Hunting for a place to hike in the Kettle Moraine

What were we thinking?!! Well, we were thinking the way we think: that we had a day to be together; it was a nice sunny day; we like to hike; and we are near the Kettle Moraine State Forest. Ergo, let’s go for a hike in the Kettle Moraine.

We clearly were not thinking about hunting, or hunters, or that this was the first day of hunting season! But, as soon as we left West Bend on Hwy 45 north, it became abundantly clear. Next to every vacant field, it seemed, cars, trucks, SUVs, were parked and out in the fields were little orange people carrying rifles. Now, if you’ve ever hunted none of this is news. In fact, even if you don’t hunt, many of you are probably scratching your heads wondering how naïve Mr. Urban Wilderness could be! (How long have I lived in Wisconsin?) But at that moment our innocent, if naïve, intention to hike in the woods was abruptly called into question and I was reminded why I’d always made it a point not to go out in the country during hunting season. And so, although I certainly knew about hunting, it was a revelation to witness the social phenomenon first hand as it plays out in one of my favorite parks.

We didn’t witness any actual hunting, mind you. At infrequent, irregular intervals we heard shots off in the distance, but never saw any action. What we saw were clusters of vehicles wherever there was a place to pull off the park road. We glimpsed blaze orange glinting through the trees and saw orange action figures wandering in full sight around the edges of fields. Some merely sat, like this one (above) we drove past on our way to one of the few designated “no hunting” zones in the park. An hour or so later, after our hike, he and two others standing nearby didn’t seem to have moved. As I popped out of my car to take the photo, I wondered uneasily what would happen if a deer ran between me and him. I quickly got back in and drove off.

In places the hunters were so thick they put me in mind of the “backwoods humorist” Norman Pettingill, who made innumerable drawings of Northwoods culture, many of which depict the foibles of hunters. In his crazy cartoons hunters fill every available space between trees, blast away indiscriminately, drink incessantly, etc. Coincidentally (?), we saw a display of Pettingill’s work, done over five decades of the Twentieth Century, at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan the same afternoon. Here’s a sample (below) to give a sense of his scabrous humor and graphic style. His depictions made it clear I’m hardly the first to wonder if the woods are more dangerous for the hunters than for the deer. (By the way, nature lovers as well as art lovers will enjoy the Kohler's animal-themed main exhibit, called Animal Magnetism. Check it out.)

We stopped at the Ice Age Trail Visitors Center to inquire about safe places to hike and were rewarded by a friendly ranger who gave us the map – and lent us each an orange vest. Thus fortified, we made our way to Mauthe Lake and the Tamarack Trail where we did enjoy a delightful walk around the lake. Unlike the vast majority of the park, which welcomes hunting, here we had the trail to ourselves, and although it was quite cold, the bright sun made for a lovely stroll.

This curiously sawed stump reminded me of a human variant of the beaver sculpture I found a couple weeks ago (see previous post.)

The interpretive signage in this section identified it as a cedar swamp. The cedars have shallow root systems and therefore fall over easily. In some places there seemed to be more fallen ones than were left standing. The monochromatic late autumnal colors conspired with the apparent devastation to make the landscape seem apocalyptic. To my eye, all of it was beautiful, none of it picturesque.

We saw only three people the whole time. Two looked like puffy blaze orange snowmen, sitting awkwardly at a picnic table in the campground. The third was this lone kayaker making his way up the Milwaukee River, which both feeds and drains Mauthe Lake. We exchanged greetings as he paddled underneath the trail bridge. Then he disappeared silently around the bend.

A great fusillade of shots somewhere beyond the tree line reminded us of the orange army that has invaded the park. My thoughts turn toward their target. For the record, I have no quarrel with those who kill deer – as long as they do it responsibly. (In the tiny, tenth-of-an-acre urban wilderness that is my front yard, the deer are nothing but plant-killing pests. I rarely see them; only their night time rubbings and chewings.) I, however, find the quiet sounds of nature itself more agreeable than the sound of guns. The sigh of wind in the trees and the honking of geese high overhead fill me with peace.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving: a day of reflection; a day of remembrance; a day of togetherness. My offering on this day: this week’s spectacular, stormy sunset on the County Grounds and an old favorite poem by Mary Oliver. And a hearty THANK YOU to all Urban Wilderness supporters!

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

© Mary Oliver

Visiting the University of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison

Prairie Oaks

Like autumn itself, the leaves are mostly gone. The wide prairie is a rich tapestry of sienna and ochre, interwoven with strands of white, red, and black. Here and there coarse gray tree trunks rise out of it all as if to emphasize its prairie flatness. Deep in the tall grasses, red berries provide adornment. The day is surprisingly mild, not a presage of winter at all. This close to the solstice the sun rises only in a low arc, but still it shines brightly, casting a golden glow on the browns all around. I bask in its warmth, open my jacket.

Clearing the understory

I am alone on the prairie, although I have to force my imagination to exclude the incessant din of traffic along the beltline in order to feel it. Others have gone before me: there are plenty of fresh footprints and some dog prints on the wide path. In amongst them I spy the twin curves of deer hoofs and something with sharper claws than a dog; probably raccoon. The exercise is more than worth the effort to shut out the noise of “civilization” flitting past, barely visible through the leafless screen of trees ahead. Once again I am transported into the healing balm of urban wilderness.

Twisted

This instance brings me to remembrance of an old acquaintance with the UW Arboretum in Madison. I’ve been invited to give a reading to the Friends of the Arboretum, a most welcome opportunity. I arrive early, to prepare myself. I stay late to delay my return to that very same highway on my way home. Along the way I make some photographic offerings to share.

Wetland thicket

For more images from the Arboretum, go to my flickr page.

Urban Wilderness on NPR

Here's the updated scoop on The Story, with a link to their website where you can listen to it and a brief explanation to help you find my segment. I want to thank everyone who has called or emailed with congratulations and I want to thank Dick Gordon and the production staff at The Story for the opportunity to share my story with them and with you.

Listen to the archived interview by clicking here.

The program is an hour long and begins with a story about foreclosure. My segment, which lasts about 10 minutes, is in the second half. On the bottom of the intro page there is slider bar to activate the program. If you slide the slider a little past halfway you will find the "Clean Water: The Menomonee" segment.

Intro from (now edited) original post:
I was interviewed last week by Dick Gordon, host of The Story, which is produced by American Public Media. It aired Thursday, Nov. 18. We talked about the Urban Wilderness Project. A particular focus of the interview was one story from Urban Wilderness about the Superfund clean up on the Little Menomonee River, which inspired my series of photographs featuring the orange construction fences in the landscape - selections of which are on view in the gallery at the Lynden Sculpture Garden. See Inside/Outside for more on that.

For much more information about any of these projects, check out my website.

Superfund site on Little Menomonee River

Hiking the Urban Wilderness on Menomonee River in Wauwatosa

Yesterday I led a group of about 25 members of the "Outduurs" club from Unitarian Universalist Church West on the riparian trails along both sides of the Menomonee River between Capitol Dr. and Hampton Ave. Pictured below is part of the group. For the full story and photos I took along the route, see previous post.

The Menomonee River wilderness in Wauwatosa

I love to walk in the woods beside the constantly changing river. The flowing water and the scent of moldering leaves soothe and invigorate. I recently revisited one of my favorite stretches of the Menomonee River, between Capitol Dr. and Hampton Ave. This is no ordinary stretch of urban river and a hike in the woods along either side is far from your typical walk in the park. It was this stretch, as much as any other, that helped me to refine my understanding of urban wilderness when I began my project several years ago. A leisurely two hours allowed me to complete a loop up one side and back the other while shooting a few pictures along the way. (The pictures slow me down. This hike could be done in half the time.)

I welcomed the invitation from an outdoors group at Unitarian Universalist Church West to lead a hike for them as it provided the impetus to see this special mile of river again. Although these relatively wild riparian paths were among my most frequent destinations during the six years of my urban wilderness book project, it has been at least two years since my last visit. I was eager to see what changes the intervening time had wrought. Change can happen very quickly indeed in urban wild lands.

Erosion. Rivers flow and inevitably erode the land, an eternal and natural phenomenon. But too much erosion too fast can quickly destabilize the banks and diminish the absorptive qualities of the floodplain. The river seems to flow in a deeper channel than before, one lined with the exposed roots of trees nearly everywhere along the banks. Many magnificent trees have fallen into and across the river. In several place they are heaved up into gargantuan logjams. It gives me pause to think of the force of water that can move whole trees this way.

Some things don’t change: pollutants still plague the quality of the water.

The always distinct characters of the two sides of the river have become reversed. I’d always found the west to be the wilder side, but now an officially marked and well worn mountain bike path makes that side the easier to navigate. The east side, away from the paved Oak Leaf Trail, is the place where I found a former riparian path to be disused, overgrown, entangled, wild.

On a beautiful, unseasonably mild day I met more people than I was accustomed to seeing: a young woman walking with her two enormous white Labradors; an elderly couple sauntering with walking sticks; two teens in black garb sporting metallic facial piercings; even a fashionably dressed woman who told me she was visiting from out of town. One free spirit sat in lotus position on a spit of land where two channels converge, deep in meditation.

As I had in years past, I saw clear evidence of recent beaver activity, on both sides of the river. The most surprising discovery, right along the paved trail near Hampton, was what I can only describe as a “beaver sculpture.” I’ve never seen a beaver chew like this before. Here are a few “gallery shots” of the “work.”

What's floating in the Menomonee River now?

It's after Halloween: do you know where YOUR pumpkins went?

These collected in the shallows of the channel next to Doyne Park in Milwaukee. The next big rain will wash them to Lake Michigan, I expect.