Call of the Wild

“Its a mad dog’s promenade, so baby, walk tall, or don’t walk at all….”—-Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band “New York City Promenade”

When did i become so recently interested in, guided by the weather even as it dictates now so much here of doing, what is possible in this natural environment, what can be accomplished, must be and daily, as the lurking of winter even in the sheep clothing of northern summer’s pre-emptive lush abandon elicits a stern correction of that enticing lethargy brought on by fireflies spied at night flickering on ceiling in breeze blown bed under the noses of two dogs laying across me wearied by increasingly urgent accompaniment into the wilds. Time is telescoped here in such a climate, the precious warmed days hoarded, doled out like scant water, shreds of food in a lost drifting open boat. Surely the sly encroachment of enfeebled old age has something to do with it: wariness of brittle limbs now wobbly as the fawn crouched at mother’s feet at side of forest and even dramatically absurdly cramped in mornings pulling on jeans and boots, bending down for socks as the addled mind contemplates what it needs to do, what is required and there is the simple algebra of survival in all of it and actually with all the massed diversions of the world this is a relief, not to dwell too much on the perceptions of “the other”. I am capable enough at this age and always easy with solitude, books and thought and memory as companions having never been shy of surrounding with those mentors whose skills may put my own in a poorer light, those i craved to emulate with carpentry, fishing, music, humor, even the seduction of desirable women. And there i have been blessed at times and cursed perhaps as well by startling treasure even while trying to parse, pry out the ingrained habits which may have at times marked me as shallow in this lifelong chemical attraction which can threaten at times to suborn identity if not carefully monitored.

A chill rain came this the first day of summer here as elsewhere sweltered under heat as if pre-emptive of the debate to come, that heat too, in this northwestern portion of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. An animal-configuration on any map and here pictured by a birds-eye maple cut-out on the wall of my shack and just a few miles from a crossroads at the head of an elongated Lake Superior bay where one can choose to head north up onto the Keweenaw the ear of the rabbit or west towards its eyes the Porcupine Mountain wilderness along shore briefly to Wisconsin as it yields briefly amongst sprawl of scattered islands giving way to Duluth or east back towards the Yellow Dog Plains that particular fascination for me which lies south of the private and mysterious Huron Mountain club which claims acreage right up to the lake and just north of the McCormick Tract. A fascination engendered back a few years ago camped in the off grid trailer overlooking the pristine lake and bypassed several times a day by bald eagles commuting from deep woods 2-tracks, dead-end logging roads to find not only proximity and exploration but reading of its ghosts, the past, and that of Marquette where the humped neck gathered with anticipation along a road you take in now and each year with more reverence as the names of rivers and logging and mining towns unravel below the Huron Mountains, below the McCormick Tract both sacred now in mind and body, gleaned from reading and some walking too.

I have taken again to readingthe bible of this area “Superior Heartland: A Backwoods History” and for spiritual heft by the late great Paul Rydholm and referring to google maps and his own included in the volumes where dotted lines cross rivers like the Yellow Dog and Salmon Trout and the first cabins built by the Andersen family who settled that area are marked out astride ponds and referenced by roads that have been improved on now but are still rugged. They were initially immigrants from Denmark and Christ the youngest son was called to the woods from Europe after his brother Jim and father Nels and persevering mother Johanna carved out a piece of claim enabled by the Homesteader Act passed only because the opposition to it in Congress was removed with secession of the south whose legislators had always opposed it. They cut heavy jack pine for the cabin sills and split oak shingles from hardened stumps, dug a well, and used single shot rifles and snowshoes and salt, flour, sugar to survive, walking miles into Skanee or down to the logging camps McCormick had set up to accompany his buildings on White Deer Lake. His lawyer Cyrus Bentley hired the family to blaze trails, corduroy a path thru the swamps and over hills so he and friends could make the long trek north to the Club and their friends spread out behind Mountain Lake along the Pine river and in full face, glory, of Superior where the Voyageurs once paddled. The stories in those volumes start with the indigenous Huron, then Ojibwe (Chippewa) who populated over to Baraga but move into the settling of Marquette which harbor dedicated to shipping of ore and lumber also sent out almost as footnote to its other contributions of talent and foresite the sandstone used to build the Empire State building. Men with money from Chicago drifted up and their many and some failed enterprises trickled down into the paid labor, the pocketd of the working men and women who in the end make the history. The life of Christ Andersen alone would make a fine film or Ryndholm himself who documented it back when he had bought the halfway cabin of those walks for himself and after 14 years of work for the Huron Mountain Club and so many familial ties and anecdotes and with his education didn’t miss the mark of preserving it all in print and black and white photos gathered together. It makes me feel small but strong to contemplate the solitariness and humility of these humans, natives and emigrants alike from Finland, Sweden the northern climates which allowed them to acclimate, adapt and with no social media other than a twice a year meet and greet with the nearest neighbor 5 miles away. They would laugh for sure at my joy in fooling small jewelled trout with artifice such as this.

But what i do for recreation now in the past few years of harder camping as i made my own place habitable helped bridge the gap of forgetfulness, that hand to mouth is a good way to regain solid footing, accepting fire is warmth and trout, corn banked against coals sustenance, that stores in proximity are of value even if they offer scant pickings, there will be water, eggs, milk and ice. If only this same harshness could be made known in our own pampered existence from time to time we would recoil at the mistakes we may make in choosing our leaders. It should be based on character and what better shows character than an appreciation, an embrace of and empathy with the common bonds which hold us close not divide and bog down with fear, recrimination. Thats the gift of nature, its intuitive uncomplicated subtext, the peace it brings with resolution, water flowing over rock cannot be denied.

I find this compulsion to post until i get it right, and what is right if not an honest, unvarnished take but in one’s own voice. We’ll meet again….onnnnnnn gods golden shore