Intangible (Fall 2023) by Northland College

IN TANG I B LE A VOI C E FOR WILD NESS AND WOND E R

FALL 2023 SIGURD OLSON ENVIRONMENTAL INSTITUTE NORTHLAND COLLEGE

I NTANGI B L E A VOICE FOR WILDNESS AND WONDER

OUR MISSION The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute prepares people to meet the challenges of the future with intellectual and artistic creativity by promoting and protecting experiences of wildness and wonder. To realize its mission, the Institute hosts LoonWatch, the Timber Wolf Alliance, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Awards, and numerous events for young people and adults.

LOONWATCH LoonWatch protects common loons and their aquatic habitats through education, monitoring, and research.

TIMBER WOLF ALLIANCE With a particular focus on Wisconsin and Michigan, the Timber Wolf Alliance uses science-based information to promote human coexistence with wolves and an ecologically-functional wolf population in areas of suitable habitat.

SIGURD OLSON NATURE WRITING AWARDS

Campfires were integral to Sigurd Olson’s north country canoe trips. He cooked meals and heated tea on them. He used them for warmth and to dry wet clothing. He and his companions gathered around them to sing, to share stories, and to stare quietly

Established in 1991, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Awards honor the literary legacy of Sigurd Olson by recognizing and encouraging contemporary writers who capture the spirit of the human relationship with the natural world and who promote awareness, preservation, appreciation, or restoration of the natural world for future generations.

into their flames. As Olson writes in The Singing Wilderness, campfires are “a climax to

YOUTH AND ADULT PROGRAMS

locomotives and fueled by the slash of massive clearcuts. Fires that swept out of human

To promote experiences of wildness and wonder for young people and adults, the Institute offers annual internships, camps, clinics, lectures, conferences, retreats, and outings.

structures of homesteaders and whole communities, burning those who were not able

THE COVER

What it means, for instance, to play with fire—as a precocious eleven-year-old, as a

Happy Camp Complex Fire, California, 2014. Photo by Kari Greer. Editing by Alan Brew Design by Brian Donahue, bedesign, inc. ©2023 Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute 7 15 - 6 8 2-12 2 3 soei@northland.edu • northland.edu/soei

the adventures of the day” and “no matter where an open fire happens” it weaves a spell, reigniting our sense of mystery and lost wonder. But campfires were not the only fires that were integral to Olson’s life. Growing up and living as he did in northern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota during the first decades of the twentieth century, he would also have known fires ignited by the sparks of control across acres and acres, burning vegetation to bare soil, burning the wood-framed to escape. In this issue of Intangible, we invited contributors who know fire intimately to explore its significance in their lives. You will recognize in their responses some common themes. homeowner, as a resident of an ecosystem shaped by and adapted to fire. You will also be invited to consider the role that quiet, human-curated fires have played, and might play, in cultivating places that many know as their homelands and that others know as wild lands. Considerations that challenge common conceptions of wilderness and how best to be in relationship with those places. Through the words, characters, and images of our contributors, I hope you will feel the awe inspired by this classical element that is so, so integral to the human experience.

A L A N B R E W | E X EC U T I V E D I R EC TO R | P H OTO BY CO N O R M I H E L L

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A campfire is the heart of a camp.

the coals, roasting food, and talking. During many of

Some would argue that you can’t have a camp without

those gatherings my brother-in-law Tim Roth, one of

one. You might as well sleep in the back of your car.

my favorite people, has kept us laughing with his tales

The fires I remember most fondly have been beside

of misadventure. He has kept me laughing for five

rivers with friends sharing stories and playing guitars

decades beside campfires from upper Michigan to the

and singing under skies bright with stars; on Great Lakes’

Ontario bush.

beaches with driftwood fires while listening to the heart-

During one family get-together Tim took it upon

and-lungs cadence of the waves; in backyard gatherings

himself to instruct the children in the art of roasting the

with people I love.

perfect marshmallow.

Surely our enjoyment of fire goes beyond its mere

“Patience and precision, Kids,” he said. “No shortcuts!

utility. Are we somehow “hardwired” for it? Do the

Never hold the marshmallow in the flames. Never,

hundreds of thousands of years

NEVER, let it catch fire! Lower it

that our ancestors rel ied on

over the coals, NOT FLAMES, and

campfires to cook, warm them-

no closer than twelve inches, then

selves, keep away predators, and

rotate it slowly, like a chicken on

socialize explain why we’re fasci-

a rotisserie. Only then will it bake

nated with them today?

to that beautiful uniform caramel

T he a nt h r opolog i st Pol ly

brown…”

Wiessner suggests there might

Tim became so engrossed in

be such a link. While living with

his lecture that he forgot to watch

Ju/’hoansi (!Kung) Bushmen in

his marshmallow. At the moment

southern Africa in the 1970s and

it reached its most gorgeous

again in 2011-13, she recorded and

autumn-brown, our eleven-year-

analyzed hundreds of campfire

old niece McKenzie extended her

conversations. She found that

roasting stick through the flames

daytime talk focused on gossip

and, without Tim noticing, gently

and practical matters such as

speared the marshmallow and

food,

transferred it to her stick. It was

animal

husbandry,

and

conflicts among neighbors. But

a masterful act of thievery.

nighttime was different. The day’s work was done, the

Only when Tim heard the laughter did he notice he

stars were out, the air was cooling—it was time to relax

had been robbed. His mouth dropped open, and he looked

and bond with the group. Fire, she concluded, was “the

across the fire at McKenzie. She met his eyes, took a bite

original social media.” People gathered around it to laugh,

from that perfect golden marshmallow, and said with a

sing, dance, and, above all, to tell stories.

pixie grin, “Yum.”

That should not be surprising. We are, after all, the story-telling species. And there seems little doubt that

Jerry Dennis lives near the shore of Lake Michigan, and he

our story-telling skills—and our languages themselves—

is the author of many books about nature and the outdoors,

were refined around fires.

including the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award winner,

In my family it has long been our tradition to

The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the

gather around backyard fires—four generations of

Inland Seas. A 20th Anniversary Edition of that book will

kids and adults sitting on logs and lawn chairs, poking

be released in spring 2024 by St. Martin’s Press.

P H OTO BY N I CO L E B R E W

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Fall morning, Eldorado Canyon.

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PLAYING WITH FIRE

HISTORIC PHOTOS FROM THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY FOR LOCAL HISTORY, BOULDER, CO.

El Dorado Springs entrance gate

As the blaze crested the hillside

in the morning and the last turns them gloaming orange

above my house, I stopped packing to stare.

in the evenings. Golden and amber lichens streak the

The yellow-gold flames roared down the slopes, kicking up dark plumes of smoke. This time, fire held the high ground and the best we could do was flee fast with few possessions, chased by its accelerating advances.

canyon walls. Everywhere the color of fire reins—this is fire’s land. Even so, it lures settlers seeking beauty and all that is real and alive. Mere moths, we like to think that we are

But the next day, I returned to an intact house, a still

playing a game. In our hands, we hold weather forecasts,

green garden—feeling like I had snatched a reprieve

alerts, precautionary landscaping, and non-combustible

in this game we play with fire. Along with the other

materials. Fire’s hand holds the fast, dry winds—

residents of Eldorado Springs, I have rehashed this scene

Chinooks and Westerlies—that race down the canyon

several times in the last decade. The first alarm—the

from the Rocky Mountains, an assortment of kindling

hot, acrid air—spurs a frenetic gathering of pets and

parched by climate change, and lightning strikes.

passports and a hasty escape along the one way out.

On a fall morning, I take my daily pilgrimage into the

Our village, a cluster of mismatched houses, lies at the

canyon and ponder who currently has the upper hand.

mouth of Eldorado Canyon in Colorado, where sandstone

It has rained a lot this year, and lush greenery lines the

cliffs, spires and buttresses tower over a cascading

fast-flowing creek. I pass the imposing Bastille Crag,

creek and narrow dirt road that leads to nowhere. The

sporting cracks and flakes, and draw comfort from the

first rays of sunshine set the rocks glowing bright red

rock appearing motley brown in the shade—not a flame

T E X T A N D P H OTO S BY JA N E PA L M E R

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Eldorado Canyon

color. I reassure myself that wits and skill will help us

the site of the old Crags Hotel, which was destroyed by

survive, if not win, this heated duel.

wildfire in 1912. Over the next few decades, four more

The very road I’m walking on is testament to the

fires razed the rest of the resort. Today, all that remains

determination of ambitious settlers. On July 4, 1905, the

are a ring of stones marking an old fountain, a well-built

first real residence, Eldorado Springs Resort, officially

retaining wall, and one internal feature—a fireplace.

opened to the public, and its owners touted the restful

Standing here, I realize there is no game. And then,

and restorative qualities of the canyon’s natural spring

with a gambler’s hubris no longer on my side, I peer into

water. With the completion of a train line from Denver,

the future. Maybe sometimes I’ll escape the blaze and

thousands of people flocked to Eldorado Springs daily,

return to live in my house for another month, or year,

and the village expanded to offer tents, dormitories,

but there will come a time when, ignited by lightning, or

cottages and three hotels—the Grandview, the Crags,

even human foolishness, a giant fire storm will funnel

and the New Eldorado. Frequent visitors, including

through the canyon, propelled by winds, and it will shoot

Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, enjoyed the spring-fed

into the village like the flame from the neck of a Bunsen

pools, the ballrooms, roller and ice skating. The resort’s

burner. The inferno will flatten houses, blacken gardens,

popularity grew so much it earned the title “Coney Island

and gut cars. We will be lucky to escape with our lives.

of the West.”

This is what it means to play with fire.

Continuing my walk, I branch off the dirt road onto

the Fowler Trail which, after a half hour of steady incline,

Jane Palmer is a freelance science journalist who lives in

offers a panoramic view of the Continental Divide. Two

Eldorado Springs, Colorado, where she hikes, climbs, or

thirds of the way up I arrive at an artificially flattened

swims in the nearby canyon daily. Some of her stories can

clearing cut into the mountainside. The spot marks

be found at tjanepalmer.com.

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Clockwise from top left: Eldorado Canyon; The Crags Hotel; Fireplace from Eldorado Springs Resort; Colored rocks; The Crags Hotel.

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OUR SHIFTING

FIRE

Pets, passports, photos: that’s what we took at 3 a.m. when the reverse 9-1-1 came, and soon after the volunteer search and rescue guy pounded and yelled Mikaela, get out, it’s right there, and we could see the fire ourselves, the glowing rubble of fire being swept at us with a huge broom of wind collecting debris into our corner of the planet. We were moving fast and yet, for a second, I stopped barefoot on the wooden floor to observe the dissonance of my thoughts, turning from but this is my home to here the fire is. This wildfire, which had started so far away, was now cresting Sleeping Bear Mountain again. Impossible. It was supposed to be going in the other direction now. And yet, this glowing ball. How can the world shift so? The winds, the fire, my thoughts, our life? Then I moved, fast, to start the sprinkler system and my son caught chickens and plonked them uncaged into the car. They stood on car seats clucking and climbing over the golden retriever and the cockatiels and boxes of diaries and photos. We piled in and drove away, silent and scared, police lights flashing in the dark, shifting from red to blue, red to blue.

We drove down the mountain, past the tents at Gretel’s, then north. My cousin’s ranch is there, and by the time we arrived, other evacuees were already congregating in the lighted kitchen. Their animals were being unloaded, too: a blind horse, donkeys, dogs. My cousin made coffee and my uncle stood at the window watching the plumes of smoke, confused by not only his Alzheimer’s but by this sudden onslaught. The sun rose; the sky lit. The winds continued to storm, huge plumes of smoke swirled, ash sifted onto our cars and into our lungs. Even from here, we could hear the sirens; the helicopters and tankers filled the air taking water from the lake to fire. I felt seasick with confusion. Flee? Stick to home ground? I felt shifted apart, my bones and tendons and cells all slightly altered and too loosely strung together. Suddenly this was our tragedy, and the everpresent-newest-calamity-on the news was ours, and I couldn’t watch it with the semi-disinterested ah, too bad for those people, because there was no such protective thought to go to; no knowledge that it was them, and not me.

T E X T BY L AU R A P R I TC H E T T | P H OTO BY K A R I G R E E R

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In the days following, surprising things shifted. Hummingbirds, for instance, appeared everywhere, driven down from the mountains. Deer, elk, bear, moose all appeared. Then, too, the fire shifted yet again, first away from our home, then toward. We studied perimeter maps from the kitchen table: the fire was within two miles, then one, then a half. Then we started counting in yards. Emotions shifted. These forests needed to burn, devastated as they are by the pine beetle. But a calmer fire would be better; a fire that could be controlled; a fire that wasn’t gobbling up people’s homes. Some were furious: the lack of prescribed burns, the lack of preparedness plan, the small initial response. And yet, simultaneously, there was awe and something way beyond gratitude: for the individual heroes, for the tanker pilots’ skill, for wildland firefighters, for kids setting up lemonade stands with free lemonade and donations given to those now without homes. Joy for one person’s luck, sorrow for another’s loss. The After-Math Ranch burned, Norman’s place burned, and Kay is already dead. Ours, we don’t know. But the biggest shift seems to be in my body. It is painful—the real, tangible, excruciating anxiety that occurs when you can no longer self-guard, self-protect. There is no off-switch, no safer ground. I am stuck in my own body, facing the tragedy face-on. The guy at the post office, for example, standing in line with me to get our undeliverable mail, stared at me blankly and simply said that his home was gone, just gone, and that he had no insurance. And I thought: we humans can’t truly embrace every horror, or else we’d be submerged in a nanosecond by the unspeakable suffering that this world offers. But at times like this, it does just that. Embrace the unspeakable suffering that is everyone, including starving children half a world away. Suddenly it was all in my heart, there in line at the post office. As much as I asked my mind to send me on a tangent, it simply would not. It could not, or it would not. It just left me hanging there, raw and open, gasping for breath. Laura Pritchett is the author of seven novels, including her most recent, Playing with (Wild) Fire, from which “Our Shifting Fire” is excerpted. She’s also the author of two nonfiction books and editor of three environmental-based anthologies. Laura developed and directs the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University. When not writing or teaching, she’s generally found exploring the mountains of her home state of Colorado. You may follow Laura at laurapritchett.com.

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PRIMAL PRIVILEGE

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T E X T A N D P H OTO S BY K A R I G R E E R

Fire is something we live with in the West. It is a common visitor each summer, the ubiquitous smoke haze marking the season of this mysterious natural force. Smoke columns loom on the horizon and look closer than they really are. I always wanted to know the origin of these columns, what was actually happening there. I grew up in north Idaho on a small ranch near Coeur d’Alene. My parents taught us about living on the land and connecting to nature. We harvested and preserved our food, cut firewood for winter, put up hay for the livestock. Fire was a tool on our land, for pastures and wooded areas. Burning was second nature, and it happened on a cycle; we knew when to burn the fields, when to burn the slash from our logging and firewood cutting. We knew by instinct the times not to burn as well. We were backpackers, old school style, with no water filters or tents. We drank from creeks and lakes, slept under the stars, and when it rained found shelter or made it. Campfires were our constant and meant our warmth and our food, the central focus of our existence. They defined the place where we made our temporary home and where we came back to after daily adventures. Often, we hiked in areas that had burned, and I was fascinated by the mystical difference in the landscape. Silvery sentinel trees towering over swaths of huckleberry bushes and wildflowers—Indian paintbrush, beargrass, syringa. In these areas, there were more birds and marmots and pikas than anywhere else, occasional deer, a few wolves, once a grizzly. These burned areas were a wonderland of newness and light apart from the shadowy forest. They felt right, part of the cycle. On all these adventures, I was the kid with the camera, enthralled with capturing things on film and motivated by the challenge of accurately depicting what I saw and experienced—a strong drive that has informed my life choices. Thus, I came to a career in fire, and ultimately fire photography, with a head start. Fighting fire is much like ranch work and backpacking: manual labor, hiking and sleeping out, being in tune with nature and aware of changing weather, enduring a distinct amount of discomfort, and not wishing to be anywhere else. And your job as a wildland firefighter is to get close, to find and understand the origins of the smoke columns that so intrigued me as a child.

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But truth be told, fighting fire was mostly a summer job for me, one outside that was challenging and rewarding; my heart belongs to photography, and I crave opportunities to be a witness bearer, to show things not usually seen. I came to understand that the forces we exert can only coax fire into calming down and giving up its push. I learned the value of patience and diligence, the swing of tools and many hands cutting a line. I experienced first-hand how all-encompassing fire can be for those who live it. The intense focus, shared toil, mutual aid, and camaraderie. The bonding that comes through hard work and inherent risk. The flow of faces as they progress through the ranks over time. The extraordinary events that take even seasoned vets by surprise. The grind of it all. To all of this, through the lens of a camera, I want to bear witness. Fire is often destructive, when it burns forests to ash and shifts micro-climates to being more arid, when it burns homes and infrastructure and kills wild animals on broad landscapes. But fire is the most natural of forces, predominantly sparked by lightning, and so we must contend with it if we are to live with it. We have fought it maybe too vigorously and allowed overgrowth in favor of a low tolerance for living with nature. We’ve moved deeper into the wildlands and in doing so have moved into fire’s realm. I feel we must go back to a more indigenous attitude that knew fire was a force to be respected and utilized with care, for clearing out and replenishing the land and completing its part of nature’s cycle. That without balance symbiosis is lost. Getting close to a wildfire is a primal privilege. I have come to know different faces of fire, the personae it assumes. Sometimes angry and fierce, conspiring with the wind, eating everything in its path. Sometimes gentle and flickering, yet intent on consumption, spreading where the land takes it. At first, I felt fear. I had no idea what to expect and what fire would do. The immensity of a million campfires, a landscape en incendio, can be overwhelming. With time and immersion, I have come to a cautious reverence, a delight at the spectacle and an expectation of surprise. It is always extraordinary. Anthropic transfiguration is incongruous to normal life. Maybe it’s an elemental sense of wonder and smallness? I feel joy at being a witness and finding purpose. To view more of Kari’s photos and to follow her journeys with fire, see wildland-fires.smugmug.com

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RESTORING RELATIONSHIPS WITH

QUIET FIRE

This is a story about fire in the forests and ecosystems of the Great Lakes Region; by that we mean to write about relationships. The relationships we write about, however, differ depending on the storyteller. Notions of wilderness, pristine and untrammeled by humans, conflict with an understanding of people as active participants in a web of interconnected relationships. These different perspectives carry immense implications for how best to care for land and place. In particular, how are places that carry wilderness or natural area designations best served to enable thriving ecosystems? Is the right approach to keep people out and minimize their impacts? Or does that approach to protection miss an important understanding of the long history shared between people and the land? The story of fire in Great Lakes forests helps answer these questions. T E X T A N D P H OTO S BY E VA N L A R S O N A N D L A N E J O H N S O N

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Before we start our story, however, we ask you, the

human generations, beings who can share memories that

reader, to do an exercise. Take a piece of paper, pen or

are rooted in place, accurate to the year and season, and

pencil, and a minute. Think about all the ways humans

can persist for centuries, even when the human stories

impact the environment. List them. Please, do this now

connected to those same places are disrupted, removed,

and then set that piece of paper aside. We’ll come back

or lost. For example, the drought of 1804, though not

to it later.

well-described in written weather records, was a year when the rains failed and almost every red pine growing

FIRE, PLACE, AND PEOPLE

across the Border Lakes Region laid on an extremely thin ring that stands out in stark contrast to the years of

Fire is an elemental part of Northern forests—no

abundance that surrounded it. The summer of 1747 was

different than summer rain, winter snow, or autumn

a year of two seasons—heat and drought pushed trees

winds. Reminders of this connection drifted into the

to the brink of dormancy midseason before late summer

lives and lungs of people and communities across the

rains arrived and most trees reinvested in growing to

Midwest on the smoke of northern fires that burned

result in a good year. And it is more than the weather and

throughout the summer of 2023. In 2021, it was smoke

climate that trees record.

from California, Quetico Provincial Park, or more locally

Embedded among these patterns of wide and narrow

from the Greenwood fire on the Superior National Forest.

rings are fire scars—curving gaps etched into the cells

A perspective offered by satellites outlines the

of living wood where, in the words of Robin Kimmerer,

healing scars of the 2006 Cavity Lake, 2007 Ham Lake,

fire-boiled resin crystalized

and 2011 Pagami Creek fires within the wilderness, while

to preserve history. The

the 2013 Germann Road fire boundary overlaps with

first of these marks shares

rural neighborhoods in northwest Wisconsin. Memories

the moment that the heat

of the historical firestorms of Peshtigo, Hinckley, and

of a passing fire eddied and

Cloquet are held in museums, roadside monuments, and

swirled on the lee of the

family lore, as well as the policies and mythologies that

tree, soaked through the

still shape fire management today.

insulating bark, and heated

You could call many of the events named above

the cells of the cambium to

loud fires—they clamor through forests and the media

the point of death. This did

demanding attention. Recent fires illuminate the stories

not occur around the entire

of climate change, fire exclusion, and fuel accumulation,

trunk of the tree, only a

while historical fires demonstrate the damaging effects

portion that now, centuries

of colonization and associated landuse. Collectively,

later, exists as a fire-scar circling a portion of the tree’s

these fires demonstrate that efforts to remove fire from

circumference and presenting a tangible record of the

our lives and wildlands are not sustainable. But what if

first time the tree lived through a fire. Subsequent fires

we look to the stories of quiet fires—gentler fires that

typically trace another scar around the first, with ripples

were common in the past and whose history lingers

of healing wood echoing each fire recorded in the rings

among the rings of old pine trees and stumps. Where did

of the tree. We know for a fact that these were often not

these fires burn? Why did they stop? What can the stories

the loud fires covered by the news; we know that because

of quiet fires teach us about being in better relationship

this tree and others around it survived. Subsequent fires

with the land and each other?

recorded on the same tree were quiet, too, returning every ten to twenty years with only the fallen needles

THE STORIES TREES WHISPER

and newly grown brush of that interval available to fuel the flames. Such conditions are markedly different

To learn more about these quiet fires, we turn to

from what is currently seen in many forests across the

dendrochronology, the science of translating stories

region, where uninterrupted forest growth over the past

written in the rings of trees into a language that is more

one hundred years has created dense layers of living

familiar to people. This process helps us relate to the

and dead trees and brush that will provide abundant fuel

lived experiences of beings whose lives span multiple

for the next fire.

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INDIGENOUS FIRE STEWARDSHIP, DISRUPTED

Lake from plants who are dependent on fire, and how her grandmother did the same before her, as did her grandmother’s grandma. Vern will tell you why, after

What caused this change? What moved fire from an

generations of people and pines sharing lives connected

integral part of forest ecosystems to near total absence? It

through flame, the fires stopped. Suggest to Jeff Savage,

was not the result of Smokey Bear and his pleas to prevent

director of the Fond du Lac Cultural Center and Museum,

forest fires—his message and megaphone did not mature

that you think the abrupt cessation of fires recorded

until decades after fires stopped burning in many places.

in the Cloquet Forestry Center fire history may be an

Nor was it the massive investment in fire suppression

expression of interrupted Indigenous Fire Stewardship,

efforts that followed The Great Fires of 1910, or the

and he may look you directly in the eyes and say, “You’re

mechanization of fire suppression following World War II.

just telling me what I already know.”

Why then, did a tree on Voyageurs Island in the midst

What happens to the forest, then, when relationships

of great Lake Saganaga record fires in 1702… 1718… 1743…

maintained through millennia are suppressed to serve

1758… 1770… 1780… 1795… 1823… 1842… and then stop after one

an extractive colonial system bent on removing people

last fire in 1850? The same is true on Minnesota Point at

and fire from the land to pursue exhaustible natural

the head of Lake Superior, where red pines recorded fires

resources? What happens when a false wilderness ideal—

in 1789, 1804, 1822, 1826, 1829, 1843, and 1846, and then no

land untrammeled—is developed in response to rampant

more. Or consider the University of Minnesota Cloquet

industry and development? The same red pines who carry

Forestry Center, which lies within

the stories of past fires across

the boundaries of Nagaajiwanaang,

this time of removal offer further

the Reservation of the Fond du Lac

insight. And, as Western societies

Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

grapple with understanding the

Here the rings of old-growth pines

depth of trauma among Indigenous

show recurrent fires burning

communities impacted by settler-

across what is now the forestry

colonialism, these trees ask us to

center every 13 years from the start

consider their trauma as well.

of the record in 1757 up to the last

fire in 1909, the year the forestry center was established. These

the

absence

once-

recurrent fires, stands of lingering red pine have seen the risk of

changes are not the result of fire suppression or of putting

severe fires mount as biodiversity declines, fuels and

fires out. These changes are an expression of disrupted

shade increase, and fire-intolerant species proliferate.

relationships that removed ignitions from the landscape.

Over the more than one century during which these

The trees tell us the story of what happened, that

changes took place, red pines have cast their seeds on

quiet fires burned often and then they stopped; the

increasingly unreceptive land that is choked with dense

explanation for why comes from the stories of people

vegetation and covered in forest litter and damp shade.

whose ancestors brought quiet fires to specific places at

Generation after generation, the seeds of red pine wither

specific times.

and fail.

Ask Melonee Montano of Red Cliff about stories

The future for most wilderness stands of red

shared by her elders, and she may describe the role of

pine, despite being protected from logging and urban

Ishkode, fire, in promoting blueberry harvests that fed

development, is limited. Most stands will succumb to the

her ancestors. She may tell you about the blueberry

flames of a catastrophic blaze running through canopies

train that hauled carloads of berries from northern

and fed by one hundred years of accumulated fuel

Wisconsin to southern urban areas. She may also share

embodied in balsam fir, white pine, and spruce. Or, they

that members of her family were thrown in jail for

will succumb more gradually to shade, wind, and the slow

practicing traditional land stewardship, including the

process of ecological succession. These eventualities will

cultural burns that were linked to this abundance. Ask

occur at all but the driest sites, and red pine will diminish

Vern Northrup of Fond du Lac about the berries and

across the landscape. The evidence for this future

medicines his grandma used to gather near Deadfish

is stark—a regeneration survey that spanned 5,540

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square meters of the most beautiful, glorious red pine

Go back to the list you wrote at the start of this story.

stands in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

Look over the impacts you wrote down. How many are

documented only eight red pine seedlings. Eight.

positive or constructive? Pollution of water, air and soil, climate change, and species loss or extinction were likely

RETURNING BENEFICIAL FIRE TO WILDLANDS

included. Did you also write down “enrich biodiversity”? “Enhance balance”? “Promote resilience”? “Care for our relatives”? Were you subconsciously limited or biased by

The wilderness ideal imagined and shared by people

Western notions of humans as separate from nature—as

like Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and

unnatural? How does this limit your ability to live in good

Sigurd Olson played a crucial role in pushing back against

relation with the world around you? How does it limit

the feverish pitch of industrialization that was rapidly

your ability to envision a world of abundance, rooted in

driving the disappearance of wildlands everywhere, but

reciprocity? Can you imagine living within relationships

the extension of their work is problematic in ways that are

that promote rich, diverse, and beautiful landscapes? Can

revealed by the shared history of people, fire, and pines.

you image that feelings of responsibility can be balanced

The 1964 Wilderness Act built on centuries of Western thought to codify people as separate from

by the optimism of knowing your place in the world, and that it is a good place?

nature, to implicitly state that the impacts of humans

The story of fire in Great Lakes Forests illuminates

are unnatural and, by definition, damaging to the world

the way forward. Fire must be welcomed back into our

around us. Within this notion, prescribed fire is widely

wildlands, from our backyards to our most cherished

considered antithetical to wilderness, yet the rings

wilderness landscapes. In doing this, we will create

of trees in the forests of the Boundary Waters Canoe

spaces for healing. Healing between people and land,

Area Wilderness demonstrate that it is now a landscape

healing among cultures, and healing of grasslands and

that has been separated from its original stewards.

forests. Healing relationships. In the same act, we can

Removing people and their fires from the stands of

create opportunities to recognize humans as active

massive red pines that helped inspire the Wilderness

participants and valued contributors to the complex,

Act and justify wilderness designation, both protected

diverse, and beautiful systems of life that surround

and doomed these trees. Because many people do not

us. Webs of relationships, entwined through acts of

know, or understand, the story preserved in the fire-

reciprocity, of which we are a part. Bringing quiet fire to

scarred rings of red pines, application of the Wilderness

wilderness in partnership with communities who have

Act has been misguided. Fire suppression and exclusion

done the same for millennia is the first step, and we can

is a trammeling effect. The return of quiet fire begins

take it now.

the process of untrammeling. It is time to revise our conceptions of wilderness.

Evan Larson is a professor in the Department of

Some Western Science practitioners have paused

Environmental Sciences & Society at the University of

recently to listen attentively and with respect to the

Wisconsin-Platteville, where he teaches research-infused

wisdom of elders, among both people and trees. The

courses that blur the boundary between physical and

stories of these elders demonstrate that quiet fires

cultural geography. He can be reached at larsonev@

are an integral, defining element of forests in the

uwplatt.edu

Great Lakes region. These frequent fires enhanced biodiversity and stabilized forest systems through

Lane Johnson is a Research Forester at the University of

periods of dramatic environmental change. They have

Minnesota Cloquet Forestry Center. Through his work, he

the potential to increase forest resiliency to changing

aims to reconnect people to the benefits of wildland fire

climate, unplanned wildfire, and non-native species in

through fire-focused research, education, management,

the years ahead. But, our current relationship with fire

and policy. He can be reached at lbj@umn.edu.

limits this potential. The knowledge and understanding required to reshape this relationship is just beginning to

Follow the link behind this QR code to explore

emerge in Western Science; it has always been there in

more of the science, media, and outreach

the stories of our elders.

behind this story.

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“Fire must be welcomed back into our wildlands, from our backyards to our most cherished wilderness landscapes. In doing this, we will create spaces for healing. Healing between people and land, healing among cultures, and healing of grasslands and forests.” — Evan Larson and Lane Johnson

Sweetgrass and Red Pine, photo by Evan Larson.

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