IN TANG I B LE A VOI C E FO R WILD NESS AND WOND E R
S PRI NG 2021
Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute NORTHLAND COLLEGE
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 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.
YOUTH AND ADULT PROGRAMS To promote experiences of wildness and wonder for young people and adults, the Institute offers annual internships, camps, clinics, lectures, conferences, retreats, and outings.
©2021 S igu rd O l so n Env i ro nme nt al Ins t it ute 7 1 5-6 82-1 223 so e i @ no r t h l a n d .e d u no r t h l a nd.e du /so e i
Sigurd Olson’s well-worn map of canoe routes.
JO U R N EYS Homo Sapiens are travelers. By foot, paddle, and sail, we have moved from one place to another, from one continent to the next. Sigurd Olson understood this. Travel was integral to his life, striking out and coming back, and journeys, both intimate and expansive, are the foundation for many of his essays. In this issue of Intangible, our writers and photographers reflect on journeys they have taken in wild places, journeys that have shaped their lives, their understanding of themselves, and their understanding of others. As Aimee Chase writes, journeys have “a way of distilling the most important, and honest aspects of life into easily digestible bites.” But, as you will see, some bites are easier to digest than others. How do we reconcile the disparities? The fact that places of wildness can be both “lovely and terrible,” as Wallace Stegner once wrote. What if your wilderness journey is overshadowed by cultural messages that your body isn’t the right size, or shape, or color? Or, what if your wilderness journey is a desperate, dangerous migration from a place of poverty to a place of perceived wealth? The essays and photos that follow explore these questions, and others. They invite us to reflect on the role of journeys in our own lives, and they help us to appreciate what it means to look and see, what it means to be present in our relationships, and what it means when “the world as we find it, right in front of us,” is enough.
A LA N B REW | E X ECU T IVE D IRECTOR
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B E I NG PR ESENT IN A LARGE L AN D The late Canadian environmental philosopher and writer John Livingston reminded us that human survival in the natural world depends on a variety of “prostheses.” Hunkered down in subarctic Quebec on the third day of an August gale, I’m thinking about how a mountaineering tent, warm clothes and down sleeping bags are all that’s keeping my partner and me somewhat comfortable. We’ve scrounged all the twigs of firewood the barrens will provide; tonight we’ll burn fossil fuel on a camp stove to cook a meal we dehydrated months ago at home. Meanwhile, the tent strains in the gusts, pulling against guy lines secured to our 85-pound canoe on the windward side. Despite all the food and hardware we’ve packed to persist for an eight-week journey in this harsh and wild place, waiting is our only choice. We memorize the maps and inventory our remaining provisions. Then we daydream of a faraway world: The projects we’ll tackle, people we’ll see and books we’ll read back home—if the wind ever subsides. It’s frustrating and humbling to be confined to life in the present tense. Yet months from now, I know I will yearn to be the hapless “rogue primate” Livingston described. BY CON OR M IHE LL
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“ It’s frustrating and humbling to be confined to life in the present tense.”
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As I’ve become more adept at long-distance wilderness travel—and more addicted to its rewards—I have attempted to reduce the prosthetic margins between myself and the natural world. Perhaps this is a new definition of the term “minimalist.” There’s an aesthetic to paddling a wood-canvas canoe in rock-studded whitewater that I found hard to explain until midway through a month-long trip on northern Ontario’s Albany River. I was drawn to my beautiful Prospector canoe for its elegance and beauty, crafted by artisans on a century-old building form. Its high-volume, seaworthy hull speaks to its capacity for expeditions in all types of water; yet its fabric shell and cedar frame demand careful handling. We had already carefully negotiated dozens of rock-studded rapids without a scratch when a simple misstep on a portage sent the canoe tumbling. My spirits were crushed when I saw a sharp aspen sapling poking through torn canvas and splintered planking. The panic subsided when I realized I could make a repair: A little glue and a scrap of cotton and the canoe was nearly as good as new. With senses heightened to all that can go wrong, we’re even more satisfied when it doesn’t. On a long trip, the weight and utility of every item must be carefully considered. Oldfashioned fire eliminates the bulk of carrying a stove and gallons of fuel. Fire has taught me to see the forest differently, constantly looking for hard, barkless standing deadwood that makes the best natural fuel. There’s a moment of communion before I harvest firewood, when I consider how the view will change when I remove a tree. I get satisfaction feeling my body warm up as I cut and split. The simple, primeval acts of fire make me feel more connected to nature: I love the warm glow of flames on my skin and the smell of smoke on my clothes, just as I’m thrilled by the discovery of a stash of dry driftwood. This journey started more than 50 days ago on Hudson Bay. We canoed north along a desolate coastline of sand beaches and polished rock headlands that reminded me of my home on Lake Superior’s north shore. Then we portaged inland, our packs carefully arranged to be shuttled over countless ancient, forgotten trails in three herculean loads. It was rewarding to paddle upstream, moving against the flow of the landscape, getting deeper by the day into Quebec’s Ungava Peninsula.
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In time, the wizened spruce of the boreal taiga blended into the treeless tundra and the trip seemed to be getting easier. We made two trips instead of three on each portage. Routines were comfortable and familiar, our bodies strong and sinewy and patterned by steady days on the water and trail. Then, relentless winds stopped our progress dead. We immediately felt exposed and frazzled. We hid the tent in hollows and tucked behind monoliths. When that failed, we tied off to the canoe, hoping the wind wouldn’t send it sailing. Life was elemental and stressful, but we learned over time to be less agitated by the howling gusts and constant sound of flapping nylon. We put away our watches and travelled when we could: A handful of miles, eked out at dawn, felt like a gift. On the second-last day of the trip my partner and I sensed a break in the wind. We exchanged few words, silently aware it was time to drop our shelter. I’ve never felt so purposeful in my actions, so present in my relationship with my companion and the natural world. The wind became calm as we paddled into the night. We spoke at intervals about what it felt like to be so close to our journey’s end. We had discovered there’s no prosthetic for patience. Conor Mihell lives and writes on the eastern shore of Lake Superior and journeys in large, wild lands as often as possible. For more than a decade, he has served as a guide for students in Northland College’s Superior Connections program. Read more in his book The Greatest Lake: Stories from Lake Superior’s North Shore and follow him at conormihell.com
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2020 SONWA Winner Children
Butterflies Belong Here by Deborah Hopkins Illustrated by Meilo So
I wondered if monarch butterflies belonged here. Sometimes I wondered if we did, too. 7
MODERN EXPLORATION A journey, by definition is difficult; it takes resources, time, grit, and determination. It is often so taxing, that your brain needs to be free from all other distractions in order to stay focused on the task ahead. It’s a slow and steady meditation; the click of a shutter, the stroke of a paddle, the call of a distant bird all come together to form a rhythm, driving you steadily onward. It has a way of distilling
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the most important, and honest aspects of life into easily digestible bites, which in turn is reflected in the images I capture. Most of these trips scared the hell out of me, but the sense of accomplishment I get from persevering makes it all worth it. Every journey eventually comes to an end, but the lessons learned along the way stay with you forever.
PHOTO ESSAY BY A IM E E BA RT E E
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Find Aimee Bartee and her partner, Chase, at tightloops.com.
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TH IS I S ENOUGH A sunny summer morning at Isle Royale’s Daisy Farm
We’ve seen a lot of snakes in the week we’ve been at Isle
dock. I peek out the window of our thirty-eight foot
Royale. The big island teems with two non-poisonous
trawler Mazurka to see our three kids—ages nine, six
species: the northern red-bellied snake and the common
and four—at the other end of the dock, leaping around
garter snake. The garter snakes are unusual due to a
with excitement. They chat up two women who are
surprising variety of colors, ranging from red-orange
pumping drinking water, heavy backpacks beside them.
spots and stripes to black with deep blue stripes down
A celebratory camaraderie exists between backpackers
the sides, like our friend beneath the dock.
and boaters. Lots of people have talked to our kids in the two days we’ve been here. One effervescent hiker even offered our four-year-old a beer. I climb down to the dock and amble the long stretch toward them to see what is happening. The kids tell me to watch a small hole in the dock. Within seconds, a garter snake pops its head up.
Snakes are not my favorite. But like my kids, I can’t look away. We wait and watch. In our life before kids, my husband Mark and I lived on Mazurka in downtown Chicago, even in winter. We sought adventure. We went ice climbing. We backpacked the Resurrection Pass from Hope to Seward, Alaska, in six feet of snow and no vehicle waiting at the end. We
BY F E LIC IA SC HN E ID E RHA N
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hiked the Kalalau Trail on Kauai when the sign clearly
kids show everyone the snake. People look at it, mildly
indicated Trail Closed. We planned very little, pushed
interested, pump their daily water and leave. We stay.
ourselves hard, and reveled in the unknown. After a few years, we decided our next adventure was either having kids or biking Iceland. Within four years, our adventuring had shrunk to our neighborhood park with a baby in a sling, a two-yearold in Mark’s arms, and our four-year-old whacking a tree with a stick.
Watching a snake is about as interesting as watching a kid smack a tree with a stick. Eventually, I go back to the boat to do a quick chore. I return fifteen minutes later to find I’ve missed everything. In one brief instant, the snake shot across the beach and captured the frog by its legs. I catch a quick glimpse of the frog’s upper body sticking out of the
I had two obsessions: Getting our kids outside (lest
snake’s mouth before it retreats into the dark bush to
they turn into couch potato video game-playing slugs)
devour its meal alone.
and not letting parenthood interrupt our wilderness adventures. Thankfully, we had Mazurka and Lake Superior. We hauled our young crew to the Sleeping Giant, the Apostle Islands, and to Isle Royale. I was exhausted by the effort, miserable and wanting. On our second trip to Isle Royale, a weeklong thunderstorm trapped us at anchor with a boat full of Legos. The highlight was watching sheets of rain march toward us, backdropped by a Degas-hued absinthe green sky. On our third Isle Royale trip, the snake trip, we are gifted with incredibly good weather and kids who can talk, use the bathroom, and hike at least four miles. Adventure, ho! Gradually, the snake makes its way out of the hole, slithering across the dock and down, until it rests in the sandy mud. This one has a blue streak. Anton, our four-year-old, notices a frog perilously close. The snake’s tongue lashes out to taste it. Our son rescues the frog and relocates it to a stand of trees six feet away, then resumes snake watching. The snakes we had seen before always darted away quickly when they sensed us. This one stays by the dock, its tongue flapping in the wind like a windsock. The kids take turns touching its blue-striped side. It does not flinch or move. Backpackers come and go. The
“The frog didn’t even know it was being eaten,” Esther marvels. My restless need to move cost me the big moment. My kids—who know how to linger and observe and not do anything—got the big pay-off on this big-time wilderness adventure. And here’s the real kicker: If the snake hadn’t eaten the frog, if there hadn’t been a big payoff, the experience would not be worth any less to them. We would still be talking about it. Remember when that snake came out? Remember we all touched it and it didn’t even move. What do you think it was doing? Despite my earlier obsessions, my kids love video games, and we still haven’t gone to Iceland. Instead, my kids have helped me reclaim a birthright I abandoned in my ambitious adulthood: appreciation for the world as we find it, right in front of us. There does not need to be more. This is enough. Felicia Schneiderhan lives on the northern shore of Lake Superior, where she writes in whatever closet she thinks her three tsunamis won’t find her. Author of Newlyweds Afloat: Married Bliss and Mechanical Breakdowns while Living on a Trawler, you may follow her work at feliciaschneiderhan.com
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LOOK AND SEE
“It is a lovely and terrible wilderness, such a wilderness as Christ and the prophets went out into; harshly and beautifully colored, broken and worn until its bones are exposed.” Wallace Stegner’s lyricism in his famous “Wilderness
looking. Sleepless in my bag in the valley’s darkness,
Letter” soughs into my consciousness as I follow
gripped by an edginess I cannot shake, I watch the
the migrant footpath through Organ Pipe Cactus
nearly full moon change La Muela’s visage from tooth
Wilderness, across the imagined line that creates the
to headstone. A terrible wilderness.
National Monument, and into the valley below Kino Peak, named for Father Eusebio Kino, a priest who explored, mapped, and tended missions in this region. Migrants navigate by its more useful moniker, La Muela, the rock formation jutting from the surrounding Bates Mountains like a single molar on a jawbone. This valley is one route north through yet more wilderness, the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, for migrants seeking Gila Bend and Phoenix, water and work. A “geography of hope.”
A day later I cross Cabeza Prieta’s Growler Valley, heading for Temporal Pass. Hard to look, but I see: “broken and worn until its bones are exposed,” one white skull, stark against the brown rockscape, a second just over there. The lower jawbones are gone. I see toenail clippers, a pink-handled toothbrush, shoes, a shirt, a few other bones. These human temples are hollow, not holy. Dead prophets, Christ crucified. Lives ending terribly in this terrible wilderness. Mr. Stegner, how can this be “a means of reassuring ourselves of our
A lovely wilderness as ever I’ve walked: lovely the Gambel’s quail covey running beneath the mesquite, lovely the timbre of cactus wren’s song, lovely the palo verde’s shade. I imagine the starry ecclesia resounding with organ pipe cactus music, juniper incense carrying prayers heavenward. A kind of church, the safety of Sunday morning, where those who, lacking “the strength or youth to go into [wilderness] and live can simply sit and look.”
sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope”? I camp atop the pass that night. Wrapped in my sleeping bag, I simply sit and look at the wilderness. The setting sun fires the sky a red curtain, then draws it back for the night show. Is the bat I’ve just seen the endangered lesser long-nosed bat? Probably not. Miles distant, two rescue beacons flash a thin, fragile hope. To the south, the Bates Mountains now seem faint charcoal rubbings. Who passes under La Muela’s forbidding shadow
Perhaps anything more is ill-advised: look, how lovely;
tonight? In the moonlight, the desert’s inside out: vein-
see, how terrible. On faint, impossible trails through
like arroyos on gray skin, then all those bones. So many
loose, ankle-twisting, bone-breaking lava rubble and
bad journeys, tragedies, a land with many ghosts. Look,
sole-piercing, flesh-seeking cholla spines, migrants
yes, but see, too. It is a lovely and terrible wilderness.
wend north, hunted, slipping through moonlight, in too much or too little heat, always with too little water. Some die, and more die than are found, if anyone is even
Tayo Basquiat writes to pay attention and teaches philosophy to pay the bills.
BY TAYO BASQ U IAT
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catherine.mccomas
catherine.mccomas canoes were heavy and hearts were light and the wind was fierce and so were we. this past weekend I thought a lot about majesty and mystery, but I also thought a lot about access to outdoor spaces. this was a trip where, maybe more than any other, I felt welcomed. why is that unique? who is usually embraced in these environments? who can fit into and afford conventional outdoor gear? how is initial contact made with wilderness areas, especially for people who weren’t raised in them? as a fat person, I’ve never not felt uneasy, unwanted, and on display in outdoor spaces, but as a middle class, white person whose family prioritized wilderness experiences I hold so so much privilege too. when I think about the joy, accomplishment, and rest that I found this weekend, I ache for the folks sequestered to the margins of wilderness adventures and made to feel like an afterthought or a burden when outside. and I deepen my commitment to using my privilege to do and demand better. are you privileged and committed to that too? if so, what are you doing to make the wilderness a site of liberation for marginalized bodies? right now I’m diving deeper into research about access to outdoor spaces, continuing to intentionally fill my feed with badass fat and non-white outdoorsy folks, having hard conversations with people around me, and being honest with myself about the hurt I feel and the hurt I’ve perpetuated. lemme know if you have any resources to share or would like some that I’ve found helpful! I am sending you thoughts of magenta love and orange fires and yellow revolutions and bright red canoes. also, these are some absolutely gorgeous shots by @eli_wingit that make me feel like I paddled through paintings. aren’t they beautiful? goodnight sweet friend, I’m so excited to keep growing with you
Northland College junior Catherine McComas posted this reflection last fall after participating in a weekend camping trip in Sylvania Wilderness. The trip was one of many organized by the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute Outdoor Pursuits program intended to connect students to the outdoors and region. The photo of paddling in an unexpected snow squall was captured by Elijah Ourth, who graduated
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M ig rati o n o f t h e Comm o n Lo o n Common loons are travelers, migrating each year between coastal wintering waters and summer breeding lakes in the northern Great Lake states, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. From the upper Midwest, loons typically migrate to the Gulf of Mexico in just a few days, traveling at speeds of 60 to 70 miles an hour in 600 to 700 mile hops.
BREEDING
WINTERING
MIGRATION ROUTE
