Trail Time – Looking for Spring
We’ve been having some Scottish weather lately, up here on the Gunflint Trail. Days and nights of so much rain that I am reminded of a line from the movie “Braveheart”, where Mel Gibson’s character, William Wallace says,“It’s fine Scottish weather we’re having. The rain is falling straight down and kind of to the side like.”
The strong winds blew the rain every which way and whipped the trees back and forth. And we were treated to not only rain but also gigantic light and sound shows, There were lightning bolts I could see through closed eyelids, streaking across the northern night sky, the near-constant tympani of thunder shaking us all — humans, house, dog. The creatures of the forest must feel it. Do the bears notice anything as they near hibernation’s end; do they feel the thunder, deep, deep down in their dens? Do the fish feel it in the cold turgid waters of the half-frozen lakes and the thick mud where the turtles and frogs burrow?
And this morning some fat flakes of snow fell gently to the ground. It would have been pretty if I wasn’t so heartily sick of it. How my heart aches for spring. It is like this each year. I am absolutely rapturous about the first flakes of snow in October or November. So pretty! So picturesque! As May begins, my mood exactly matches the weather and is as changeable. I’ve lived in Minnesota for about 50 years now and never have I been so eager for the ice to leave, in more ways than one.
So I am recording each sign of spring as I find it, and as I get reports in from Trail friends. The ice is out on Onagon Lake, and a loon was heard in that area and one spotted on Gunflint Lake by Steph at Borderland Lodge. Loons! Andrea at Loon Lake Lodge spotted an otter running and sliding on the ice toward open water. Otters! My naturalist friend Karen spotted Sandhill cranes on farmland nearer town and Goldeneyes nearer the Big Lake. KC the Sunshine gal watched swans lazily floating on Tucker Lake. These are all birds that leave for the winter so we welcome them back with a kind of desperate glee. Northern Yellow-shafted Flickers have been ganging up on the roadside, probing the newly thawed ground along both sides of the Trail. We’ve spotted a yellow-bellied sapsucker, evening grosbeaks and a fox sparrow. Moose prints and scat tell me that they’re moving through the neighborhood, but I haven’t set eyes on one yet. Same with wolves and foxes. It was a very quiet winter animal-wise. I imagine that the very deep and long-lasting snow had something to do with that state of affairs.
My beloved hazels presented me with some blossoms this week. To my mind, they are about the coolest flower in the forest: so tiny yet so vivid; so unexpected in size and shape when I finally identified them years ago. My friend Steph says they look like anemones and I agree with her. I had to learn to see them and slow down my eyes in the woods. By slowing down my eyes, I mean practicing careful and slow seeing — not the scanning we usually due as we move through the world. First I had to learn to identify the plants without their leaves, so I could recognize the plants in the spring. To be fair, they look a lot like alders and willows but they have distinctive characteristics. Near the end of April I check regularly for blossoms. It is always a great day when the hazels blossom. I mark in on my calendar.
And, since I was eager to shake the gloom of this cold spring, I hopped in my car and searched for running water, ducks, geese, something alive and moving, so tired I was by the unchanging unmoving ice on the lake. I ended up at Trail’s End campground, where the Seagull River winds through. It was gloriously loud and vigorous, with the water churning and rushing north. I love how the energy of the water somehow gets into me, washing away the dregs of winter blues, stirring up the air, stirring up me, rousing me to this quickening time of year, where soon the woods and lakes will be bursting with new growth and the snow and ice will be a faded memory. Hurry, spring, Find us soon!
— Marcia Roepke on the Gunflint Trail
