons inscrutable, it’s long been the habit of river rats both male and female to moon the Zephyr (brief partial nudity) as it goes by.

Don’t often see wildlife like that along Superior…

*

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan was once honeycombed with rails. Trains hauled poor folk into the region for work then hauled out the product of the work those folk put in. Resources exhausted, people were left to fend for themselves. Rails that once fed the region have been scavenged, there being only poor folk left to haul and there’s little profit in that.

Heather fondly remembers that on our first northwoods trip together, the call of trains beguiled the forest through the night. Now the railroad is just another cultural memory like the axmen and the miners, with old grades serving for rough roads or snowmobile trails. Having ridden the Zephyr out to the western wilderness and back, I suspect we’ll now pay a bit closer attention to those remnants we find along our way.

For all the wonders of Utah and the greater American west, the thing that struck me most about the place is how arid it is.

They told me there’s a swamp in Zion, but it’s a postage stamp of moist land off the Virgin River otherwise hemmed in by hard rock. My home turf of the Ottawa National Forest is ‘round about 100,000,000 acres of forest and maybe a quarter of that is real swamp -- the sort you can too easily get lost in if you’re careless.

All the time I was out west, increasingly with each passing moment and no matter how much in awe of my surroundings or how good a time was had, I positively yearned to be near water. 

Especially big water, as in Superior. And when the wind is hard out of the north, I can smell that from here.

It’s good to be home.

Opening Day

Opening Day of the baseball season is like no other American holiday save perhaps the 4^th of July, when one also has cause to look to the past, anticipate the future and gather together to have a blast all at the same time.

Though many might disagree, baseball remains the quintessential American pastime. Its roots are rural and agrarian, being played on a planted field. The game is intensely collaborative yet absolutely dependent upon individual contribution for success. And nearly anyone can play. These days it might seem that exclusion and winning at any cost are the only American virtues, but that’s not reflective of our traditional character and we needn’t believe it is, no matter evidence to the contrary angrily offered up by hectoring malcontents.

Baseball is who we were and, I maintain, reflects the best of who we are.

Most small mining or lumber towns in the Superior region had their own baseball field and many of those had teams to play on it, often sponsored by a local merchant or company. It was welcome relief, to leave your cares and troubles behind and attend a game with your neighbors beneath the summer sun.

I’m blessed because having been born a Cubs fan, any expectation of winning was shorn from me at an early age so I need never get unduly excised over short result gained from good effort put forth, whatever the endeavor.

Opening Day is also a sure harbinger of spring. With it, the world has once again turned. Even when they have to shovel snow from the field to play, we’re assured. The cold back of winter is broken.

I’m back from Zion and parts west, where the stark richness of the landscape is beguiling and oh so deadly ‘cause what a body needs first and foremost is water and that’s what they ain’t got much of, out there. Along the way I met with a diverse group of vaguely like-minded creatives and found both a sense of community and mutual respect. That’s quite the thing.

And for once, the promise of a season’s turning with Opening Day is no mere symbol of hope. This year spring in the Northwoods is a good month early and regardless of cold nights and brisk days from here on in, even around Superior winter’s sturdy grip is already well loosened. A friend’s neighbor has apple trees coming into bloom and that’s that. It’s time to get at it.

Back on the road is where I’ll be by this time next week, when I’ll post of trains & deserts and mighty Zion, home to the stone thrones of gods. That’ll be our last diversion.

*

In the interim, ‘cause I’m not yet caught up from travels to Utah or near to ready to take off for Superior next week, I’m beggin’ your pardon for this off topic indulgence but I’m conscious that a blog ought not remain fallow for too long…

Steve Goodman was one of the finest singer/songwriters of my or any generation. He wrote many great songs, both evocative and humorous, including what some say is the greatest train song ever -- “The City of New Orleans”.

Steve died too young but not before he left his fellow Cubs fans this. It’s said they spread his ashes at Wrigley Field. Sorry there’s not a better version on video, but this is the only one I found. He was already ill with the disease that claimed him and not in the best of voice, but boy, he could sure still pick it.

So here’s to you Steve, on this Opening Day -- a day made for reflection, hope, a dogged, positive persistence and especially a healthy dose of wry humor -- the exact stuff that's long defined America for the rest of the world:

Spring Break...

My plan for this project has always been to put up fresh material at least once a week each & every week for the duration, come what may. Since I’m asking you to come along for the ride, it’s on to me to keep your interest.

As it happens, I unexpectedly (though happily) must travel to Utah to honor a longstanding collaborative effort now drawing to a close. So I’ll be off our road after today and on that road into April.

During my years in the photo industry, I was a commercial deadline driven multitasking lab rat of note and that remnant part of me now desires nothing more than to plow on through regardless. But the simple truth is, by this morning next week I’ll have risen before the sun to step out from a cabin and into the glories of Zion National Park. Having never before traveled out west, there’s every expectation I’ll be lost in abject wonder.

I won’t cheat myself of that or Heather of my full participation in it. Neither will I ever cheat you and this project of my proper attention. So the blog’ll just have to idle quietly in my absence and that’s that.

*

If you’ve been here before, I encourage you to take the opportunity and noodle around for what you might’ve missed. If you’ve just come across this project, please feel free to dig deep. The basic premises are laid out, there’s already plenty to look at and once I return the narrative will grow richer with every mile traveled together through the complex wilderness of the Superior Basin.

I've also added a resource page to the right hand sidebar that puts all the hot links used for these essays in one categorized list for convenient edification & amusement.

In the meantime -- and considering it’ll then be full on April -- here’s a selection of never before seen images lifted from field work done during previous springs. Though large format film is an ideal means to capture botanicals, I've only rarely shown this work because it fell outside my core portfolio. Besides, it’s a field crowded with both well established pros and amateurs alike. And as it turns out, there are formal rules for shooting flowers. What I do with them out in the field rarely conforms to those.

So here’re some botanicals meant to hold the fort in my absence; all taken during the last few seasons with only “Marsh Marigolds” not captured on large format chrome. It’s nice to finally have an opportunity to share some of these.

And with this being something of the ‘winter that never was’, maybe by the time we’re again on the road there’ll be fresh flowers everywhere to greet us.

See you soon…

Apple Orchard -- Bayfield County, WI

Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris) -- Gogebic County, MI

Great White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) -- Gogebic County, MI

Apple Tree & Cabin -- Bayfield County, WI

Forget Me Not (Myosotis sylvatica) -- Gogebic County, MI

Two Trillium -- Gogebic County, MI

Apple Orchard 2 -- Bayfield County, WI

On Sentient Landscape and the Pterodactyl

There’s a sacred place just up from the big lake, well hidden by a strong stretch of forest. Though fairly near a good road, if you don’t already know it’s there, you won’t when driving by.

It’s one of many such sites around Lake Superior. A few are world famous, like Agawa. In deference to Homeland Security I’ve secured the necessary papers so we’re free to travel the north shore this summer, when brilliant afternoons are best spent in idle contemplation near the cool waters of any shallow bay while waiting for long light to whisper that it’s again time to get off my contemplative ass and back to work.

Even when not world famous, some of these sacred sites are marked for the convenience of tourists. Many remain obscure. Most are near special waters. Almost all are infused with a mysterious but palpable blend of landscape and culture, which recognition is beyond the capacity of words to adequately convey. You have to be there. I suppose plenty of these sacred places remain unknown to most white men and rightly so.

This place I know used to have a sign. It used to have a trail. It used to be abused by tourists who’d take pieces of it home, little living pieces precisely positioned with profound purpose by others, but pocket sized and way better than cheap dream catchers or moccasins all the same. Though once I witnessed a young man who in accordance with Jewish custom left an object of respect in this place, so sometimes signs and trails serve noble intent, depending on who’s using ‘em and for what.

*

The trail to this sacred place led up from the road along a deep cut of small, winding creek. On one side of the path stood thick forest. To the other, trees fell steeply away with the ravine. Through those you could see over and down to the streambed, where bristling brush and decades of debris still obscures a slow tumble of dark water that over time washes everything it touches into tiny pieces down to the Great Lake.

It was misty, cool and still the day that Johnny, Heather and I first went in.

I don’t recall how we found the place. Probably the wooden sign, which was cut in the rough profile of an Indian’s head with great beak for a nose & complete with full feathered headdress of the sort not worn by Indians from anywhere around there. Why we went in was the same reason we did most everything in the northwoods, which was simply to see, perchance to know. With that purpose and our awareness on high alert, we crept into the mist shrouded forest.

Maybe 50 yards in, a great winged shadow rose silently to our left and over the creek. It loomed large enough and close enough that the three of us flushed with adrenaline and stopped suddenly to turn in unison. The creature glided just above the unnavigable tangle. Its giant wings barely moved. Eyes wide with primordial vision, we followed its track in the air upstream ‘til it’d ridden the rough map of the creek to disappear around a bend.

“Did you see that?!?” one of us cried.

It was a Great Blue Heron, back in the day when those were almost impossibly rare and what few there were signified a lasting wildness of place. But we instantly agreed that when first we turned and all the while we watched it fly, the silhouette of an impossibly large body carried aloft on massive wings appeared to us as nothing less than a pterodactyl on the hunt and we three in sudden thrall of ancient custom, cowering in thick cover as it flew by.

In an instant, for a minute and across millennia, we were all the same.

Properly primed, we headed on in to the sacred place and neither did it disappoint. We’d received everything we’d asked for and quite a bit more besides.

*

During the last day in the field this past November, I found myself on that winding road along the lake. The sun shone bright and warm. Whatever snow had fallen near shore the day before was already melted. I very much needed to head well inland to capture the first of winter before the short day and exquisite light was done and the opportunity wasted.

All the same, I’d not visited this sacred place in many years so I left the cameras in the car to take a walk in the woods and pay my respects. Though there’s no longer a sign, I knew the way. I’d not gone but a few paces in when a startling sight greeted me.

Where once there was clear trail, now there’s maybe dozens of trees felled directly upon it, sheared off near the ground in a row and stacked like cordwood across the way. It’s impassable and so neatly accomplished it looks very much like cold purpose to keep the tourists, their sticky fingers and indiscriminate curiosity from ever again finding the place. I later learned that during a great storm, Superior overwhelmed the road to claim the sign and with gale winds had snapped the trees.

I could’ve picked my way around the carnage. I might’ve cut fresh trail through the woods or even followed the streambed up, along the ancient trail of great herons and visions of pterodactyls on the wing. But on this day at that sacred place, what signage remained plainly read “Closed for Business”.

Content with that, I returned to the car and chased down what remained of the first snow of winter, to great effect.

A fine day, all around.

The Iron Giant -- Introduction

Iron is the second tine to a forked dragon’s tail that with the Industrial Age first curled around the Superior basin and has yet to release its grip.

King Copper being sly enough to adapt to modern times, today it primes a curiously Keynesian economic pump with Internet towers and student scholarships and infrastructure assistance thrown knowingly around. So while King Copper’s interests are better served in the bargain, rose petals are strewn along its way. Nice job, when ‘ya can create it for yourself.

Iron remains a blind, blundering giant of the 19^th Century; a time when corporate finesse was industrial strength weakness and not even the appearance of that was allowed lest workers lay claim to their labor, the ambitions of Capital come undone and the Republic ultimately fall.

Today Iron stirs afresh. Wielding cash hardened political muscle to clear a wide path, showing little regard for neighborly consideration and with but cursory concern for the breadth of its destructive footprint, the Giant again intends to stride shaded hills.

And you must get the Hell out of the way or be crushed, as Iron recognizes no third option and cares nothing for the mitigation of your hard choices, no matter how cheap the going rate.

*

On the Gogebic Range, courtesy of the Philip J. Kucera Collection

Iron and its child steel transformed the world to make it modern. The Iron Horse. The Plow that Broke the Plains. Buildings ten stories tall. The automobile, for goodness sake. And it’s around iron product we form concrete; to keep the roads and bridges upon which everything runs from ready collapse; as once rebar rusts too well, collapse those do.

All Earth’s iron was formed a couple billion years ago, give or take. With the advent of oxygen sufficient to support complex life, the reproductive age of iron came to a relatively abrupt end. Today most iron roils molten near the Earth’s core and can’t be harvested. What we collect is but an ancient scab to be scraped off by human ingenuity, ample elbow grease applied. A grand portion of North America’s exploitable iron is located in the Superior Basin, another happy accident of ancient geology, the legacy of volcanism and the glories of the Proterozoic eon.

Small wonder the Giant remains uncivilized, even today.

The Gogebic Range straddles northern Wisconsin into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It’s at the southern edge of the Laurentian Plateau, where rocks from the near the beginning of geologic time are exposed to sun, wind, rain and easy pickin’s. And just like Momma told us, picking puts scabs at risk of infection and at best leaves a lasting scar.

From the late 1800’s to about 1920, mines dug deep into the eastern stretch of the Gogebic were the nation’s greatest producers of iron and essential to the creation of industrial America. A wilderness that prior to 1880 was considered “impenetrable” fell quickly in the Giant’s path.

Ironwood MI, courtesy of the Philip J. Kucera Collection

The eastern portion of this ancient range is dotted with remnant mining towns. Viewed from Bessemer at night, these shine like a string of Christmas lights strung across the undermined hills. Through boom & bust, much of the western portion of the Range remained unmolested, as changing technology aligned with geologic coincidence to make the exploitation of iron less profitable there. Save for the axmen, whose considerable efforts irrevocably altered the face of the place, what’s now called the Penokee Hills is nearly as remote and wild a place today as it was before white men first stumbled upon the rough riches within them, though the earliest inhabitants would hardly recognise the hills as theirs.

Some folk just can’t leave well enough alone, especially when hard times beg for easy answers.

Tuesday night the Wisconsin State Senate defeated by a single vote legislation written specifically to ease the way of a privately held Company out of Florida, whose ambition it was to blast and scrape the ancient Penokee Hills from the face of the Earth.

In addition to a persistently fluctuating number of much needed jobs, the intensely private Cline Group’s subsidiary Gogebic Taconite promised to leave us with a hole in the ground that -- depending on who was talking when & to whom -- would have been up to 1.5 miles wide, 1,000 feet deep and some 22 miles long, which is one helluva footprint even for an Iron Giant and so much for the Penokee Hills.

Before it could rain prosperity upon the Range, Gogebic Taconite insisted it first be relieved of 21^st Century environmental considerations and permitting processes. That such prior restrictions placed in the way of outsider’s ambitions were a direct response made by the good citizens of Wisconsin to a hundred years of previous promises come to ill was no concern of theirs.

Upon this insistence that history must be ignored the question turned, at least for today. Immediately, Gogebic Taconite made good on its longstanding threat to pack up its promises and go home, good stinkin’ riddance to those more troublesome citizens of Wisconsin.

The Iron Giant is accustomed to old ways and unconcerned who knows it. Thankfully, it’ll never be the 19^th Century again. Not even in the Northwoods, not even that some prefer otherwise.

Still, no one should believe this high stakes game is over just because a single hand seems played out. The resource remains untapped, awaiting only renewed ambition fueled by fresh perspective earned through temporary setback. Should the Cline Group not return and there’s yet a dollar to be made on iron still in the Range, someone else will ask for credit to buy in.

And maybe Gogebic Taconite’ll make ‘em a deep discount deal on all the spiffy lawn signs presently gone for naught:

Even considering the ‘which side are ‘ya on boys’ crapola offered up by those most eager to dance in the Giant’s shadow, the sort honest discussion that’s essential for citizens to make wise decisions on critical matters of unalterable permanence has held this day for the Penokee Hills. And for every citizen willing to love a wild place for what it is instead of for what corporate ambition promises to make it.

Turns out we’ve made a far more inclusive, critically transparent culture than when last the Giant walked. That’s the thought to hold to for when next it’s sorely needed, as it certainly will be.

*

The Iron Giant’s footsteps stretch far and wide around the Superior Basin. Neither rain nor wind washes those away. They won’t erode beneath the sun, are never completely obscured by resurgent wilderness and the passage of time. Where once the Giant walked at worst there remains infection, at best a permanent scar.

There’s another, more neighborly sign common on the Range: “Mining: Our history, our culture, our future”. That’s a premise that can be properly explored.

Since we can’t miss the Giant’s tracks along our way, over the coming months we’ll look to the history of iron exploitation around Superior to examine exactly what legacy it’s bequeathed to the culture. And we’ll be sure to come back ‘round to the Gogebic as needed, to press informed questions as regards the future.

Under any circumstance, especially those in constant flux during dire times like these, mining the field for hard evidence figures to be a more profitable venture than merely betting to collect on familiar promises easily ignored once the hand’s played out with the resource good & gone…

Show & Tell -- January/February

Today is the first day of meteorological spring.

Like Groundhog Day that’s irrelevant to the passing of the seasons and in this case reflects mostly the passion of weathermen for trying to overlay scientific exactitude over the messiness of natural processes. Winter in the Northwoods might run well into May, but the calendar says its time is fast running out all the same and I’ll take that.

Still. If we all join together, click our heels and say: “There’s no time like spring. There’s no time like spring…” maybe we can hurry things along their way.

In the meantime, here’s a short shot of field work done during the cold, dark season.

This clip is set to a bit of Ralph Vaughn Williams’ 7^th Symphony, named “Sinfonia Antartica” by the composer. The central themes were first conceived for the 1948 British Film “Scott of the Antarctic” and afterwards Vaughn Williams incorporated those into this longer, more cohesive work.

It’s performed here by the London Philharmonic under the direction of the great Bernard Haitink and lifted from my collection of vintage vinyl:

Notes From the Field -- Working the Edge of the World

I try always to arrive on the Range with sufficient daylight left to go someplace and see what’s what. So it was on Super Bowl Sunday and that’s why through all the adventure I shot no usable film. It was most important to see and simply given that I’d return.

All the same and in consideration of what happened, I spent parts of the next couple days looking at Superior from Saxon Harbor to Ontonagon. Much of it was fine. None of it approached the stark natural beauty and wild isolation at the mouth of the Presque Isle. Only there did the world end in ice; snow riven wilderness behind, ice roiled sea in front and the opportunity to work a hard slender ledge between.

By Wednesday evening I was well prepared. Knew to wear my gaiters. Knew to park at the end of the plowed road and walk in, thank-you very much. A child’s plastic sled bought at winter closeout promised easy hauling of my full complement of gear a mile in and back. I carried water and trail mix and my Zippo lighter. Extra batteries for the Mamiya were warm in a secure inside pocket, nestled next to a cell phone that doesn’t work on the far side of the shaded hills.

I geared up, took a last look down 519, locked the car as much from habit as necessity and walked into the winter wilderness. The sled riding atop old hard packed snow proved gratingly loud. I regretted that but not near so much as I’d have regretted 60 pounds on my back.

At the shuttered Ranger Station across from where there’s supposed to be an emergency phone but isn’t, I paused to examine the official Emergency Plan of the Porcupine Mountains State Park in winter, which amounts to you’d best be able to get your sorry ass the 24 miles down to Wakefield or too bad for you. I’m posting the picture of these procedures below but you can trust me on this and should read the thing only if you’ve a heightened appreciation for absurdity:

I went through the forest to the first set of falls. There I found river appearing and disappearing from beneath shelves of ice:

That was nice but access to the river trail down from there was uncertain and being mindful of light that fails inexorably every minute past noon put me quickly back out to the road.

At the parking lot to the trail head I witnessed the full extent of damage we’d done to the snow. It was like a football game was played there, with tractors. I replaced the shovel we’d inadvertently left in the road back in the outhouse where I’d found it and pressed on.

The path through the woods at the top of the hill was flat with snowmobile tracks. There’s marked snowmobile trail all the way up the east side of 519 and this is well beyond that but the deck where stairs lead down to the river is as far as snowmobiles go. I ditched my sled in the snow behind a fallen tree, shouldered my load and headed down the precipitous stairs.

At the bottom I crossed the bridge, pausing to shoot the frigid river and unbroken snow on its banks. Then I crossed on over to the island. Tracks were sparse and on the way to the shore I marked only Wil’s and mine from Sunday along with a single cross country skier I was sure had come after us, accompanied by a dog.

Mostly, even the deer don’t make it down there.

Then I set to work, for fleeting hours in perfect light. I’d like to say I stole time to sit and stare and listen, but I labored straight through from long light to twilight and missed nothing save the undeniable benefit of quiet repose spent in a magnificent place. Sometimes the gig is a hard taskmaster and mine is only to serve.

After sunset I again shouldered the load to climb back out. At the suspension bridge I paused as a startled otter scrambled to decide which hole in the ice was the right one to dive through to the presumptive safety of a rushing, mostly frozen river.

I slowly mounted the burdensome stairs to happily retrieve the sled at the top, then made my way the mile back to the car in near darkness without incident, stowed the gear, secured my film and shed layers of clothes no longer needed. I’d worked up a sweat.

Finally I paused for a bit, to consider where I was, stepping out onto the road to spy Orion looming large and brilliant through the tops of barren trees. Sometimes, the gig is the best there is in the world.

I raised my arms to the sky and let loose a single primal cry. Not merely for a job well done, but for a life so well lived that it’d brought me to that moment. Only deer and otter and coyotes and red squirrels and maybe an owl or two were there to hear the echo of me fall softly in the night.

Just at full dark a sizable critter bounded across the end of Co. 519, probably a deer but who can say for sure. It headed off down the path of least resistance, a little road west that leads to a handful of cabins on the lake. Where beginning later this year and for at least fourteen years full bore, Orvana’s Copperwoods is intended to thrive.

I returned to the car and drove back towards Wakefield down the middle of the road. Dozens of deer watched me pass, hovering eyes shining red from black woods. I drove at moderate speed. There was no call to ruin such a day with carelessness.

Later I remembered that by this time next year, the forest won’t be so silent, the wilderness not nearly as remote. That the pups of the river otter on the ice and their pups too will live lives through in the company of King Copper and if ever they know silence like that evening, it’ll be only in short snatches between dark and dawn, sometimes not even then.

And I wondered -- in our rush to create temporary jobs in order to claim minor victory over ongoing Depression that’ll never yield to transient endeavor, corporate ambition or the wishful thinking of desperate, angry people -- who speaks for these?

Northwoods Follies -- A Dangerous Game

Or, Boys Will Be Boys…

I drove to the Gogebic Range on Super Bowl Sunday and by 2:30 was roughly settled in. That left a few hours of light in the day, waste not want not. Ate a quick pasty for fuel then phoned my friend Wil to see if he could come out and play. At 3:30 we headed for the mouth of the Presque Isle River to see what was what. Planned to be back in the motel sixish, grab a hearty supper at the local pub and catch the 2^nd half of the Big Game, proper work to begin bright & early the following morn.

Last time I tried something like this it didn’t go so well but the afternoon was bright and with nary a breeze the winter woods warmed to an almost balmy 38 degrees. I figured that for good luck. Geez, it was a lovely afternoon.

County 519 is plowed to the South Boundary Road and then no farther. No problem. The way to the trail head was barely a mile of six/eight inches hard pack and smooth sailing. We drove in, parked and walked down to the river. I packed light, it being more important to see than to shoot.

And what sights we saw!

 

Wil at work at the edge of the world

Just after sunset and happy for a couple hours well spent, we climbed back up to the car and promptly ran afoul of the physics of snow. Turns out, warm air and steady sun did us no favors and the hard pack we drove in on was flimsy veneer over powder, sheet ice lurking beneath all. The wheels on Wil’s car gained no traction, save to dig clear down to ice and crazily spin.

We pushed. We pulled. We jacked the car up and piled sticks beneath the tires, jammed blankets atop those for traction, no matter. Three hours later and the only thing that’d changed was we’d moved maybe fifty feet -- the entire way trashed with wood debris and deep powdery ruts from which there was no escape. That and the nearly full moon rose on a gorgeous night to light our plight.

Cell phones don’t work on the far side of the hills and there’s supposed to be an emergency hardline at the ranger’s station. We walked down to find the box intact but the phone missing in action, fat lot ‘o good that did us and so much for contact with the outside world supposedly maintained by the State in case of emergency. We returned to our vehicle and tried again to extract ourselves, to no avail.

We talked of hiking the eight, maybe ten hilly miles to the nearest cabin and maybe a phone. We even began the hike but not half a mile in it was plain the day had taken its toll on me. Underfed and overworked, I’d simply not make it out. Neither would I let Wil leave me to press on heroically alone, as that’s what characters in movies stupidly do so the narrative can thin the cast of no name actors leaving only the stars to sally forth. There being just the two of us, I didn’t much like that scenario.

On the occasion of trouble in the wilderness, I ask one question first: Is the situation potentially mortal?

If not then it’s just one more in a string of adventures, all other considerations dependent on the quality of foolishness that led there to begin with. Such was the case on Sunday night. Prudence demanded we stay put as the car had a full tank of gas and we could pass the night safely in it if it came to that.

I thought it likely that when I didn’t phone to say goodnight either Heather at home would raise the alarm or that as the night grew long Wil’s wife Emily would mount a search. We again walked the mile down to the South Boundary Road to leave a sign for any potential rescuer and post a warning that driving father was at risk of being stranded. In the middle of the road we built a tripod of branches maybe eight feet tall, attached two handkerchiefs near the top to draw attention and stuck a note to the thing that read: “Stop! Don’t drive in. Honk and we’ll come out.” Wil also left an arrow of sticks on the blacktop to point the way, just for good measure. As his old Indian friend would have said: “Good idea”.

The moon lit our path and we returned to the car. Content that what could be done had been done, it was time for a bit of play. After all, we’d found ourselves stuck in a sublime place of shimmering shadow awash in subtle sound, a wondrous world not often freely enjoyed because who drives out at night to stand the middle of nowhere in the dead of winter and just for the Hell of it?

Call it an opportunity.

Bathed in silver light we played with our digital cameras, to only modest effect. Soon spent, I retired to the car. It’d grown cooler and the heat from the blower felt good. From Wil I greedily took my dinner; a curiously strong Altoid mint, wintergreen and one of three left in the tin. Wil then regaled me with the tale of his last winter camping trip, an authentic adventure taken some years before and for which bedtime story I was grateful.

Moonlight streaming through the skeletal forest had earlier deceived me but when Wil abruptly leapt from the car I knew it was headlights cutting through bare winter woods and no trick of the eye. Potential rescue had arrived! By the time I’d roused myself Wil was running across the snow while waving his arms to stop Emily from coming any farther in the family van.

She’d driven right past our warning, so much for well constructed wood craft.

I ambled over to the driver’s side and weakly said “Hi Emily. Thanks.” In reply she shot me that withering ‘Momma’ look known to all men and apparently congenital to women, whether mothers or no. As we preceded her back to the carnage of the parking lot and our stranded car I whispered to Wil: “Boy, you’re in such trouble”.

Emily came up, sternly surveyed the situation and insisted we try once again to extricate Wil’s car. With vaguely renewed vigor we got the thing to move a few feet. The temperature had dropped just enough to reform the hard sheen atop the powder. Though we dared not try to turn around, we proceeded with high caution to back down the winding snow packed road, Wil at the wheel of the van, me in Wil’s car guided only by the headlights of his van. Emily led the way by walking, to prevent us from continuing our adventure in a ditch.

We finally managed to right the vehicles at the South Boundary Road. Will looked at the clock and said, “It’s 11:11”. So it was. On the way back to town, he finished the winter camping story.

Safe in the motel, I first called Heather to allay her fears only to find that she didn’t remember whether I said I’d call again that night or in the morning so she’d just gone to bed, no potential savior there.

At midnight I sat shivering while chewing over a pepperoni stick washed down with a chunk of fine Appenzeller cheese and handfuls of Heather’s homemade trail mix. From the TV I learned the Giants had won the Super Bowl in an exciting game marked by missed opportunity.

Somehow, I was unimpressed.

Three nights later I went back in to work the mouth of the Presque Isle River, this time alone.

The Hard, Splendid Season...

Beauty often obscures danger.

That’s sometimes true of women, certainly. But we’re talking wilderness here.

When masked by the inestimable beauty of winter in the northwoods, danger is immediate and exaggerated ‘cause maybe there’s no getting out of it short of being carried by others after the fact.

Never a place for fools, the wilderness frozen is damned inhospitable. I get that skiers, snowmobilers, ice fishermen and businesses built around all that see things different. To them I wish winter in abundance ‘til sometime late in March when it’ll be getting around to my turn and about stinkin’ time, too.

I’ve been in the field all week and am traveling today so you’ll just have to wait until next Thursday to hear why I wasn’t among the billion or so people watching the Super Bowl.  ‘Cause as it turned out, winter was singularly unimpressed by my plans for Super Bowl Sunday.

In fact, you might even wonder whether the Gods of Ice & Snow enjoyed a good laugh at my expense. That is, if the real world can be said to take any notice of us at all, which it doesn’t. Such monumental indifference is a double-edged sword, let me tell ‘ya.

Until then, please enjoy these bits of winter's singular beauty and from the comfort of your own home, no less…

While the dark season is cruel to us and we'd not survive it without the comfort of construct, Other Nations press forward all the same. What falls dead and fast frozen to the forest floor, ravens eat. And if you'll look closely, you'll see the snow on both sides of the river is littered with tracks. Those are left by otters who dive through holes in the ice to course the barely liquid river beneath and feast on trout the winter through.

Life goes on. Mostly.

Uncommon Perspective

For many of us, life in contemporary America is defined largely by our immense technological reach. Distracted by the complexity of modern construct, increasingly alienated from our neighbors and adrift in community freshly unbound, we forget that most of America remains wide open landscape: sparsely populated and lacking ready access to what the rest of us take for granted. For some, a trip to the Superior Basin is at least in part a means to reconnect with the real world and reclaim healthy perspective.

Of all the memories I savor from the northwoods, the most revealing turns out not to be a tall tale at all, but rather a single phrase uttered by a child in a moment of youthful wonder.

Black River Harbor

Black River Harbor once was a thriving fishing village and is now a park complete with marina, the town having long since been moved lock stock and barrel away from the lake and into the woods where there’s no fish at all, which is a story for another time.

Across the bridge and east from the harbor is a long stretch of sandy beach backed by steep red cliffs where miles of forest abruptly end at the shifting boundary of the big lake. An easy drive from Bessemer, in high season it’s a favorite place for families and tourists alike. Then as the sun sets on warm summer nights, young folk gather in groups to make beach fires in hope of burning lasting memory by doing what young folk do when under cover of darkness and left to their own devices.

On the hottest days even the forest sweats. When the sun climbs high there’s no better remedy for it than immersion in the chill waters of Superior.

*

Heather and I were at the beach and the day was fine. Seagulls lent staccato accompaniment to a soft wash of gentle waves over sand. A man walked past toward the glistening water, his nearly adolescent son in tow. Together they stood silently at the edge of the world and peered off into the gauzy horizon, each dreaming private dreams.

Suddenly the boy pointed to the bottomless blue of the summer sky, arm stretched straight, finger fairly quivering in extended excitement.

 “Look Dad, a jet!”

And sure enough, across that shimmering sky, riding so far above and beyond mighty Superior that the roaring engines weren’t even so much as a whisper, there was indeed a contrail wavering through the upper winds. And for the young boy, in that moment all the forest and lake and marvels of the real world that surrounded him fell away. You could see it. Like a serpent wriggling free of its skin, all at once.

Born to the wonders of wilderness, the siren song of human construct flung across the heavens caught this boy’s imagination and the glittering promise of contemporary America must have seemed very real to him indeed.

While certainly possible, it’s unlikely that any temporary job scabbing metals from the hard earth will keep him long from its embrace…