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Can we sit still long enough to tune into a story told not in words, but in layers?
An old-growth forest and a sleepy, mature river current have been around much, much longer than the human generation that wanted to brand nature with its initials. For better or worse, our folly is now part of the forest history.
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Fellow Travelers,
Welcome to the week that marks the exit of Summer (even though, technically, it's still around for a bit), and the settling into the sobering post-Labor Day doldrums...
I'm going to pause my mad dash around the perimeter of Lake Michigan this week, and give us all a chance to catch our breath.
Today, I invite you to do something really quiet and meditative.
I deliberated a long time about which photo to include in the header of this newsletter, because of the blind rage I feel at the absolutely senseless and maniacal human drive to carve our mark on everything.
But anger is unhelpful.
What I want to focus on instead is the rays of hope that emanate from natural landscapes, and from our collective efforts --however small-- to right what we now see as wrongs that have been perpetrated on our environment.
These old-growth beech trees --miraculously spared from logging, and apparently impervious to the carving-- have stood as noble giants towering over the land, some of the scars having moved higher up the trunk than any human can now reach, healed and grown over with tissue, increasingly indecipherable initials that remain as a testament --not to the authors-- but only their callousness.
I just finished reading How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell, a book which I began to devour with anticipation, highlighting almost every other line in the introduction and the opening chapter.
"When people long for some kind of escape, it's worth asking: What would 'back to the land' mean if we understood the land to be where we are right now? ... I propose that rerouting and deepening one's attention to place will likely lead to awareness of one's participation in history and in more-than-human community."
Given our collective love-affair with far-flung globetrotting, passages like this vibrate a familiar frequency in my soul: the somewhat defensive, but powerful, sense that natural miracles are available right under our noses if only we stop long enough to look.
However, I should have taken the hint from the author's affinity for the impersonal and mysterious "one" and "one's". (Had I been writing this book, I would have said "we" and "ours".) The book that started so promisingly unfortunately spiraled into a bit of an academic treatise, leaving me more than slightly alienated, with few tangible tools, and only the faintest ray of hope contained in the final sentence:
"I asked how I could possibly express my gratitude for this unlikely spectacle ... The answer was nothing. Just watch."
But I think we need to do more than just watch. I think we need to take any evidence of nature rebounding and triumphing, and post and yell and tell stories about it. And get others to post and yell and sing about it too.
Because --while it's easy to focus on the negatives-- there are sooooo many reasons to be hopeful, and hope is the mightiest fuel for action.
I discovered Warren Woods SP while on a self-imposed writer's retreat at an Airbnb in Sawyer, MI, where the owner --well versed in local hiking trails-- recommended it to me. This 311-acre little treasure of a park is home to some of the last old growth trees in the region. While most visitors go to the well-known Warren Dunes SP situated on Lake Michigan, Warren Woods remains one of the area’s best kept secrets.
Warren Woods is not a demanding hike. The trailhead at the parking lot is well-marked. The trail is not, but it is very easy to follow. It begins with a wide path that winds through the forest, with glimpses of some of the larger trees in the area as you approach the Galien River overlook. At the overlook, there are interpretive signs and benches, and of course a sweeping view of the emerald-green river. The trail continues down a set of stairs and across the bridge.
It's essentially linear, with a loop in the middle that will take you over the high bluff overlooking the river on one side, and the river’s flood plain on the other. Although you may have to step over fallen trees or get your boots muddy, the path is discernible and easy to follow. At northern part of the trail, as it approaches Warren Woods Road, is the most impressive section of those solitary, scarred but stoic beech trees.
Standing alone among old-growth American beech trees taller than 100 feet and over 5 feet in diameter is an experience like no other, and certainly not one you’d expect pulling off a quiet side road within a couple hours of Chicago.
The park also contains sugar maples and tulip poplar. In the summer, the canopy can block out almost all the sunlight creating a cooling, shady (and buggy) hike. Yet, it’s the beech trees, with their stark bald bark scarred with many decades'-worth of carved initials, that really make an impression and ask us to confront humans’ seemingly insatiable need to make their mark on this corner of the universe.
These marks spark a reaction in us. But do the trees care? With each passing season, they grow taller, pushing the carved initials higher up their trunks, obscuring their significance.
In this stable and balanced forest community --relatively free from human interference-- the mature individuals of a species well adapted to the site live out their lifespan, and create ideal conditions in the understory for their seedlings to eventually replace parent trees.
A leisurely stroll along the trail might only take an hour or so, but you'll want to spend a bit of time here. The more you linger among the trees, the more magical this place becomes.
So, for this outing, I suggest you prioritize ...sitting. There are a couple of great spots, one along the high bluff overlooking the river (this will be before the bridge if you enter from Elm Valley Rd.), the other a bit off the trail among the largest of the beeches (in the northern section towards Warren Woods Rd.)
To keep it simple, and keep yourself super self-contained, pack your daypack with an ultra-packable chair, and a thermal flask filled with strong tea to go with the cooler fall days.
I'd round out this wonderful afternoon of tea-drinking and inhaling the natural surroundings with a bit of reading on how to be in your place:
Or perhaps another book you like that offers hope for coexisting with your local natural landscape, beyond panicked cries of environmental collapse. After all,
“The doom and gloom is paralyzing, and naive hope is
what inspires me to take action.”
—Charles Eisenstein
Skip packing a lunch, and before hitting the trail, stop at Milda's Corner Market, the hidden local gem in Union Pier, and let them pack up a delectable sandwich to bring along. I'm partial to Ruebens, but the BLT with thick cut bacon is quite amazing, as are the various Piaggia sandwiches. Take your lunch to enjoy trailside along with the tea you brought along (don't forget napkins!!).
On the way back? You must, MUST stop at Flourish Books and Plants! A two-year old bookshop housed in what was once a truckstop still sports built-in counter stools and booths of its previous incarnation. Inside, you'll find an hodge-podge of new and used books, comfy chairs, whimsical lighting, a jigsaw puzzle laid out on the table, so you can sit for a bit and add to it, a mobile made out of pages from a book, and a collection of potted and starter house plants vying for light against a small window.
I find deep satisfaction in discovering small but meaningful pockets of extremely unique native ecosystems that have only recently seen some thoughtful preservation, and responded well, but to little acclaim.
In fact, almost the entire once maligned Indiana Dunes area contains some of the most breathtakingly beautiful, uniquely midwestern natural wonders which are easily accessible to anyone from Chicago who craves solitude, serenity, wildlife and contact with nature.
The Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk is built on what was once a chemical dump, and heavy industry is in full view across a narrow channel of water. It is precisely the contrast with this apocalyptic, man-made landscape that highlights the power of nature to regenerate both itself, and our spirit.
A couple other hidden spots where nature has successfully "un-domesticated" human improvements are:
Ambler Flatwoods that features, along the northern portion of its 4-mile trail, a storybook tunnel of evergreens formed by what was once a Christmas tree farm, with trees now grown to their full size.
Seidner Dune & Swale Hugging the shoulder of Interstate 90 in NW Indiana, is a former toxic dump teeming with wildlife (and a site of a bald eagles’ nest!). Though the waters of Grand Calumet River are still far from pristine, a visit here, with views of its marshes packed with avian life, will renew your faith in the future of our planet.
Enjoy!
See you next week for another dose of
--Justyna
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