From the Late September 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
The North Woods Call has ceased publication—at least temporarily—due to family and medical issues that demand greater attention and freedom from unforgiving deadlines.
Regular production of the newspaper will stop indefinitely after this issue and active subscribers will receive pro-rated refunds for the unused portions of their subscriptions (See related story below).
“It is with deep regret that we make this announcement,” said Call Editor and Publisher Mike VanBuren. “This is not something we would choose to do under normal circumstances, but life has thrown us some unexpected curve balls during the past year and we feel that we have little choice in the matter.” (For more information about this decision and the reasons behind it, please see the column blog post immediately below this article).
“We apologize to those loyal subscribers who have enthusiastically stuck by us since we resurrected the paper following the death of former Publisher Glen Sheppard,” VanBuren said. “We greatly appreciate your support, as well as that of the many new subscribers who have joined us during the past two years.”
Some of these individuals have purchased first-time subscriptions, or renewed old ones, in just the past few weeks, VanBuren said, and “it’s awkward to pull the plug on them so quickly.”
“But we trust that readers will understand our decision to do this in the face of the personal challenges that we are now facing,” he said.
VanBuren said he hopes The Call will return in the not-too-distant future and be able to do a more thorough and focused job of covering conservation issues in Michigan and beyond. If so, past subscribers will be notified when the publication again becomes available, he said.
In the meantime, a comprehensive history of the newspaper and its role in Michigan conservation journalism is in the works.
“Despite the continuing economic difficulties facing newspapers today, we still believe there is a niche for The North Woods Call,” VanBuren said. “and we’d like to have a role in that, if possible. Unfortunately, we don’t have a partner who can keep things going for us during this forced sabbatical.”
Whoever ultimately carries the North Woods Call tradition forward, it’s clear that he or she will need to better accommodate the needs of modern news consumers and more aggressively adapt to changing communication technologies, VanBuren said.
And returning the base of operations to the north woods would be helpful, he said.
Glen and Mary Lou Sheppard published The Call from the Charlevoix area for more than four decades after purchasing it from founder Marguerite Gahagan in 1969. Gahagan had operated the newspaper from the Johannesburg and Roscommon areas for 16 years prior to that.
Glen Sheppard died Jan. 5, 2011, and VanBuren bought the defunct newspaper later that year from Shep’s widow, who had mothballed it after her husband’s death. Publication began anew in September 2012 after an 18-month absence.
Since then, VanBuren has tried to create what he calls “a conservation community,” or a “public square,” where citizens interested in the conservation of natural resources could come together to learn about and discuss related issues of the day.
The overall goal has been to serve as a trustworthy news source for people who love nature and the north woods, VanBuren said.
“Essentially, we have wanted to be a practical journal of human ecology that chronicles our ongoing relationship to the natural world,” he said.
Sometimes this has meant exposing readers to alternative viewpoints in an effort to stimulate thought and jump-start discussion, according to VanBuren.
“We’re interested in the truth about the relationship between people and the earth,” he said, “and have tried to find it in a politically distorted world that often prefers deception to reality. It’s clear from the reactions of readers that some folks are comfortable with this and some are not.”
Still, we need dissenting voices and independent thinking if we are going to find viable solutions to our problems, VanBuren said.
“We can’t merely push prefabricated agendas and demand that others validate what we already believe,” he said.
Subscription refunds to be given
Current subscribers to The North Woods Call will soon receive pro-rated refunds for the unused portions of their subscriptions.
The individual refunds will be figured based on the newspaper’s regular production schedule—twice monthly (except one issue each in January, April, July and October).
Please note that several electronic and print subscriptions are expiring in early October, before the next scheduled edition would have been produced. Obviously, in those cases, refunds won’t be required.
“Those who are due refunds are asked to be patient, allowing us a few weeks to calculate what is owed and get checks in the mail. Questions may be directed to editor@mynorthwoodscall.com.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
The closing of a door
By Mike VanBuren
From the Late September 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
Dreams die hard.
Such is the case for our grand experiment in publishing The North Woods Call.
Owning the publication has been a dream of mine since I was a boy—one that serendipitously came to pass a few years ago, following the death of longtime publisher Glen Sheppard.
I figured we could make a go of it and I’m pleased with our progress over the past 24 months. Yet, that’s a rather short run if you consider The Call’s 61-plus year legacy.
A couple more years and some additional financial resources would likely boost our chances for success.
If only we could keep at it.
But sometimes the master of the universe has other plans.
The dream began to fade a bit last year when a medical scare put me in the hospital for a couple of days—staring at my own mortality. But that was minor compared to what happened next.
My mother’s unexpected illness and subsequent death last December changed a lot of things about our world and forced our family to pay greater attention to numerous things we would rather not confront. Now my wife’s life-threatening cancer struggle has further driven us to re-examine priorities and time commitments.
Like it or not, I must—for the forseeable future—expand my role as caregiver, and tend to myriad other personal and family obligations that have come my way.
This is not to complain. There are still many blessings in our lives for which I am thankful. But circumstances dictate that I free up some time and sidestep the relentless deadlines that come with owning and operating a small newspaper.
It’s a stab in the heart on numerous levels, but something that has to be done.
It could be that the glory days of print publishing were already long past by the time we purchased The North Woods Call in 2012 and set about trying to resurrect it. The Internet and associated information revolution—not to mention the rapidly changing habits and preferences of information consumers—have already kicked many once-proud publications in the teeth and forced some of them out-of-business.
While we still believe there is a niche for a specialty publication like The North Woods Call, we have nevertheless witnessed declining readership trends, and the disturbing tendency of citizens and public servants to turn away from voices that cry in the wilderness, but don’t necessarily reflect the prevailing “wisdom” of the chattering crowd.
Still, it’s important that these voices be heard and we hope this newspaper can—in the near future—continue to be one that helps inject truth and sanity back into the civic debate.
Until further notice, however, we’ll be out to pasture with other retired race horses—still writing and working on special projects, I expect, but looking over the proverbial fence just the same.
When I first approached the late Mary Lou Sheppard about buying The Call after Shep’s untimely death, she looked at me incredulously.
“Why would you want to take on all that work?” she asked.
I guess because it’s good work, I told her, and something that can keep me occupied and make a difference.
Today, I find myself pulled toward more ominous activities that also promise to keep me occupied and make a difference. I don’t know where this journey will lead, but it’s a road I must follow.
Such is the fate of dreamers, I suppose, particularly those whose fantasies aren’t fulfilled until later in life.
I trust that those of you who love The North Woods Call as much as I do will understand the painful urgency of this decision.
From the Late September 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
Dreams die hard.
Such is the case for our grand experiment in publishing The North Woods Call.
Owning the publication has been a dream of mine since I was a boy—one that serendipitously came to pass a few years ago, following the death of longtime publisher Glen Sheppard.
I figured we could make a go of it and I’m pleased with our progress over the past 24 months. Yet, that’s a rather short run if you consider The Call’s 61-plus year legacy.
A couple more years and some additional financial resources would likely boost our chances for success.
If only we could keep at it.
But sometimes the master of the universe has other plans.
The dream began to fade a bit last year when a medical scare put me in the hospital for a couple of days—staring at my own mortality. But that was minor compared to what happened next.
My mother’s unexpected illness and subsequent death last December changed a lot of things about our world and forced our family to pay greater attention to numerous things we would rather not confront. Now my wife’s life-threatening cancer struggle has further driven us to re-examine priorities and time commitments.
Like it or not, I must—for the forseeable future—expand my role as caregiver, and tend to myriad other personal and family obligations that have come my way.
This is not to complain. There are still many blessings in our lives for which I am thankful. But circumstances dictate that I free up some time and sidestep the relentless deadlines that come with owning and operating a small newspaper.
It’s a stab in the heart on numerous levels, but something that has to be done.
It could be that the glory days of print publishing were already long past by the time we purchased The North Woods Call in 2012 and set about trying to resurrect it. The Internet and associated information revolution—not to mention the rapidly changing habits and preferences of information consumers—have already kicked many once-proud publications in the teeth and forced some of them out-of-business.
While we still believe there is a niche for a specialty publication like The North Woods Call, we have nevertheless witnessed declining readership trends, and the disturbing tendency of citizens and public servants to turn away from voices that cry in the wilderness, but don’t necessarily reflect the prevailing “wisdom” of the chattering crowd.
Still, it’s important that these voices be heard and we hope this newspaper can—in the near future—continue to be one that helps inject truth and sanity back into the civic debate.
Until further notice, however, we’ll be out to pasture with other retired race horses—still writing and working on special projects, I expect, but looking over the proverbial fence just the same.
When I first approached the late Mary Lou Sheppard about buying The Call after Shep’s untimely death, she looked at me incredulously.
“Why would you want to take on all that work?” she asked.
I guess because it’s good work, I told her, and something that can keep me occupied and make a difference.
Today, I find myself pulled toward more ominous activities that also promise to keep me occupied and make a difference. I don’t know where this journey will lead, but it’s a road I must follow.
Such is the fate of dreamers, I suppose, particularly those whose fantasies aren’t fulfilled until later in life.
I trust that those of you who love The North Woods Call as much as I do will understand the painful urgency of this decision.
Being still: Appreciating the sounds of silence
By Mike VanBuren
From the Early September 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
One of the things I most enjoy about trips into the north woods are the various opportunities they offer for relative silence.
Not complete silence, of course. There are always renegade sounds wafting through the trees—birds singing, streams gurgling, leaves rustling, an occasional airplane passing overhead and other more menacing auditory distractions.
But any kind of silence is better than none at all.
Henry David Thoreau said that silence is “the universal refuge—the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts.”
“Nowadays, most men lead lives of noisy desperation,” added James Thurber in a take-off on one of Thoreau’s most famous quotes.
That’s for sure.
As we’ve mentioned on this page before, the world is becoming an increasingly noisy place. And not just due to the high decibel levels caused by machinery and stereophonic speakers. We’re suffering from a glut of high-tech communication gadgets and a general overload of information—both useful and useless—from a growing variety of sources.
I suppose we contribute our fair share to this overload with the news and editorials we publish in The North Woods Call. But that’s minor compared to the amount of tripe that spews from smart phones, social networking sites and the mouths of politicians.
A few years ago—before I shut myself in my home office and began writing this newspaper—I had real-world jobs where employee meetings were all too often ruled by individuals intent on sucking the air out of the room and dominating the conversation. Psychologists say that these extroverts have a need to talk. It energizes them and helps them process their thoughts.
The trouble is, they don’t seem to learn much of value when they’re talking all the time.
Most of my former colleagues would probably say that I don’t have that problem. In fact, they have sometimes complained that I don’t say enough. Kind of like “Silent” Calvin Coolidge, I suppose, without the bully pulpit.
I plead guilty as charged.
The truth is, I don’t really like to hear myself talk and my spirit gets weary if I have to listen to others drone on. Instead, I typically process my thoughts by silent contemplation—and energize myself by actually doing what needs to be done.
Silence is golden, they say, and I concur.
There are, of course, numerous benefits to being still. Among other things, it promotes inner peace, teaches us to listen, helps us communicate on a deeper level, encourages self-discovery, gives us rest, boosts creativity, enhances mental clarity and—most importantly—allows us to hear the voice of God.
“In the attitude of silence, the soul finds the path in a clearer light,” said Mahatma Ghandi, “and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.”
“Nothing in creation is so like God as silence,” agreed Meister Eckhart.
I used to camp on occasion in the Sand Lakes Quiet Area near Traverse City and on North Manitou Island in Lake Michigan. At these and similar locations, I greatly appreciated the freedom from chance encounters with motorized vehicles.
Too much random racket supercharges my nerves, and leaves me drained and irritable.
Back in the 1990s, when I was attending the Colorado Outward Bound School near Leadville with a group of Kellogg National Fellows, the nighttime snoring ritual in the men’s bunkhouse sounded a bit like time trials at a local drag strip. It eventually drove me from the building, and forced me to move my bedroll outside and spread it out under the stars in a stand of tall pines.
I wasn’t being anti-social—just searching for quiet meditation and peaceful sleep.
One of the final exercises in the week-long Outward Bound experience involved several hours of solo time in a mountain forest. We were told to sit silently, observe nature and write letters to ourselves that would be opened a year after we returned home.
“Be still and know that I am God,” the holy scriptures say. That’s good advice, but tough to do in today’s world.
It has been said that the northern Arctic region expresses the sum of all wisdom—silence.
But I wonder about that, since modernity has invaded all areas.
A few years ago, when I visited the rural villages of Kotzebue and Noorvik in northwest Alaska—several hundred air miles from the urban center of Anchorage—my senses were assaulted by numerous all-terrain vehicles roaring through the streets and across the landscape.
It seems that wherever man goes, he carries the din of human activity with him.
“We need to find God,” Mother Teresa said, “and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence. See the stars, the moon and the sun—how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
From the Early September 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
One of the things I most enjoy about trips into the north woods are the various opportunities they offer for relative silence.
Not complete silence, of course. There are always renegade sounds wafting through the trees—birds singing, streams gurgling, leaves rustling, an occasional airplane passing overhead and other more menacing auditory distractions.
But any kind of silence is better than none at all.
Henry David Thoreau said that silence is “the universal refuge—the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts.”
“Nowadays, most men lead lives of noisy desperation,” added James Thurber in a take-off on one of Thoreau’s most famous quotes.
That’s for sure.
As we’ve mentioned on this page before, the world is becoming an increasingly noisy place. And not just due to the high decibel levels caused by machinery and stereophonic speakers. We’re suffering from a glut of high-tech communication gadgets and a general overload of information—both useful and useless—from a growing variety of sources.
I suppose we contribute our fair share to this overload with the news and editorials we publish in The North Woods Call. But that’s minor compared to the amount of tripe that spews from smart phones, social networking sites and the mouths of politicians.
A few years ago—before I shut myself in my home office and began writing this newspaper—I had real-world jobs where employee meetings were all too often ruled by individuals intent on sucking the air out of the room and dominating the conversation. Psychologists say that these extroverts have a need to talk. It energizes them and helps them process their thoughts.
The trouble is, they don’t seem to learn much of value when they’re talking all the time.
Most of my former colleagues would probably say that I don’t have that problem. In fact, they have sometimes complained that I don’t say enough. Kind of like “Silent” Calvin Coolidge, I suppose, without the bully pulpit.
I plead guilty as charged.
The truth is, I don’t really like to hear myself talk and my spirit gets weary if I have to listen to others drone on. Instead, I typically process my thoughts by silent contemplation—and energize myself by actually doing what needs to be done.
Silence is golden, they say, and I concur.
There are, of course, numerous benefits to being still. Among other things, it promotes inner peace, teaches us to listen, helps us communicate on a deeper level, encourages self-discovery, gives us rest, boosts creativity, enhances mental clarity and—most importantly—allows us to hear the voice of God.
“In the attitude of silence, the soul finds the path in a clearer light,” said Mahatma Ghandi, “and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.”
“Nothing in creation is so like God as silence,” agreed Meister Eckhart.
I used to camp on occasion in the Sand Lakes Quiet Area near Traverse City and on North Manitou Island in Lake Michigan. At these and similar locations, I greatly appreciated the freedom from chance encounters with motorized vehicles.
Too much random racket supercharges my nerves, and leaves me drained and irritable.
Back in the 1990s, when I was attending the Colorado Outward Bound School near Leadville with a group of Kellogg National Fellows, the nighttime snoring ritual in the men’s bunkhouse sounded a bit like time trials at a local drag strip. It eventually drove me from the building, and forced me to move my bedroll outside and spread it out under the stars in a stand of tall pines.
I wasn’t being anti-social—just searching for quiet meditation and peaceful sleep.
One of the final exercises in the week-long Outward Bound experience involved several hours of solo time in a mountain forest. We were told to sit silently, observe nature and write letters to ourselves that would be opened a year after we returned home.
“Be still and know that I am God,” the holy scriptures say. That’s good advice, but tough to do in today’s world.
It has been said that the northern Arctic region expresses the sum of all wisdom—silence.
But I wonder about that, since modernity has invaded all areas.
A few years ago, when I visited the rural villages of Kotzebue and Noorvik in northwest Alaska—several hundred air miles from the urban center of Anchorage—my senses were assaulted by numerous all-terrain vehicles roaring through the streets and across the landscape.
It seems that wherever man goes, he carries the din of human activity with him.
“We need to find God,” Mother Teresa said, “and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence. See the stars, the moon and the sun—how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
Alaskan adventures of a wannabe bush pilot
By Mike VanBuren
From the Late August 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
If it wasn’t for my natural trepidation over speed, height and the general unreliability of machines, I might have been a bush pilot.
At least I’ve thought about it on various occasions. During my late teens and early 20s, I even considered a role in the U.S. Air Force as a possible place to begin such a career.
But, rather than sitting at the controls of assorted high-tech aircraft, I wound up staring into various computer screens, crafting news and feature stories about the adventures of others.
My early inspiration for this unfulfilled dream came from reading about the exploits of that rare breed of individuals who pioneered the use of airplanes to carry people and goods to places that were previously accessible only by horseback, ox cart, dog sled, or canoe.
According to a Time-Life book about the subject, these daring pilots not only flew over the ice-cloaked mountains and endless tundra of Alaska, but also penetrated the forbidding barrens of northern Canada, the scorched outback of Australia, the humid jungles of New Guinea, the razor-backed ridges of Mexico’s Sierra Madre and the tangled rain forests of the Amazon.
Traveling in minutes or hours over territory so rugged that it took days or weeks to traverse on the ground, they connected countless remote settlements and lone individuals with the outside world, bringing in medicines, mail, essential commodities and emergency aid—and yanking isolated areas into the 20th Century.
I’ve been fortunate over the years to have had many Forrest Gump-style experiences—simply by being in the right places at the right times. That’s how I came to acquire my own pseudo bush flying adventures in Alaska.
The first such escapade was in 1989, when a high school friend—Dave Bogart—and I rented a small Cessna Skyhawk and took it on a short flight over a wilderness area west of Anchorage, where he was living at the time. An occasional bush pilot who has since purchased his own plane, Dave was then working for the fabled Flying Tigers. He now captains Federal Express flights around the globe. Once airborne, Dave let me take over the controls for a few minutes as we soared above the landscape. Ten years later, he would take me and my family on other flights over glaciers near Wasilla and Palmer.
A day or so after that inaugural trip over the Alaskan bush, I boarded a small float plane on a lake north of Seward and flew to the village of Chenega Bay in Prince William Sound. I was ostensibly there on Kellogg Foundation business, but briefly felt as though I was living the life of a bush pilot.
Back in Anchorage, a foundation colleague and I next boarded a commercial jet for Dutch Harbor, about 800 miles out in the Aleutian Island chain. Landing there was one of the trickiest maneuvers I have ever seen.
The plane descended over the windswept and fog-shrouded Bering Sea and flew between two rugged mountains, making a hard right turn onto the short runway and braking with a force that pressed passengers hard against their seat belts. There were several commercial fishermen on board, who spontaneously erupted into loud cheers and applause when the jet rolled to a stop.
After a night at the crowded Unisea Inn, my colleague and I climbed into another small craft bound for the village of Nikolski, an island or so away. We passed over a herd of reindeer at historic Fort Glenn, wandered in the clouds for a spell and set down on a gravel airstrip on Umnak Island.
“You were flying with God up there,” one of the villagers remarked as we climbed out of the airplane. So we were.
We were especially lucky that day—able to complete our business, and fly back to Dutch Harbor and Anchorage on schedule. Sometimes the uncertain Aleutian weather keeps planes grounded for a couple of weeks.
Nineteen years later, I was back in Alaska on business—taking an Alaskan Airlines flight from Anchorage to Kotzebue in the Arctic Circle, via a quick stopover in Nome. I was traveling that time with a video crew and flew from Kotzebue to the village of Noorvik to do some interviews at a small health clinic and nearby native fish camp.
Yet another adventure for a wannabe bush pilot.
If I had unlimited courage—along with sufficient aeronautical knowledge and skills—I could probably still “slip the surly bonds of earth” and become one for real.
But at this late stage of my life, I’ll probably just keep dreaming about such airborne adventures—and writing about individuals with the grit and determination to actually make them happen.
From the Late August 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
If it wasn’t for my natural trepidation over speed, height and the general unreliability of machines, I might have been a bush pilot.
At least I’ve thought about it on various occasions. During my late teens and early 20s, I even considered a role in the U.S. Air Force as a possible place to begin such a career.
But, rather than sitting at the controls of assorted high-tech aircraft, I wound up staring into various computer screens, crafting news and feature stories about the adventures of others.
My early inspiration for this unfulfilled dream came from reading about the exploits of that rare breed of individuals who pioneered the use of airplanes to carry people and goods to places that were previously accessible only by horseback, ox cart, dog sled, or canoe.
According to a Time-Life book about the subject, these daring pilots not only flew over the ice-cloaked mountains and endless tundra of Alaska, but also penetrated the forbidding barrens of northern Canada, the scorched outback of Australia, the humid jungles of New Guinea, the razor-backed ridges of Mexico’s Sierra Madre and the tangled rain forests of the Amazon.
Traveling in minutes or hours over territory so rugged that it took days or weeks to traverse on the ground, they connected countless remote settlements and lone individuals with the outside world, bringing in medicines, mail, essential commodities and emergency aid—and yanking isolated areas into the 20th Century.
I’ve been fortunate over the years to have had many Forrest Gump-style experiences—simply by being in the right places at the right times. That’s how I came to acquire my own pseudo bush flying adventures in Alaska.
The first such escapade was in 1989, when a high school friend—Dave Bogart—and I rented a small Cessna Skyhawk and took it on a short flight over a wilderness area west of Anchorage, where he was living at the time. An occasional bush pilot who has since purchased his own plane, Dave was then working for the fabled Flying Tigers. He now captains Federal Express flights around the globe. Once airborne, Dave let me take over the controls for a few minutes as we soared above the landscape. Ten years later, he would take me and my family on other flights over glaciers near Wasilla and Palmer.
A day or so after that inaugural trip over the Alaskan bush, I boarded a small float plane on a lake north of Seward and flew to the village of Chenega Bay in Prince William Sound. I was ostensibly there on Kellogg Foundation business, but briefly felt as though I was living the life of a bush pilot.
Back in Anchorage, a foundation colleague and I next boarded a commercial jet for Dutch Harbor, about 800 miles out in the Aleutian Island chain. Landing there was one of the trickiest maneuvers I have ever seen.
The plane descended over the windswept and fog-shrouded Bering Sea and flew between two rugged mountains, making a hard right turn onto the short runway and braking with a force that pressed passengers hard against their seat belts. There were several commercial fishermen on board, who spontaneously erupted into loud cheers and applause when the jet rolled to a stop.
After a night at the crowded Unisea Inn, my colleague and I climbed into another small craft bound for the village of Nikolski, an island or so away. We passed over a herd of reindeer at historic Fort Glenn, wandered in the clouds for a spell and set down on a gravel airstrip on Umnak Island.
“You were flying with God up there,” one of the villagers remarked as we climbed out of the airplane. So we were.
We were especially lucky that day—able to complete our business, and fly back to Dutch Harbor and Anchorage on schedule. Sometimes the uncertain Aleutian weather keeps planes grounded for a couple of weeks.
Nineteen years later, I was back in Alaska on business—taking an Alaskan Airlines flight from Anchorage to Kotzebue in the Arctic Circle, via a quick stopover in Nome. I was traveling that time with a video crew and flew from Kotzebue to the village of Noorvik to do some interviews at a small health clinic and nearby native fish camp.
Yet another adventure for a wannabe bush pilot.
If I had unlimited courage—along with sufficient aeronautical knowledge and skills—I could probably still “slip the surly bonds of earth” and become one for real.
But at this late stage of my life, I’ll probably just keep dreaming about such airborne adventures—and writing about individuals with the grit and determination to actually make them happen.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
North Woods Call radio feature
Here's a link to the WMUK radio report that aired August 7, 2014:
http://wmuk.org/post/wsw-covering-environment-and-conservation
http://wmuk.org/post/wsw-covering-environment-and-conservation
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Speaking out for conservation
An editorial from the Early August 2014 North Woods Call
When we first began publishing the revived North Woods Call two years ago, we imagined a time when the newspaper could be returned to the forests, lakes and rivers of northern Michigan.
After all, that’s largely what it’s about and where it belongs.
Yet, life events and family obligations have kept us from doing that and it doesn’t appear likely that we’ll be able to facilitate such a move anytime in the near future.
Unfortunately, we don’t know anyone else who is qualified, interested and willing to take over the operation. If we did, we might be open to some deal-making.
Publishing in the southern Lower Peninsula is OK, although it keeps our direct connection with the north woods inconsistent, at best. But with the help of those readers who provide news tips and contribute content to The Call—not to mention our numerous loyal subscribers—we have thus far been able to continue the legacy begun in 1953 by Marguerite Gahagan, and continued for many years by Glen and Mary Lou Sheppard.
We believe that Michigan conservation needs this publication, which is why we’ve been trying to keep it alive despite some personal setbacks during recent months.
In the end, though, it’s not about us. We’re merely a voice for others and a repository for divergent viewpoints that are sometimes overshadowed by more powerful voices in the civic arena.
It’s really the hunters, fishers, explorers, hikers, local conservationists, and numerous others who care deeply about the environment that are doing the heavy lifting out in the field.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has its role, to be sure, but the agency doesn’t always seem as effective as it once was. The DNR’s legendary field staff—arguably the heart and soul of many state-sponsored conservation efforts—are today so hampered by bureaucratic pressures and special-interest politics that they’ve been forced to keep their heads low to avoid the crossfire.
That’s why good journalism and active citizen participation are vital. We must keep errant public servants, businesses, industries and even the nonprofit sector in line if we are going to preserve both our endangered representative republic and rich natural heritage.
This has been our goal. We trust it is one you share.
When we first began publishing the revived North Woods Call two years ago, we imagined a time when the newspaper could be returned to the forests, lakes and rivers of northern Michigan.
After all, that’s largely what it’s about and where it belongs.
Yet, life events and family obligations have kept us from doing that and it doesn’t appear likely that we’ll be able to facilitate such a move anytime in the near future.
Unfortunately, we don’t know anyone else who is qualified, interested and willing to take over the operation. If we did, we might be open to some deal-making.
Publishing in the southern Lower Peninsula is OK, although it keeps our direct connection with the north woods inconsistent, at best. But with the help of those readers who provide news tips and contribute content to The Call—not to mention our numerous loyal subscribers—we have thus far been able to continue the legacy begun in 1953 by Marguerite Gahagan, and continued for many years by Glen and Mary Lou Sheppard.
We believe that Michigan conservation needs this publication, which is why we’ve been trying to keep it alive despite some personal setbacks during recent months.
In the end, though, it’s not about us. We’re merely a voice for others and a repository for divergent viewpoints that are sometimes overshadowed by more powerful voices in the civic arena.
It’s really the hunters, fishers, explorers, hikers, local conservationists, and numerous others who care deeply about the environment that are doing the heavy lifting out in the field.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has its role, to be sure, but the agency doesn’t always seem as effective as it once was. The DNR’s legendary field staff—arguably the heart and soul of many state-sponsored conservation efforts—are today so hampered by bureaucratic pressures and special-interest politics that they’ve been forced to keep their heads low to avoid the crossfire.
That’s why good journalism and active citizen participation are vital. We must keep errant public servants, businesses, industries and even the nonprofit sector in line if we are going to preserve both our endangered representative republic and rich natural heritage.
This has been our goal. We trust it is one you share.
All aboard: Railroads & the Environment
By Mike VanBuren
From the Early August 2014 North Woods Call
Many years ago, when I lived and worked in the Antrim County community of Mancelona, I often walked at night in an effort to relax my mind and think.
Many times, I trekked along the Michigan Northern Railroad line, stepping from tie-to-tie, scuffing along in the cinders, or balancing on one of the heavy steel rails. It was good therapy that reminded me of my childhood explorations of the old Chicago, Kalamazoo & Saginaw tracks near our home.
I sometimes imagined following the rails across America, through the rural countrysides and urban areas, and actually thought that one day I would take such an extended hike. But, as it often does, life and work got in the way and this remains one of the unfulfilled dreams on my “bucket list.”
My fascination with railroads comes naturally, of course, because both my father and grandfather were railroad men—the former a locomotive engineer and the latter a hostler. I was a railroader myself—a locomotive fireman—for several months after I graduated from high school, until I became weary with the regular layoffs, and was pulled away by college and other pursuits.
I have long thought about railroads from a conservation perspective, as an environmentally friendly way to move freight and passengers. One of my college professors once claimed that rails were better than blacktop, because a set of tracks take up much less space per mile than the typical interstate highway favored by modern trucks and automobiles.
That sounded reasonable to a 20-year-old bachelor of science student at a state-funded university, but some transportation experts say trains present their own set of problems.
Not surprisingly, the American Railroad Association (ARA) says there are plenty of ecological benefits to railroads, which the organization says have a unique ability to reduce highway gridlock, lower fuel consumption, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cut pollution.
In 2013, for example, railroads reportedly moved a ton of freight 473 miles on a single gallon of fuel. According to an independent study by the Federal Railroad Administration, railroads are on average four times more fuel efficient than trucks.
If just 10 percent of long-distance freight that currently moves by highway switched to rail, the ARA says, national fuel savings would approach one billion gallons per year and annual greenhouse gas emissions would fall by more than 10 million tons.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, says that freight moved by rail instead of highway is estimated to reduce emissions by two-thirds.
Furthermore, a single freight train can carry the load of several hundred trucks, freeing up space on the nation’s overcrowded highways and reducing pressures to build and maintain costly roads.
According to the Federal Railroad Administration, passenger trains can efficiently move large numbers of people in comfort and safety—and at higher speeds—than are possible with other ground transportation options. More energy savings and reduced air pollutant emissions may be possible through development of high-speed rail systems, the agency says.
Critics insist that the biggest environmental threat produced by trains is the amount of carbon dioxide they emit, although the “carbon footprint” left by a train, compared to an automobile, depends on how many passengers are using it. A train full of passengers leaves a significantly smaller carbon footprint per capita than a car with just one person.
It is also said that, though trains are more fuel efficient than cars, they still consume a tremendous amount of non-renewable fuel each year. They can disrupt local ecosystems by interrupting migration patterns, destroying habitat and even killing animals attempting to cross the tracks. And railroads are often built with little or no consideration of the local flora and fauna, the critics say.
Then there is noise pollution, which often reaches dangerously high decibel levels that can irritate and stress both humans and animals.
There sometimes seems to be no perfect solution to our environmental problems short of exterminating the human race and giving the planet back to the apes. But more intentional use of railroads could probably help a lot.
My father has often lamented the steady demise of railroads, which were at their historical peak when he was growing up. I feel the same way and would much prefer to travel by rail than by plane—if trains could just get me where I’m going on time.
But maybe that’s the real problem with our society. We’re in far too much of a hurry.
From the Early August 2014 North Woods Call
Many years ago, when I lived and worked in the Antrim County community of Mancelona, I often walked at night in an effort to relax my mind and think.
Many times, I trekked along the Michigan Northern Railroad line, stepping from tie-to-tie, scuffing along in the cinders, or balancing on one of the heavy steel rails. It was good therapy that reminded me of my childhood explorations of the old Chicago, Kalamazoo & Saginaw tracks near our home.
I sometimes imagined following the rails across America, through the rural countrysides and urban areas, and actually thought that one day I would take such an extended hike. But, as it often does, life and work got in the way and this remains one of the unfulfilled dreams on my “bucket list.”
My fascination with railroads comes naturally, of course, because both my father and grandfather were railroad men—the former a locomotive engineer and the latter a hostler. I was a railroader myself—a locomotive fireman—for several months after I graduated from high school, until I became weary with the regular layoffs, and was pulled away by college and other pursuits.
I have long thought about railroads from a conservation perspective, as an environmentally friendly way to move freight and passengers. One of my college professors once claimed that rails were better than blacktop, because a set of tracks take up much less space per mile than the typical interstate highway favored by modern trucks and automobiles.
That sounded reasonable to a 20-year-old bachelor of science student at a state-funded university, but some transportation experts say trains present their own set of problems.
Not surprisingly, the American Railroad Association (ARA) says there are plenty of ecological benefits to railroads, which the organization says have a unique ability to reduce highway gridlock, lower fuel consumption, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cut pollution.
In 2013, for example, railroads reportedly moved a ton of freight 473 miles on a single gallon of fuel. According to an independent study by the Federal Railroad Administration, railroads are on average four times more fuel efficient than trucks.
If just 10 percent of long-distance freight that currently moves by highway switched to rail, the ARA says, national fuel savings would approach one billion gallons per year and annual greenhouse gas emissions would fall by more than 10 million tons.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, says that freight moved by rail instead of highway is estimated to reduce emissions by two-thirds.
Furthermore, a single freight train can carry the load of several hundred trucks, freeing up space on the nation’s overcrowded highways and reducing pressures to build and maintain costly roads.
According to the Federal Railroad Administration, passenger trains can efficiently move large numbers of people in comfort and safety—and at higher speeds—than are possible with other ground transportation options. More energy savings and reduced air pollutant emissions may be possible through development of high-speed rail systems, the agency says.
Critics insist that the biggest environmental threat produced by trains is the amount of carbon dioxide they emit, although the “carbon footprint” left by a train, compared to an automobile, depends on how many passengers are using it. A train full of passengers leaves a significantly smaller carbon footprint per capita than a car with just one person.
It is also said that, though trains are more fuel efficient than cars, they still consume a tremendous amount of non-renewable fuel each year. They can disrupt local ecosystems by interrupting migration patterns, destroying habitat and even killing animals attempting to cross the tracks. And railroads are often built with little or no consideration of the local flora and fauna, the critics say.
Then there is noise pollution, which often reaches dangerously high decibel levels that can irritate and stress both humans and animals.
There sometimes seems to be no perfect solution to our environmental problems short of exterminating the human race and giving the planet back to the apes. But more intentional use of railroads could probably help a lot.
My father has often lamented the steady demise of railroads, which were at their historical peak when he was growing up. I feel the same way and would much prefer to travel by rail than by plane—if trains could just get me where I’m going on time.
But maybe that’s the real problem with our society. We’re in far too much of a hurry.
Undocumented consequences
An editorial from the Early August 2014 North Woods Call
Now that our national borders seem to be dissolving—a baffling occurrence apparently orchestrated by leaders who lack both common sense and respect for the citizens they serve—it may be a silly time to think about population control.
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when a plethora of environmental problems were routinely blamed on “just too many damned people.” That doesn’t seem to matter, anymore—at least to those who see political and economic gain for themselves at the expense of the nation’s legal immigration system and sovereignty.
We’ve said this before and it’s worth repeating: You’d think conservationists on all sides of the ideological divide would recognize that more people mean greater pressure on our natural resources—and the public treasury.
Instead, the left-wingers seem to be happily supporting the continued influx of illegal immigrants, while the right-wingers are trying to slow it down (or so they say). And the so-called progressives—both Democrats and Republicans who have complained the loudest about the devastating impact of human activity on the environment—are apparently unconcerned about the social and ecological consequences of millions of uninvited guests moving into the United States without proper certification.
This is quite stunning to us. If ever there was an issue on which conservationists of all stripes should be able to agree, it is this one.
While we sincerely believe in helping those in need and fully understand the quest for a better life, uncontrolled immigration is not the answer. It would be better to assist the fleeing masses by establishing more just and equitable governments in their home countries. The real problem lies in the despots and dictators that have ruled those nations with an iron fist for far too long—oppressing their people, destroying economic opportunity and keeping the fruits of everyone’s labor for themselves.
“But it’s about the children,” we are told. “We must be compassionate, and care for them and their families.”
Yeah, right. Tell that to the millions of aborted souls that have been denied similar compassion and concern here at home.
Now that our national borders seem to be dissolving—a baffling occurrence apparently orchestrated by leaders who lack both common sense and respect for the citizens they serve—it may be a silly time to think about population control.
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when a plethora of environmental problems were routinely blamed on “just too many damned people.” That doesn’t seem to matter, anymore—at least to those who see political and economic gain for themselves at the expense of the nation’s legal immigration system and sovereignty.
We’ve said this before and it’s worth repeating: You’d think conservationists on all sides of the ideological divide would recognize that more people mean greater pressure on our natural resources—and the public treasury.
Instead, the left-wingers seem to be happily supporting the continued influx of illegal immigrants, while the right-wingers are trying to slow it down (or so they say). And the so-called progressives—both Democrats and Republicans who have complained the loudest about the devastating impact of human activity on the environment—are apparently unconcerned about the social and ecological consequences of millions of uninvited guests moving into the United States without proper certification.
This is quite stunning to us. If ever there was an issue on which conservationists of all stripes should be able to agree, it is this one.
While we sincerely believe in helping those in need and fully understand the quest for a better life, uncontrolled immigration is not the answer. It would be better to assist the fleeing masses by establishing more just and equitable governments in their home countries. The real problem lies in the despots and dictators that have ruled those nations with an iron fist for far too long—oppressing their people, destroying economic opportunity and keeping the fruits of everyone’s labor for themselves.
“But it’s about the children,” we are told. “We must be compassionate, and care for them and their families.”
Yeah, right. Tell that to the millions of aborted souls that have been denied similar compassion and concern here at home.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
The art of the false crisis
An editorial from the Late July 2014 North Woods Call
People have asked us why we’re so skeptical about man-made climate change and certain other issues that many conservationists embrace wholeheartedly—particularly when scientific research, they say, overwhelmingly supports the doomsday prognostications.
Maybe it’s because such skepticism is at the heart of good journalism—or should be—although few reporters these days seem to display any parallel suspicion. or even a healthy curiosity. Some ecological claims just don’t ring true to us when the claimants appear to so completely disregard the truth in many of the statements they make.
A good share of these modern-day prophets—especially Democrat politicians and left-leaning environmentalists—seem to be masters at creating false crises that are aimed primarily at increasing their own power, or enriching themselves and their allies. They routinely whip their fellow citizens into an irrational frenzy, then insist we adopt dubious schemes that allow them to squander public and private resources on programs that never quite solve the problems at hand.
Given this, why should anyone believe what they say about anything?
Our skepticism might well be traced to one of Aesop’s Fables—”The Boy Who Cried Wolf”—which we first encountered as children. In this fable, a shepherd boy repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock. When a wolf actually does appear, however, and the boy calls for help, the villagers do not come. They think it’s just another false alarm, so the sheep get eaten.
Fear mongering—whether justified or not—can create a sense of paralysis and actually block social action.
We’ve long recognized the dangers of groupthink, where collections of like-minded people believe they are correct just because they agree on something and have become blind to all other ideas.
And don’t forget that just over 14 years ago the experts were telling us that the turn of the new century was sure to bring calamity on us all—due to a supposed glitch in computer system designs that would cause chip-driven machines to malfunction after midnight on December 31, 1999. We were warned that our cars would not start, the nation’s electric grid would shut down, financial records would be in jeopardy, businesses would be unable to operate and all manner of other problems would occur.
None of this happened. Yet the science and technology wizards weren’t prescient—or honest—enough to figure that out and let us know that life as we knew it would continue apace. Instead, an apparently unnecessary industry sprang up to “protect” us from the inevitable and billions of dollars were needlessly spent the world over in preparation of what was known as Y2K.
We could be wrong in our cynicism, of course. We freely admit that the absolute truth—if it exists—escapes us in many areas. But we need to call these things as we see them. Anything less would be a shirking of our duty.
We apologize if this offends the true believers out there. But we’d probably all be better off if there were more skeptics and fewer people willing to blindly follow the latest Pied Pipers down the road to perdition—at least until we know whether they’re telling the truth.
What color is God, anyway?
By Mike VanBuren
From the Late July 2014 North Woods Call
I’ve been reading a book called “God is Red” by Native American scholar Vine Deloria Jr., which ostensibly contrasts Native American religious traditions with other faiths—particularly Christianity.
The author talks a lot about land, wildlife, plants and place—central characters in the belief system of American Indians and other indigenous people around the world.
Mostly, however, he lambasts western thought and culture, zeroing in on Christianity as the root cause of the “great weakness” of the United States—the alleged inability to respect or tolerate those who are different.
“The future of humankind,” he says, “lies waiting in those who will come to understand their lives and take up their responsibilities to all living things.”
On the surface, I think Deloria is unduly harsh on Christian beliefs and traditions. He often seems blind to the true nature of Christianity, or what its adherents are actually called to do and be. But who can blame him—given the violent disobedience, contempt for other living things and general hypocrisy of many who have called themselves Christian over the years? There are important lessons to be learned by facing these inconsistencies and thinking about the consequences.
Thousands of years of occupancy on their lands taught tribal peoples the sacred landscapes for which they were responsible, according to Deloria. It was not what people believed to be true that was important, but what they experienced to be true.
As a result, the vast majority of Indian tribal religions have a sacred center at a particular place—be it a river, a mountain, a plateau, a valley, or other natural features. This center enables them to “look out among the four dimensions and locate their lands, to relate all historical events within the confines of this particular land and to accept responsibility for it.”
Thus, tribal religions are actually complex collections of attitudes, beliefs and practices fine-tuned to harmonize with the lands on which the people live.
Western European people, by contrast, “have never learned to consider the nature of the world discerned from a spatial point of view,” Deloria says. Christianity, instead, has tended toward dominance, control and defeat of the natural world, which is largely viewed in economic terms as something to be exploited.
As a result, we move from place-to-place with no concern for the sacredness of land, or important spiritual aspects of the places from which we come. We even select our churches and religious affiliations based on social status, Deloria says, moving from denomination-to-denomination as our economic and employment situations change.
“The question that emerges,” he says, “is whether land is a ‘thing’ to be used to generate income, or a homeland on which people are supposed to live in a sacred manner.”
Sacred places, according to Deloria, are the foundation of all other beliefs and practices, because they represent the presence of the sacred in our lives. “They properly inform us,” he says, “that we are not larger than nature and that we have responsibilities to the rest of the natural world that transcend our own personal desires and wishes.”
Although I happily identify myself as a Christian, I have long been a believer in sacred places rooted in the history of our ancestors. And—like our Native American brethren—I experience spiritual renewal when I visit those places.
That is not to say that we should worship creation over the creator—as some do—but simply that we should recognize some things as sacred and others as profane.
The relentless advance of civilization always seems to overrun the holier, more natural things of life. We see that even with much of today’s technology, which in many cases is enslaving us to the profane and destroying everything that gets in its way—including common sense.
Unfortunately for us and the planet, every human being—Christian, Native American, or whatever—is filled with contradictions. That’s why none of us can redeem ourselves so that we are acceptable to the Great Spirit. But that truth does not give any of us a free pass. We are still accountable for our choices.
In the religious world of most native tribes, birds, animals and plants compose the “other peoples” of creation, according to Deloria. If Jews and Christians see the actions of a deity at sacred places in the Holy Land and in churches and synagogues, he says, traditional Indian people experience spiritual activity as all of creation becomes active participants in ceremonial life.
Regardless whether one perceives God as red, white, black, or some other hue, the earth cries out for redemption and renewal.
And, as Deloria says, every society needs sacred places, “because they help instill a sense of social cohesion in the people and remind them of the passage of generations that have brought them to the present. A society that cannot remember and honor its past is in peril of losing its soul.”
Call reader survey
An editorial from the Early June 2014 The North Woods Call
Response to the 2014 North Woods Call reader survey has been somewhat anemic. We take that to mean you are either satisfied, or too polite to complain.
Of the seven responses we received so far, comments have included “It’s great,” “now the Call is fair and balanced” and “I like the diversity and timeliness of natural resources-related news.”
One reader added that he appreciates our focus on the “ethical,” even if it isn’t popular. “This should be our highest calling,” he said. “More of us sportsmen need it. [John] Gunnell gets it.”
On the critical side, we were told that we don’t need so many editorials and columns on things not related to current natural resources-related news, especially from individuals other than the editor. “They’re nice to read now and then,” one person said, “but I’d rather have the space taken up with news we can use.”
Another respondent said that most of the news covered is about things he already knows. “How can you get ahead of issues and happenings?” he asked, while another individual suggested more information about “pending legislation” and what readers can do to help.
We suppose the answer to that last question lies in resources and staffing. When The Call has a greater abundance of both, there will naturally be more enterprise in our reporting and additional ability to get ahead of things that need to be covered.
Unfortunately, there is only so much a small mom-and-pop operation can do with a relatively small number of subscribers.
“I fully realize the value of a paper that focuses on conservation issues,” said one reader. “I wish more did the same.”
So do we.
We look forward to the day when The Call can grow beyond these current constraints and better serve the conservation community. In the meantime, we very much appreciate the enthusiasm and support we do have, as well as this input from readers.
Don't feed the animals
By Mike VanBuren
From the Late June 2014 North Woods Call
I’ve always enjoyed wild animals—especially those that wander past my windows and liven the landscape.
We see many of them outside our home in Michigan. White-tailed deer, wild turkeys, pheasants, owls, hawks and songbirds are common. So are herons, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes and turtles. Sometimes I even hear the yip of a coyote, but seldom see one in the flesh.
Most of these animals are pleasing to the eyes and ears, and require very little maintenance. Of course, we’re awakened sometimes at night by some rather hideous screams and struggles, but that’s part and parcel of the natural world.
More troubling, I think, are the raccoons, skunks, woodchucks, and possums that seem to think they’re entitled to move into our house whenever they want. So far, they’ve only been able to get as far as the attached garage—although we’ve had more than one ring-tailed marauder peer fearlessly through our back door into the kitchen.
They’re attracted, I suppose, by the food and water they find in bird feeders and cat dishes. For the most part, we’ve been able to stop them from getting at these. But they always seem to find something new to sniff and chew on.
The worst was probably the fat raccoon that climbed the garage wall and holed up in the eave of the house. Despite our efforts, he refused to come out until he could break through the aluminum soffit over our front porch, causing considerable damage.
It has been estimated that as many as three in five metropolitan U.S. households battle wildlife, sustaining as much as $3.8 billion in property damage in a single year. This figure doesn’t include the deaths and injuries suffered in collisions between cars and wandering animals.
The simple matter is that wild animals are running out of space. Conflicts between wildlife and suburbia are increasing. And much of it is our own fault.
Wanting open space and fresh air, we’re building homes farther from the nation’s urban centers. Yesterday’s farms and forests have become today’s subdivisions and strip malls. Driveways and roads cross game trails, tree lines, and creek beds, where animals travel and hunt.
What’s more, animals that find themselves leap-frogged by development have little motivation to move to greater open spaces. They’ve learned that food abounds in the suburbs. There are compost heaps, garbage cans and ornamental shrubs to feast on – along with pet foods and bird feed.
Discouraging these animals requires specific precautions. First and foremost, don’t feed them. They can become particularly aggressive when they lose their fear of man. Make sure garbage cans have tight-fitting lids. Don’t leave pet food and water outside. Pick up fallen fruit.
And cap your chimney. Raccoons often use open, uncapped chimneys as nests, and can steal into your house when you’re away. You can also clear your yard, keeping it free of brush and low branches that create good hiding spots.
Avoiding Darwinian confrontations may be easier than you think. But it requires some effort to make our homes and neighborhoods less alluring to wild animals.
And that’s a good thing to remember the next time a furry, would-be bandit appears at your back door.
Man & climate change: Seeing is believing?
By Mike VanBuren
From the Early June 2014 North Woods Call
Some folks tell me that man-made climate change is the most important issue facing humanity.
Others claim that this is a bunch of bunk.
Personally, I have no reliable way of knowing for sure, but—as readers of The North Woods Call have already seen—I’m a bit skeptical when it comes to the current doomsday scenarios.
It’s not that I don’t respect sound science, and I’ve long been suspicious of the Faustian bargains we’ve made with fossil fuels, nuclear energy and a host of other technologies. Like most everyone else, I’d love to see greener, cleaner and more affordable forms of energy developed.
But I tend to form opinions based on my own experiences, personal knowledge (as limited as that may be) and critical thinking. And I haven’t seen anything concrete that convinces me that human activity is significantly altering our weather and climate.
Does that make me a climate change “denier” worthy of name-calling and scorn, or should all sides of this debate be equally aired in the civic arena?
I suppose I could have my dunderhead submerged in a vat of mulligan stew, but I don’t think so. If I do, I stand waiting to be extracted from my ignorance. But that is going to take reason and logic—not the yammerings of corrupt politicians, or the self-interested measurements of academic grant seekers who rely on funding from government agencies and private foundations to produce research studies that are all too often subservient to slanted ideological agendas.
In my six-plus decades on earth, I have spent a considerable amount of time out-of-doors. Through the years, I’ve seen both hot and cold summers, warm and sub-zero winters, wet and dry seasons, high and low Great Lakes water levels, tornadoes, hurricanes and numerous other natural disasters.
I’ve heard the older folks talk about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and read about it in Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” (one of my all-time favorite books). But my father has also described to me the harsh winter of 1936—at the height of the Great Depression—when he and his mother waded in waste-deep snow to deliver groceries to his stranded grandfather on a rural farm.
I’ve read about droughts, famines, floods and other environmental calamities occurring way back in biblical times—long before the Wright Brothers tested their first airplane at Kitty Hawk and Henry Ford pushed the first Model A off the assembly line in Detroit.
Heck, I even live on a sand and gravel hill deposited during the last Ice Age when glaciers receded across Michigan. Two summers ago it was so hot and dry that my lawn was scorched, and has never recovered. Yet, this spring, we are still reeling from one of the coldest, snowiest winters on record.
For 20 years, my family and I spent a week each August camping in one of Michigan’s fine state parks. The first several years, it was so hot and humid that we sweated and suffered whenever we pitched camp, or sat around the evening campfires (back when climate change was typically referred to as “global warming”). The last five or six years that we camped, however, it was decidedly cooler at the same location and we sometimes had to wear sweatshirts during the evening.
All of these things can be attributed to climate change, I suppose—or at least evolving weather patterns. But how many of them were actually caused by human activity that would suggest we’re in imminent danger of mass chaos and death if we don’t clean up our ecological acts?
None of this, of course, means that air, water and land pollution doesn’t occur at various levels, or that human beings are not capable of fouling the earth. Such homo sapien missteps certainly have manifested themselves at places like Love Canal, Three Mile Island and Donora, Pennsylvania—among other locations.
And if something as serious as man-made climate change is actually occurring on a level that threatens our very survival, we need to sound a clarion alarm. But we should also be encouraged to challenge such assertions.
It’s not unreasonable to expect that clear and convincing arguments be made—free from political gamesmanship, and the demonization of anyone who questions the veracity of these “facts.”
Who has ever known a trained meteorologist who could predict next week’s weather with 100 percent accuracy? Why, then, would we accept without question the prognostications of what the worldwide climate will be like decades, or even centuries from now? And why, for Heaven’s sake, would we base costly carbon tax schemes and excessive liberty squelching regulations on political and scientific guesswork—however educated it may seem to be—that may well be proven false and, in some cases, already has.
Back when I studied weather and climate as part of my conservation minor at Central Michigan University, nothing was said about global warming, or climate change. Instead, we learned about the natural forces that shaped our physical environment and how, at best, we could count on the weather changing from day-to-day. Anybody who thought they could unequivocally tell us what the weather would be like a month, or year, from now would have been ostracized as something akin to Elmer Gantry. These days, old Elmer is embraced.
I’m not omniscient enough to say without hesitation who is most correct on this issue. But then, few people—if any—are.
The best we can do is rely on our own intuition, personal experiences and powers of reason to sort through the various theories. Unfortunately, normal public discourse is notoriously unreliable—especially when those making the most noise appear to have stealth motivations that have nothing to do with saving Mother Earth.
Nevertheless, we ought to be able to speak like adults about such subjects and seek the truth wherever it may be found.
As it is, we seem to be collectively living the words of Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by “trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”
And the fruit of anger we are harvesting stems more from selfish ambition and human-generated antipathy toward one another, rather than unquestionable empirical evidence that shows our often confused species is destroying the planet.
Which, by the way, actually belongs to God, not us.
From the Early June 2014 North Woods Call
Some folks tell me that man-made climate change is the most important issue facing humanity.
Others claim that this is a bunch of bunk.
Personally, I have no reliable way of knowing for sure, but—as readers of The North Woods Call have already seen—I’m a bit skeptical when it comes to the current doomsday scenarios.
It’s not that I don’t respect sound science, and I’ve long been suspicious of the Faustian bargains we’ve made with fossil fuels, nuclear energy and a host of other technologies. Like most everyone else, I’d love to see greener, cleaner and more affordable forms of energy developed.
But I tend to form opinions based on my own experiences, personal knowledge (as limited as that may be) and critical thinking. And I haven’t seen anything concrete that convinces me that human activity is significantly altering our weather and climate.
Does that make me a climate change “denier” worthy of name-calling and scorn, or should all sides of this debate be equally aired in the civic arena?
I suppose I could have my dunderhead submerged in a vat of mulligan stew, but I don’t think so. If I do, I stand waiting to be extracted from my ignorance. But that is going to take reason and logic—not the yammerings of corrupt politicians, or the self-interested measurements of academic grant seekers who rely on funding from government agencies and private foundations to produce research studies that are all too often subservient to slanted ideological agendas.
In my six-plus decades on earth, I have spent a considerable amount of time out-of-doors. Through the years, I’ve seen both hot and cold summers, warm and sub-zero winters, wet and dry seasons, high and low Great Lakes water levels, tornadoes, hurricanes and numerous other natural disasters.
I’ve heard the older folks talk about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and read about it in Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” (one of my all-time favorite books). But my father has also described to me the harsh winter of 1936—at the height of the Great Depression—when he and his mother waded in waste-deep snow to deliver groceries to his stranded grandfather on a rural farm.
I’ve read about droughts, famines, floods and other environmental calamities occurring way back in biblical times—long before the Wright Brothers tested their first airplane at Kitty Hawk and Henry Ford pushed the first Model A off the assembly line in Detroit.
Heck, I even live on a sand and gravel hill deposited during the last Ice Age when glaciers receded across Michigan. Two summers ago it was so hot and dry that my lawn was scorched, and has never recovered. Yet, this spring, we are still reeling from one of the coldest, snowiest winters on record.
For 20 years, my family and I spent a week each August camping in one of Michigan’s fine state parks. The first several years, it was so hot and humid that we sweated and suffered whenever we pitched camp, or sat around the evening campfires (back when climate change was typically referred to as “global warming”). The last five or six years that we camped, however, it was decidedly cooler at the same location and we sometimes had to wear sweatshirts during the evening.
All of these things can be attributed to climate change, I suppose—or at least evolving weather patterns. But how many of them were actually caused by human activity that would suggest we’re in imminent danger of mass chaos and death if we don’t clean up our ecological acts?
None of this, of course, means that air, water and land pollution doesn’t occur at various levels, or that human beings are not capable of fouling the earth. Such homo sapien missteps certainly have manifested themselves at places like Love Canal, Three Mile Island and Donora, Pennsylvania—among other locations.
And if something as serious as man-made climate change is actually occurring on a level that threatens our very survival, we need to sound a clarion alarm. But we should also be encouraged to challenge such assertions.
It’s not unreasonable to expect that clear and convincing arguments be made—free from political gamesmanship, and the demonization of anyone who questions the veracity of these “facts.”
Who has ever known a trained meteorologist who could predict next week’s weather with 100 percent accuracy? Why, then, would we accept without question the prognostications of what the worldwide climate will be like decades, or even centuries from now? And why, for Heaven’s sake, would we base costly carbon tax schemes and excessive liberty squelching regulations on political and scientific guesswork—however educated it may seem to be—that may well be proven false and, in some cases, already has.
Back when I studied weather and climate as part of my conservation minor at Central Michigan University, nothing was said about global warming, or climate change. Instead, we learned about the natural forces that shaped our physical environment and how, at best, we could count on the weather changing from day-to-day. Anybody who thought they could unequivocally tell us what the weather would be like a month, or year, from now would have been ostracized as something akin to Elmer Gantry. These days, old Elmer is embraced.
I’m not omniscient enough to say without hesitation who is most correct on this issue. But then, few people—if any—are.
The best we can do is rely on our own intuition, personal experiences and powers of reason to sort through the various theories. Unfortunately, normal public discourse is notoriously unreliable—especially when those making the most noise appear to have stealth motivations that have nothing to do with saving Mother Earth.
Nevertheless, we ought to be able to speak like adults about such subjects and seek the truth wherever it may be found.
As it is, we seem to be collectively living the words of Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by “trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”
And the fruit of anger we are harvesting stems more from selfish ambition and human-generated antipathy toward one another, rather than unquestionable empirical evidence that shows our often confused species is destroying the planet.
Which, by the way, actually belongs to God, not us.
Sweet deception: Bait & shoot
An editorial from the Late May 2014 North Woods Call
We recently saw a professionally produced video that featured the killing of a black bear that was tempted by assorted goodies placed in a woodland bait barrel.
From what we could tell, the barrel contained such things as donuts, sweet rolls and honey—all aimed at attracting the unwary animal into range, where a camouflaged hunter armed with a sighted crossbow could release an arrow into the unwary prey and bag a trophy mount for the taxidermist.
It was pretty disturbing, to say the least, and seemed quite unfair to the foraging bear.
In our estimation, hunting should involve more than cynical deception and the high-tech advantage of people over animals. It should be more about woodland skill, tracking ability and the battle of wits, rather than simply finding any means necessary to collect another impressive display for the hunter’s den.
Some hunters obviously don’t see it that way, but we are much more aligned with those who do.
Living well with less
By Mike VanBuren
From the Late May 2014 North Woods Call
Once upon a time, I went to a local electronics store to make a simple purchase
A friend had given me an old outdoor television antenna. I needed a hundred feet of wire and a rotor kit to hook it up.
I had never previously owned an outdoor antenna. For years, I'd been content with fuzzy-looking broadcast channels. I'd grown used to unfocused double images of network news anchors. But now I had a chance to bring a little clarity to my life. And I was determined to do so.
At the electronics store, the twenty-something clerk looked at me like, "You can't be serious." He couldn't grasp the fact that I didn't have cable TV. He offered to fill this void by selling me a satellite dish system. For a few dollars a month, he said, I could get hundreds of channels.
But I didn't want hundreds of channels. I was quite satisfied knowing that I'd be getting better TV reception than ever before—and almost for free. But the clerk didn't see it that way. In his eyes, my lack of passion for personal improvement was a serious problem.
That's the trouble with "consumer" cultures. Most of us have more than we need and don't even realize it. We're constantly foraging for the latest gadgets, newest cars and biggest homes. Never mind that such desires usually bring more headaches than they're worth.
Even after foreign terrorists flew commercial airliners into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in rural Pennsylvania—when we probably should have been called to sacrifice and to conserve resources for a larger war effort—President George W. Bush told us to go shopping.
What was that all about?
I think Henry David Thoreau had it right when he called upon us to "simplify, simplify." After all, the essence of our lives is not found in material things and technology—no matter how revolutionary they are. True spiritual growth and contentment rise from uncluttered lives.
I've been reading lately about a movement known as "voluntary simplicity." This involves living —and actually having more—with less. More time, joy, peace, satisfaction and meaning with less money, stress, possessions, competition and isolation.
It has nothing to do with depriving ourselves, or living in poverty. It has everything to do with being content with what we have, finding joy in less and reconnecting with other people and the natural world that sustains us.
Now I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to ignoring this advice. I struggle each day against the impulse to buy things that I think will add happiness and value to my life. They seldom do.
It's usually the simple things that can't be purchased in any store which mean the most. Things like more time for family and community. Less worry about possessions. And greater freedom—to live and grow and love without constraint.
It has been said that there are two ways to get enough—accumulate more, or desire less. Less, it seems, is truly more.
And that's probably the clearest signal I'll ever get from the battered old television antenna that still towers over my house.
From the Late May 2014 North Woods Call
Once upon a time, I went to a local electronics store to make a simple purchase
A friend had given me an old outdoor television antenna. I needed a hundred feet of wire and a rotor kit to hook it up.
I had never previously owned an outdoor antenna. For years, I'd been content with fuzzy-looking broadcast channels. I'd grown used to unfocused double images of network news anchors. But now I had a chance to bring a little clarity to my life. And I was determined to do so.
At the electronics store, the twenty-something clerk looked at me like, "You can't be serious." He couldn't grasp the fact that I didn't have cable TV. He offered to fill this void by selling me a satellite dish system. For a few dollars a month, he said, I could get hundreds of channels.
But I didn't want hundreds of channels. I was quite satisfied knowing that I'd be getting better TV reception than ever before—and almost for free. But the clerk didn't see it that way. In his eyes, my lack of passion for personal improvement was a serious problem.
That's the trouble with "consumer" cultures. Most of us have more than we need and don't even realize it. We're constantly foraging for the latest gadgets, newest cars and biggest homes. Never mind that such desires usually bring more headaches than they're worth.
Even after foreign terrorists flew commercial airliners into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in rural Pennsylvania—when we probably should have been called to sacrifice and to conserve resources for a larger war effort—President George W. Bush told us to go shopping.
What was that all about?
I think Henry David Thoreau had it right when he called upon us to "simplify, simplify." After all, the essence of our lives is not found in material things and technology—no matter how revolutionary they are. True spiritual growth and contentment rise from uncluttered lives.
I've been reading lately about a movement known as "voluntary simplicity." This involves living —and actually having more—with less. More time, joy, peace, satisfaction and meaning with less money, stress, possessions, competition and isolation.
It has nothing to do with depriving ourselves, or living in poverty. It has everything to do with being content with what we have, finding joy in less and reconnecting with other people and the natural world that sustains us.
Now I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to ignoring this advice. I struggle each day against the impulse to buy things that I think will add happiness and value to my life. They seldom do.
It's usually the simple things that can't be purchased in any store which mean the most. Things like more time for family and community. Less worry about possessions. And greater freedom—to live and grow and love without constraint.
It has been said that there are two ways to get enough—accumulate more, or desire less. Less, it seems, is truly more.
And that's probably the clearest signal I'll ever get from the battered old television antenna that still towers over my house.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Cars, plastic and oil
An editorial from the Early May 2014 North Woods Call
Are we really saving oil and fuel costs—not to mention the planet—by building lighter cars that meet ever-more-strict government standards for gas mileage? Perhaps, but sometimes we wonder.
As vehicles get lighter, it seems that more-and-more plastic appears on them—plastic that is made from oil. Many of these plastic parts routinely break and must be substituted with new ones—which are manufactured using even more fossil fuel.
Metal parts have also gotten much thinner, which means more costly mechanical and body repairs. You can no longer turn brake rotors two or three times, for example, before replacing them. And relatively minor dents in thin metal body parts cannot be easily bumped out like they were in days of old. Instead—according to one of our local repair shops—entire fenders and quarter panels must be replaced at higher costs.
And what about those electric and hybrid vehicles? More likely than not, fossil fuels are used to generate the electricity needed to charge batteries, which then must be treated as hazardous waste for disposal purposes.
Maybe these are good things, but we do have our doubts.
Are we really saving oil and fuel costs—not to mention the planet—by building lighter cars that meet ever-more-strict government standards for gas mileage? Perhaps, but sometimes we wonder.
As vehicles get lighter, it seems that more-and-more plastic appears on them—plastic that is made from oil. Many of these plastic parts routinely break and must be substituted with new ones—which are manufactured using even more fossil fuel.
Metal parts have also gotten much thinner, which means more costly mechanical and body repairs. You can no longer turn brake rotors two or three times, for example, before replacing them. And relatively minor dents in thin metal body parts cannot be easily bumped out like they were in days of old. Instead—according to one of our local repair shops—entire fenders and quarter panels must be replaced at higher costs.
And what about those electric and hybrid vehicles? More likely than not, fossil fuels are used to generate the electricity needed to charge batteries, which then must be treated as hazardous waste for disposal purposes.
Maybe these are good things, but we do have our doubts.
Science & referendums
An editorial from the Early May 2014 North Woods Call
All this talk about scientific management of natural resources and voter referendums has us a bit “discombobulated.”
Some say we should listen to the voice of the people—at least in a representative republic such as ours—while others say the average person doesn’t know enough to make good decisions about wolf hunts and other things better left to the “experts.”
One can reasonably argue the relative cost and efficiency of referendums—or whether they are proper tools to use—but the voice of the people has generally been sacrosanct in our nation. As the law currently stands—if the electorate believes that those who have been entrusted to do the will of the public they represent are not doing so—such recourse is allowed.
Unlike some, we’re not particularly bothered by this. After all, ignorant and uninformed people vote in every election on issues of consequence and most folks seem to accept this as the price of freedom. Certainly, few would suggest that such people shouldn’t have the right to vote, even though it’s clear that better decisions could be made if some basic level of civic knowledge and familiarity with the issues were required.
Should wolf management decisions be any different?
All this talk about scientific management of natural resources and voter referendums has us a bit “discombobulated.”
Some say we should listen to the voice of the people—at least in a representative republic such as ours—while others say the average person doesn’t know enough to make good decisions about wolf hunts and other things better left to the “experts.”
One can reasonably argue the relative cost and efficiency of referendums—or whether they are proper tools to use—but the voice of the people has generally been sacrosanct in our nation. As the law currently stands—if the electorate believes that those who have been entrusted to do the will of the public they represent are not doing so—such recourse is allowed.
Unlike some, we’re not particularly bothered by this. After all, ignorant and uninformed people vote in every election on issues of consequence and most folks seem to accept this as the price of freedom. Certainly, few would suggest that such people shouldn’t have the right to vote, even though it’s clear that better decisions could be made if some basic level of civic knowledge and familiarity with the issues were required.
Should wolf management decisions be any different?
Of brook trout, stewardship & property taxes
By Mike VanBuren
From the Early May 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
In 1895—during the second presidency of Grover Cleveland—Albert Rosenberg established the Spring Brook Trout Hatchery on nearly five acres of a geologic basin in northern Kalamazoo County surrounded by high hills.
It was an era when the last of Michigan’s majestic white pines were being toppled and shipped to the region’s sawmills, and conservationists were becoming concerned about man’s negative impact on the land and natural resources.
Rosenberg’s new hatchery was located in Section 19 of Richland Township, not far from where pioneer settler Benjamin Cummings—purportedly the inventor of the American version of the circular saw—platted the village of Bridgewater in 1837.
I can’t say for sure whether Rosenberg’s motivations were conservation or capitalism, but he erected a two-story home on the site and cut down tamarack, elm, ash and other trees that were on the land. He built a 209-foot dam —flooding about three-quarters of an acre—and excavated eight ponds in the mucky soil, all by hand labor. Ditches were dug to carry water from springs that were uncovered.
Rosenberg was apparently learning by doing during those early years and consequently suffered numerous setbacks. He reportedly had varying degrees of success with brook and rainbow trout, but many adjustments had to be made along the way and new ponds dug. (For a more complete accounting of the struggles Rosenberg experienced as a commercial trout hatchery proprietor, see his testimony before the Fourth International Fishery Congress of 1908 on Page 3 of this edition).
The total history of the Spring Brook Trout Hatchery is somewhat lost to the ages—at least I haven’t discovered much other written documentation yet. But the facility has been a lifelong curiosity for me, because I grew up virtually next door to the property and often explored it with my neighborhood friends during those halcyon days of our youth.
My earliest memories are from the late 1950s, when a local business executive named Russell Scott owned maybe 100 acres of the surrounding land. I don’t recall whether Mr. Scott actually tried to raise fish there, but I do remember an old caretaker living in a small shack at the edge of one of the ponds. Albert Rosenberg’s wood-framed house—which had already been abandoned by the time my father grew up in the same neighborhood during the 1930s and 1940s—was long gone and few remnants remained.
My friends and I always referred to the old hatchery as “Scotty’s ponds” and, throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, we loved to hike through the woods and along the two-track roads that wound through the trees. To us, it was “The Big Wild”—several dozen acres of unattended land with an absentee owner, which we could pretty much explore at will. Every trip to the dormant trout ponds brought fresh, new adventure.
Wading in the old ponds wasn’t much of a thrill, though, because they were filled with silt, rotting vegetation and assorted creepy objects that passersby over the years had tossed into the water. You never knew what you were going to step on when you entered the ponds with bare feet that would promptly descend a foot or so into the dark, mucky bottom.
One of my boyhood chums—the Tom Sawyer to my Huck Finn—purchased the property several years ago and has set about trying to restore the natural habitat, and preserve the wetlands and forest. A hunter, fisherman and conservationist of the first order, he has worked incessantly on restoring the ponds, managing wildlife and protecting the landscape. For this privilege, he pays an excessive amount of property taxes each year—not to mention increasingly expensive fees to hunt and fish in the State of Michigan.
He gets no breaks from the massive bureaucracy that governs such matters, even though he has spent thousands of his own dollars to actively steward the natural resources for which he has assumed responsibility.
Modern liberal-progressives probably feel this is a just and fair system. After all, shouldn’t any individual who can afford to own and care for such property in the first place be taxed disproportionately so that his perceived wealth can be redistributed to others who can’t?
To me, that’s faulty thinking. Regularly taxing someone for a possession he bought and paid for with his own hard-earned money seems the height of economic injustice. Does a property owner’s personal vote in millage elections carry more weight than that of those who own no property and thus are not adversely affected by increased taxes on such assets? No, but it probably should.
Instead, the property owner—no matter his own economic situation (he may be a retiree on a fixed income)—will quickly lose his investment to the government if the tax man is not satisfied.
I’m not sure exactly what it would be—perhaps just a flat tax on income—but there needs to be a more fair and equitable way of funding schools, townships and assorted other government expenditures that today rely so heavily on property taxes for continuation.
Albert Rosenberg’s Spring Brook Trout Hatchery was located along the former C, K & S (Chicago, Kalamazoo & Saginaw) railroad line, which once carried visitors out from town to visit the facility and have picnics on the grounds.
Over the years, some have referred to the railroad as the “Cuss, Kick & Swear.” And that’s precisely how many Michigan land and home owners react when they receive their ever-increasing tax-assessment notices each summer and winter.
Wouldn’t it be better if our public tax system was less punitive, and did more to encourage the ownership and active conservation of private land?
From the Early May 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
In 1895—during the second presidency of Grover Cleveland—Albert Rosenberg established the Spring Brook Trout Hatchery on nearly five acres of a geologic basin in northern Kalamazoo County surrounded by high hills.
It was an era when the last of Michigan’s majestic white pines were being toppled and shipped to the region’s sawmills, and conservationists were becoming concerned about man’s negative impact on the land and natural resources.
Rosenberg’s new hatchery was located in Section 19 of Richland Township, not far from where pioneer settler Benjamin Cummings—purportedly the inventor of the American version of the circular saw—platted the village of Bridgewater in 1837.
I can’t say for sure whether Rosenberg’s motivations were conservation or capitalism, but he erected a two-story home on the site and cut down tamarack, elm, ash and other trees that were on the land. He built a 209-foot dam —flooding about three-quarters of an acre—and excavated eight ponds in the mucky soil, all by hand labor. Ditches were dug to carry water from springs that were uncovered.
Rosenberg was apparently learning by doing during those early years and consequently suffered numerous setbacks. He reportedly had varying degrees of success with brook and rainbow trout, but many adjustments had to be made along the way and new ponds dug. (For a more complete accounting of the struggles Rosenberg experienced as a commercial trout hatchery proprietor, see his testimony before the Fourth International Fishery Congress of 1908 on Page 3 of this edition).
The total history of the Spring Brook Trout Hatchery is somewhat lost to the ages—at least I haven’t discovered much other written documentation yet. But the facility has been a lifelong curiosity for me, because I grew up virtually next door to the property and often explored it with my neighborhood friends during those halcyon days of our youth.
My earliest memories are from the late 1950s, when a local business executive named Russell Scott owned maybe 100 acres of the surrounding land. I don’t recall whether Mr. Scott actually tried to raise fish there, but I do remember an old caretaker living in a small shack at the edge of one of the ponds. Albert Rosenberg’s wood-framed house—which had already been abandoned by the time my father grew up in the same neighborhood during the 1930s and 1940s—was long gone and few remnants remained.
My friends and I always referred to the old hatchery as “Scotty’s ponds” and, throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, we loved to hike through the woods and along the two-track roads that wound through the trees. To us, it was “The Big Wild”—several dozen acres of unattended land with an absentee owner, which we could pretty much explore at will. Every trip to the dormant trout ponds brought fresh, new adventure.
Wading in the old ponds wasn’t much of a thrill, though, because they were filled with silt, rotting vegetation and assorted creepy objects that passersby over the years had tossed into the water. You never knew what you were going to step on when you entered the ponds with bare feet that would promptly descend a foot or so into the dark, mucky bottom.
One of my boyhood chums—the Tom Sawyer to my Huck Finn—purchased the property several years ago and has set about trying to restore the natural habitat, and preserve the wetlands and forest. A hunter, fisherman and conservationist of the first order, he has worked incessantly on restoring the ponds, managing wildlife and protecting the landscape. For this privilege, he pays an excessive amount of property taxes each year—not to mention increasingly expensive fees to hunt and fish in the State of Michigan.
He gets no breaks from the massive bureaucracy that governs such matters, even though he has spent thousands of his own dollars to actively steward the natural resources for which he has assumed responsibility.
Modern liberal-progressives probably feel this is a just and fair system. After all, shouldn’t any individual who can afford to own and care for such property in the first place be taxed disproportionately so that his perceived wealth can be redistributed to others who can’t?
To me, that’s faulty thinking. Regularly taxing someone for a possession he bought and paid for with his own hard-earned money seems the height of economic injustice. Does a property owner’s personal vote in millage elections carry more weight than that of those who own no property and thus are not adversely affected by increased taxes on such assets? No, but it probably should.
Instead, the property owner—no matter his own economic situation (he may be a retiree on a fixed income)—will quickly lose his investment to the government if the tax man is not satisfied.
I’m not sure exactly what it would be—perhaps just a flat tax on income—but there needs to be a more fair and equitable way of funding schools, townships and assorted other government expenditures that today rely so heavily on property taxes for continuation.
Albert Rosenberg’s Spring Brook Trout Hatchery was located along the former C, K & S (Chicago, Kalamazoo & Saginaw) railroad line, which once carried visitors out from town to visit the facility and have picnics on the grounds.
Over the years, some have referred to the railroad as the “Cuss, Kick & Swear.” And that’s precisely how many Michigan land and home owners react when they receive their ever-increasing tax-assessment notices each summer and winter.
Wouldn’t it be better if our public tax system was less punitive, and did more to encourage the ownership and active conservation of private land?
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
A faithful shelter from the storm: My life in tents
By Mike VanBuren
From the Early April 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
In a fractured nation and topsy-turvy world, many of us are searching for some kind of shelter from the storm.
Which—for some weird reason—makes me think about tents.
I was first introduced to collapsible cloth structures as a toddler, when I threw a blanket over the backs of two kitchen chairs and crawled inside. Later, as my world expanded, I took the chairs and blanket into the back yard and reclined underneath on the cool, green grass.
From there, I graduated to the family cabin tent—made from heavy, weather-treated canvas—and a smaller A-shaped version that we called a “pup tent.” I had no idea why the little two-person bungalow was called that, or what any of it had to do with dogs, but I may have since discovered why.
Most of these outings were uneventful—save for some apples dropping on the roof during a noisy rainstorm at Interlochen State Park during the late 1950s and admonitions from my parents to refrain from touching the canvas tent walls, which were sure to leak like a sieve.
Oh, and there was the snowy, sub-zero camp-out my college roommate and I experienced in the mid-1970s, and the windy lightning storm that blew my modern nylon tent over a Beaver Island bluff a few years later. (Don’t worry, I escaped before that happened).
I began to understand the meaning of “pup tent,” though, one dark night when I was sleeping in southern Michigan’s Allegan State Game Area in my two-person Eureka Timberline model. I was awakened abruptly by what I thought was a raccoon, or some other wild animal, jumping on the rain fly and trying to push its nose through the zippered door.
I shoved back a few times, but the aggressive animal kept right on assaulting my woodland bedroom, so I grabbed the large metal flashlight I kept at my side and whacked the intruder hard across the snout. I heard a single loud yelp, some retreating paw steps and then silence.
I climbed out of my sleeping bag and scooted outside to survey the area. To my surprise, the flashlight beam landed on a sheepish and whimpering beagle puppy several yards away—a normally joyful spirit that apparently was only trying to make friends with a paranoid outdoorsman.
My camp mate and I quickly dubbed him the “Pound Puppy” and I tried to make up for the violence I had visited on him. Fortunately, he was the forgiving type, graciously licking my hand and hanging around camp until late morning, when we convinced him to return to the home we were sure he had nearby.
For the past 40 years, that same Timberline tent has accompanied me to many other forests, rivers and lakeshores in Michigan, the Algoma country of northern Ontario, the beaches of Florida, the Bitterroot Mountains of western Montana and other locations.
But I haven’t always been as faithful to it as it has to me.
Once—on a college-age spring break outing near Florida’s Atlantic coast—we had 28 people from various states in another’s six-person tent, consuming adult beverages, singing folk songs and generally enjoying each others’ company as alligators waddled by on the narrow park road outside.
Ah, the exuberance of youth.
When my children were growing up, we camped for many years at campgrounds and bluegrass festivals in a 12- by12-foot nylon umbrella tent covered by a “Stormshield” fly that adequately kept some pretty ferocious rainstorms at bay. We have since spent a relative handful of nights in a 25-foot Wilderness travel trailer that is less damp and much warmer than any tent I’ve ever owned. Better yet, it’s got a queen-sized mattress and indoor plumbing.
Still, the hassles of getting such a monstrosity out of the barn and putting it away again—not to mention upkeep, maintenance and extra-fuel costs—have kept me attached to my tiny Timberline for most trips to the forests and fields.
These days, though, I’m finding tent life and sleeping on the ground much less comfortable than I once did. I still enjoy doing it, but don’t often rest as well as I once did and sometimes have to take a revitalizing nap when I get back home.
Mostly—especially on road trips—I’m much more inclined to check into a motel than to find a campground and pitch my tent on the cold, hard turf. There’s always the chance, I guess, that the troubled economy will force me to reverse this trend.
But I’ve grown accustomed to such change. After all, there are plenty of slobbering puppies (and other less-desireable creatures) trying to push their noses into our proverbial tents these days.
Some of these intrusive forces are beneficial, but many are not. So it’s good to have a well-manufactured tent to buffet the winds and keep the rain off our heads.
The quality and effectiveness of most tents has advanced over the years and improved upon the canvas structures of old.
I’m not sure I can say the same thing about the condition of our nation and world.
From the Early April 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
In a fractured nation and topsy-turvy world, many of us are searching for some kind of shelter from the storm.
Which—for some weird reason—makes me think about tents.
I was first introduced to collapsible cloth structures as a toddler, when I threw a blanket over the backs of two kitchen chairs and crawled inside. Later, as my world expanded, I took the chairs and blanket into the back yard and reclined underneath on the cool, green grass.
From there, I graduated to the family cabin tent—made from heavy, weather-treated canvas—and a smaller A-shaped version that we called a “pup tent.” I had no idea why the little two-person bungalow was called that, or what any of it had to do with dogs, but I may have since discovered why.
Most of these outings were uneventful—save for some apples dropping on the roof during a noisy rainstorm at Interlochen State Park during the late 1950s and admonitions from my parents to refrain from touching the canvas tent walls, which were sure to leak like a sieve.
Oh, and there was the snowy, sub-zero camp-out my college roommate and I experienced in the mid-1970s, and the windy lightning storm that blew my modern nylon tent over a Beaver Island bluff a few years later. (Don’t worry, I escaped before that happened).
I began to understand the meaning of “pup tent,” though, one dark night when I was sleeping in southern Michigan’s Allegan State Game Area in my two-person Eureka Timberline model. I was awakened abruptly by what I thought was a raccoon, or some other wild animal, jumping on the rain fly and trying to push its nose through the zippered door.
I shoved back a few times, but the aggressive animal kept right on assaulting my woodland bedroom, so I grabbed the large metal flashlight I kept at my side and whacked the intruder hard across the snout. I heard a single loud yelp, some retreating paw steps and then silence.
I climbed out of my sleeping bag and scooted outside to survey the area. To my surprise, the flashlight beam landed on a sheepish and whimpering beagle puppy several yards away—a normally joyful spirit that apparently was only trying to make friends with a paranoid outdoorsman.
My camp mate and I quickly dubbed him the “Pound Puppy” and I tried to make up for the violence I had visited on him. Fortunately, he was the forgiving type, graciously licking my hand and hanging around camp until late morning, when we convinced him to return to the home we were sure he had nearby.
For the past 40 years, that same Timberline tent has accompanied me to many other forests, rivers and lakeshores in Michigan, the Algoma country of northern Ontario, the beaches of Florida, the Bitterroot Mountains of western Montana and other locations.
But I haven’t always been as faithful to it as it has to me.
Once—on a college-age spring break outing near Florida’s Atlantic coast—we had 28 people from various states in another’s six-person tent, consuming adult beverages, singing folk songs and generally enjoying each others’ company as alligators waddled by on the narrow park road outside.
Ah, the exuberance of youth.
When my children were growing up, we camped for many years at campgrounds and bluegrass festivals in a 12- by12-foot nylon umbrella tent covered by a “Stormshield” fly that adequately kept some pretty ferocious rainstorms at bay. We have since spent a relative handful of nights in a 25-foot Wilderness travel trailer that is less damp and much warmer than any tent I’ve ever owned. Better yet, it’s got a queen-sized mattress and indoor plumbing.
Still, the hassles of getting such a monstrosity out of the barn and putting it away again—not to mention upkeep, maintenance and extra-fuel costs—have kept me attached to my tiny Timberline for most trips to the forests and fields.
These days, though, I’m finding tent life and sleeping on the ground much less comfortable than I once did. I still enjoy doing it, but don’t often rest as well as I once did and sometimes have to take a revitalizing nap when I get back home.
Mostly—especially on road trips—I’m much more inclined to check into a motel than to find a campground and pitch my tent on the cold, hard turf. There’s always the chance, I guess, that the troubled economy will force me to reverse this trend.
But I’ve grown accustomed to such change. After all, there are plenty of slobbering puppies (and other less-desireable creatures) trying to push their noses into our proverbial tents these days.
Some of these intrusive forces are beneficial, but many are not. So it’s good to have a well-manufactured tent to buffet the winds and keep the rain off our heads.
The quality and effectiveness of most tents has advanced over the years and improved upon the canvas structures of old.
I’m not sure I can say the same thing about the condition of our nation and world.
Springtime, billboards and roadside vistas
By Mike VanBuren
From the Late March 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
Now that the strenuous winter of 2013-14 is drawing to an unceremonious close, we’re relieved to see some traditional signs of spring.
Robins have been spotted scurrying across icy mounds of snow. Blue skies and bright sunshine have regularly been peeking through the dark, gray clouds that have dominated our local environment for the past four months. And a season-long collection of sharp icicles has all but disappeared from the eaves of our house.
Perhaps even more noteworthy, the spring edition of the Cabela’s catalog has arrived in our mailbox. Heck, the wildflowers and skunk cabbage should be along any day now—if the still-deep snow ever melts and uncovers the ground.
There will be rain, of course, and plenty more cool days, but the rebirth of springtime never fails to bolster my spirit and get me in the mood for warm-weather adventure—and maybe a couple of long-overdue road trips.
Road trips?
Sure, spring is a perfect time to break the chains of the homebound and point the automobile down a stretch of blacktop.
I don’t have to go very far, or use a lot of gasoline. Just let me go someplace—anyplace—where I can pitch a tent, hike a wooded trail, explore a museum, or visit friends and relatives. It’s time to thaw the frozen mind and clear the cooped-up senses.
But don’t force me to look at a lot of outdoor advertising—specifically highway billboards—on the way.
Not that I have anything against advertising. In fact, I’d like to attract more of it to The North Woods Call to help ensure a more stable future.
But there’s something about the landscape-blocking intrusion of giant signs that interferes with my thoughts and interrupts my peace of mind.
Even Phineas T. Barnum—the so-called “Shakespeare of advertising” and “greatest showman on earth”—apparently had his limits. Barnum, who is credited with placing the first billboards in New York City, said there is an appropriate time and place for such attention-grabbing salesmanship.
“No man ought to advertise in the midst of landscapes or scenery in such a way as to destroy or injure their beauty by introducing totally incongruous and relatively vulgar associations,” Barnum said in his 1866 book, “The Humbugs of the World.” “Too many transactions of the sort have been perpetrated in our own country.”
Barnum said it is “outrageously selfish to destroy the pleasure of thousands for the sake of additional gain.”
No less a salesman, albeit in a much different way, U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson had a similar outlook.
“There is a part of America which was here long before we arrived and will be here—if we preserve it—long after we depart,” Johnson said when signing the Highway Beautification Act of 1965—probably at the urging of the First Lady. “The forests and the flowers, the open prairies and the slope of the hills, the tall mountains, the granite, the limestone, the caliche, the unmarked trails, the winding little streams. This is the America that no amount of science or skill can ever re-create or actually ever duplicate.
“In recent years, I think America has sadly neglected this part of [its] national heritage. We have placed a wall of civilization between us and between the beauty of our land, and of our countryside. In our eagerness to expand and to improve, we have relegated nature to a weekend role and we have banished it from our daily lives.”
I’m not sure how much of what ol’ LBJ believed that I would agree with today—I was too young in the mid-1960s to have had many public policy ideas myself—but I think I could have gotten on board with these sentiments.
I’ve had similar thoughts whenever I’ve driven the George Washington Memorial Parkway leading into the nation’s capital—or traveled the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and the Natchez Trace Parkway in Tennessee. Even the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive through northern Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore reminds me of the stark contrast between most public highways and those where the natural vistas have been carefully preserved.
It’s probably not practical to think that all roads could be constructed in such a way. After all, America runs on commerce and creative advertising is key to the nation’s success. But it would be nice to at least consider these possibilities before we cut thoroughfares through mountains, across prairies and along seashores, then line them with gargantuan consumer messages that assault the natural landscape.
Not everything should be for sale, especially shared public spaces that would look and feel much better without all the clutter.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Acoustic trash
By Mike VanBuren
From the early March 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
Am I the only one bothered by noise?
Sometimes it seems that way.
If some guy isn’t speeding past my house on a motorcycle without a muffler, somebody else is lighting fireworks, or popping off rounds from a high-powered rifle.
Wherever I go, horns are honking, tires are squealing and radios are blaring. I hear whistles, bells and chain saws. Even a quiet snowshoe outing in northern Michigan was marred by snowmobiles racing through the trees.
Mother Teresa said, “We need silence to be able to touch souls.” I think that’s true. Too much noise is the enemy of deep thought and spiritual renewal. It rattles our nerves and numbs our minds.
Unfortunately, noise is among the most pervasive forms of pollution. It comes from many sources—road traffic, airplanes, jet skis and garbage trucks. Not to mention construction equipment, lawn and garden machinery, and boom boxes. I’ve read that urban noise is doubling every eight to ten years.
The problem isn’t just that noise is an unwanted assault on the soul. It can damage human health and well-being. Stress, high blood pressure, sleep interruptions and lost productivity are just a few of the maladies linked to noise pollution.
My father and his stepfather were railroad men on the Michigan Central line. They spent their lives with loud steam and diesel locomotives. “Grandpa Steve” was the first to become “hard of hearing,” as the old folks said. Now my dad—as well as many of his retired co-workers—are in the same shape. And lately I’ve been traveling down the same set of rails—probably due to lawn and garden equipment, former factory jobs and perhaps my own brief stint on the Penn Central Railroad.
Hearing loss is common in a noisy world. And, of course, it’s one of the dubious perks of aging.
I grew up on a non-working farm in rural Michigan. I would often lie awake at night listening to a nearby whippoorwill, or the summer breeze blowing through the maple tree outside my bedroom window. In the morning, birds perching in that same tree would wake me with their songs. I don’t hear those sounds as often anymore. My ears are less capable, but I’m also too distracted by the clatter of modern life.
We probably need better regulations and enforcement to limit noise in the areas we share. Polluting public spaces shouldn’t be allowed. After all, society has long recognized our right to be free from physical assault, or to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Shouldn’t we also have the right to peace and quiet?
Some people would say the bluegrass music I enjoy qualifies as noise pollution. But I try to play it softly. A good neighbor keeps his noise to himself.
If you ask someone to name our most precious natural resources, you’ll probably get answers like water, trees and animals. But what about quiet? It may be one of our most endangered assets.
Henry David Thoreau said that nothing was as startling to him as his own thoughts. I wonder sometimes if we’d even recognize ours.
Quiet is a good thing. And we’re losing it fast.
From the early March 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
Am I the only one bothered by noise?
Sometimes it seems that way.
If some guy isn’t speeding past my house on a motorcycle without a muffler, somebody else is lighting fireworks, or popping off rounds from a high-powered rifle.
Wherever I go, horns are honking, tires are squealing and radios are blaring. I hear whistles, bells and chain saws. Even a quiet snowshoe outing in northern Michigan was marred by snowmobiles racing through the trees.
Mother Teresa said, “We need silence to be able to touch souls.” I think that’s true. Too much noise is the enemy of deep thought and spiritual renewal. It rattles our nerves and numbs our minds.
Unfortunately, noise is among the most pervasive forms of pollution. It comes from many sources—road traffic, airplanes, jet skis and garbage trucks. Not to mention construction equipment, lawn and garden machinery, and boom boxes. I’ve read that urban noise is doubling every eight to ten years.
The problem isn’t just that noise is an unwanted assault on the soul. It can damage human health and well-being. Stress, high blood pressure, sleep interruptions and lost productivity are just a few of the maladies linked to noise pollution.
My father and his stepfather were railroad men on the Michigan Central line. They spent their lives with loud steam and diesel locomotives. “Grandpa Steve” was the first to become “hard of hearing,” as the old folks said. Now my dad—as well as many of his retired co-workers—are in the same shape. And lately I’ve been traveling down the same set of rails—probably due to lawn and garden equipment, former factory jobs and perhaps my own brief stint on the Penn Central Railroad.
Hearing loss is common in a noisy world. And, of course, it’s one of the dubious perks of aging.
I grew up on a non-working farm in rural Michigan. I would often lie awake at night listening to a nearby whippoorwill, or the summer breeze blowing through the maple tree outside my bedroom window. In the morning, birds perching in that same tree would wake me with their songs. I don’t hear those sounds as often anymore. My ears are less capable, but I’m also too distracted by the clatter of modern life.
We probably need better regulations and enforcement to limit noise in the areas we share. Polluting public spaces shouldn’t be allowed. After all, society has long recognized our right to be free from physical assault, or to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Shouldn’t we also have the right to peace and quiet?
Some people would say the bluegrass music I enjoy qualifies as noise pollution. But I try to play it softly. A good neighbor keeps his noise to himself.
If you ask someone to name our most precious natural resources, you’ll probably get answers like water, trees and animals. But what about quiet? It may be one of our most endangered assets.
Henry David Thoreau said that nothing was as startling to him as his own thoughts. I wonder sometimes if we’d even recognize ours.
Quiet is a good thing. And we’re losing it fast.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Living on the edge
By Mike VanBuren
From the late February edition of The North Woods Call
After several days of sub-zero temperatures and a couple feet of lake-effect snow, the thermometer reached a blistering 24 degrees.
I had recently returned from Sunday morning worship services and it seemed like a good time to walk on water—frozen water, that is—so I pulled out the old Alaskan trapper snowshoes and took a hike around the property.
There’s nothing like a little fresh air and exercise to energize the body and soul. Or so I thought.
I wandered through the hillside pines behind The North Woods Call office, across an open meadow and down into the wetlands along Spring Brook. Along the way, I followed the tracks of assorted woodland creatures that meandered back-and-forth across the surface of the snow.
The field mice and cottontail rabbits seemed to have an easier time of it. They stayed pretty much on top and ran from place-to-place without much impediment. White-tailed deer, on the other hand—with their thin legs and sharp hooves—had sunken a foot or more beneath the crust as they waded between browses and the shelters they found under low-hanging pine boughs.
I didn’t do much better, although my snowshoes only sank a few inches into the white powder. After only about an hour of constant motion—stopping occasionally to snap a photograph of the pristine landscape—my lungs and leg muscles were beginning to complain and I was looking forward to a cup of hot tea beside the pellet stove.
Maybe it’s the peril of advancing age, or perhaps I’m just a bit out-of-shape these days compared to the glory years of my youth. Whatever the reason, I found myself contemplating previous generations of outdoorsman and lamenting the increasing softness of modern man.
Take the voyageurs, for example. These were tough men—mostly French Canadians who transported goods and supplies by canoe through the Great Lakes and northern wilderness during the fur-trade era of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Unlike me—with the possible exception of the masonry work I did year-round during my late teens and early 20s—they lived a harsh life of toil. Among other things, they had to carry at least two 90-pound bundles of fur over portages that were a half-mile, or longer, and some carried four or five bundles at a time. Their wooden canoes were commonly 25 to 36 feet long and weighed 300 to 600 pounds empty. On top of that, the vessels carried three tons of cargo.
The men often rose as early as 2 or 3 a.m. to begin their typical day’s journey, and were expected to work 14 hours before bedtime and paddle at a rate of 55 strokes per minute. Danger was at every turn and not just because of exposure to outdoor living. Drowning was common, along with broken limbs, compressed spines, hernias and rheumatism. They did not have time to live off the land by hunting and fishing, so they carried their food with them, and often faced swams of annoying black flies and mosquitoes.
Then there were those who took to the northern wilderness to seek their fortune in gold nuggets. It is said that more than 100,000 people started off for the Klondike, but less than 30,000 actually made it to the gold fields in the Yukon Territory. The difficulties of the Chilkoot and White Pass trails forced many to turn back. Most found no gold at all, because—by the time they arrived—most of the good stakes had already been claimed.
Jack London, of course, got several good stories out of the experience, but most others went home broke—if they went home at all—discouraged and defeated by the land they sought to tame.
Such is often the fate of man against nature.
Nature will ultimately be the victor, says a friend of mine, an outdoorsman and bush pilot in Alaska. That’s why we must always work WITH her and not AGAINST her, he says.
Yet, in this age of Kevlar canoes, lightweight camping gear and freeze-dried food, it’s tempting to believe that the odds are beginning to tilt in man’s favor.
Some, of course, are better suited to hold their own in the great outdoors than others, but it’s still relatively easy to get into trouble if we forget our place when venturing into the wild.
There really wasn’t much danger in a short snowshoe hike from my doorstep. And it was indeed invigorating—for body and soul—to drink in the pure February air and warm my complacent muscles.
But there were lessons to be learned, just the same, as I thought about advances in civilization and the great distance we have come from the earth that sustains us.
From the late February edition of The North Woods Call
After several days of sub-zero temperatures and a couple feet of lake-effect snow, the thermometer reached a blistering 24 degrees.
I had recently returned from Sunday morning worship services and it seemed like a good time to walk on water—frozen water, that is—so I pulled out the old Alaskan trapper snowshoes and took a hike around the property.
There’s nothing like a little fresh air and exercise to energize the body and soul. Or so I thought.
I wandered through the hillside pines behind The North Woods Call office, across an open meadow and down into the wetlands along Spring Brook. Along the way, I followed the tracks of assorted woodland creatures that meandered back-and-forth across the surface of the snow.
The field mice and cottontail rabbits seemed to have an easier time of it. They stayed pretty much on top and ran from place-to-place without much impediment. White-tailed deer, on the other hand—with their thin legs and sharp hooves—had sunken a foot or more beneath the crust as they waded between browses and the shelters they found under low-hanging pine boughs.
I didn’t do much better, although my snowshoes only sank a few inches into the white powder. After only about an hour of constant motion—stopping occasionally to snap a photograph of the pristine landscape—my lungs and leg muscles were beginning to complain and I was looking forward to a cup of hot tea beside the pellet stove.
Maybe it’s the peril of advancing age, or perhaps I’m just a bit out-of-shape these days compared to the glory years of my youth. Whatever the reason, I found myself contemplating previous generations of outdoorsman and lamenting the increasing softness of modern man.
Take the voyageurs, for example. These were tough men—mostly French Canadians who transported goods and supplies by canoe through the Great Lakes and northern wilderness during the fur-trade era of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Unlike me—with the possible exception of the masonry work I did year-round during my late teens and early 20s—they lived a harsh life of toil. Among other things, they had to carry at least two 90-pound bundles of fur over portages that were a half-mile, or longer, and some carried four or five bundles at a time. Their wooden canoes were commonly 25 to 36 feet long and weighed 300 to 600 pounds empty. On top of that, the vessels carried three tons of cargo.
The men often rose as early as 2 or 3 a.m. to begin their typical day’s journey, and were expected to work 14 hours before bedtime and paddle at a rate of 55 strokes per minute. Danger was at every turn and not just because of exposure to outdoor living. Drowning was common, along with broken limbs, compressed spines, hernias and rheumatism. They did not have time to live off the land by hunting and fishing, so they carried their food with them, and often faced swams of annoying black flies and mosquitoes.
Then there were those who took to the northern wilderness to seek their fortune in gold nuggets. It is said that more than 100,000 people started off for the Klondike, but less than 30,000 actually made it to the gold fields in the Yukon Territory. The difficulties of the Chilkoot and White Pass trails forced many to turn back. Most found no gold at all, because—by the time they arrived—most of the good stakes had already been claimed.
Jack London, of course, got several good stories out of the experience, but most others went home broke—if they went home at all—discouraged and defeated by the land they sought to tame.
Such is often the fate of man against nature.
Nature will ultimately be the victor, says a friend of mine, an outdoorsman and bush pilot in Alaska. That’s why we must always work WITH her and not AGAINST her, he says.
Yet, in this age of Kevlar canoes, lightweight camping gear and freeze-dried food, it’s tempting to believe that the odds are beginning to tilt in man’s favor.
Some, of course, are better suited to hold their own in the great outdoors than others, but it’s still relatively easy to get into trouble if we forget our place when venturing into the wild.
There really wasn’t much danger in a short snowshoe hike from my doorstep. And it was indeed invigorating—for body and soul—to drink in the pure February air and warm my complacent muscles.
But there were lessons to be learned, just the same, as I thought about advances in civilization and the great distance we have come from the earth that sustains us.
Slipping into Music City
By Mike VanBuren
From the early February edition of The North Woods Call
You think winter’s tough in the north woods?
Try getting around on snow and ice in the southern United States—say Tennessee.
My friend—a native of Nashville—calls it “Hillbillies on Ice.” I call it weird.
I learned about these challenges one strange February night on Interstate 40 in middle Tennessee. My American Airlines flight had landed at Nashville’s International Airport around 8:30 p.m. Temperatures were dropping fast and a drizzly rain began to fall as the big jet touched down and taxied to the terminal gate.
No big deal. I’m from Michigan. I’m used to slick pavement and winter driving. My biggest concern was finding the Holiday Inn and getting a good night’s sleep. The next day would bring long hours in the edit suite at Elite Post on Music Row, putting the finishing touches on the Kellogg Foundation’s sustainable agriculture video.
I stopped by the Avis desk and picked up a small rental car. Then I threw my luggage into the trunk and headed out for the 20-minute drive into Music City, and a warm bed at the Holiday Inn.
Traffic was light as I left the airport. I was pleased to be keeping such a tight schedule. At this rate, I’d have plenty of time to go over the edit script before turning in for the night.
That’s when I saw it—up ahead in the westbound lanes of I-40. The prettiest display of colored lights I’d seen since Christmas. Flashing yellows. Blinking reds. Sparkling whites. All accented by an icy glare on the road. By the time I realized what I was getting into, I was far past the last exit ramp, rolling down a long incline toward a huge, six-lane parking lot.
At least it looked like a parking lot. There were cars, trucks, buses and vans everywhere—lined up like summer tourists at nearby Opryland. I lifted my foot from the accelerator and pressed hard on the brake pedal, sliding to a not-so-graceful stop behind a pickup truck carrying two middle-aged men armed with open beer bottles. I was relieved to stop before I rammed the vehicle, because it was one of those legendary trucks with a gun rack bolted over the rear window.
At any rate, all three westbound lanes were clogged as far as I could see. In a matter of seconds, I was imprisoned in the middle lane of a busy interstate highway, boxed in tighter than Carrie Underwood’s blue jeans by several other vehicles that came sliding in behind me.
“Must be an accident,” I told myself, reaching to shut off the ignition. “They’ll probably have it cleared in a few minutes.”
I opened the car door and stepped outside. It’s a good thing I had a tight grip on the metal doorframe, or I would have been stretched out on the cold, hard pavement with my feet wiggling in the air. Several other people were also dancing around on the slippery blacktop, like clumsy Olympic figure skaters going for the gold in street shoes.
I climbed back inside my car and started the engine. The heat felt good on my chilled bones, so I let the motor run for 15 minutes or so. Not being particularly interested in dying of carbon monoxide poisoning on a Tennessee highway, I eventually turned the motor off and waited until I started to shiver before switching it on again.
After the first hour, I was getting a bit antsy.
“What’s going on up there?” I asked the driver of the car parked next to mine, who seemed rather unconcerned with the delay.
“Probably just the weather.”
“A little ice on the road? C’mon. You’ve got to be kidding.”
He wasn’t. We sat for another hour. Then another. Then another.
None of the other drivers seemed to think it was unusual to be sitting still on Interstate 40 in the middle of the night with no indication that the traffic would ever start moving again. They just sat patiently in their cars and trucks and buses and vans—an apparently typical winter night on the Nashville freeway.
After the fifth hour of starting and stopping and re-starting the car—too tired to stay awake and not wanting to fall asleep—I was sure I was either on Candid Camera, or lost in the Twilight Zone. It was surreal. I had been spinning the radio dial, listening to various news broadcasts and generally searching for a credible report about the huge traffic jam that had the city tied in knots. Nothing. Not a single mention of it on the airwaves. And nobody but me seemed to think there was anything unusual about the information blackout.
“Does this happen often?” I asked a young woman standing by the car behind me.
“No. It’s just the ice,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’re not used to that down here, you know.”
Oh, really? As if they were used to spending the night on blocked freeways in sub-freezing temperatures.
Along about 4:30 a.m., I leaned my seat back and was drifting in and out of a fitful slumber. I don’t know how long I slept, but I was awakened with a start. Bright lights were shining in my rear-view mirror and a loud air horn was rattling my car windows. A huge salt truck had come weaving through the traffic behind me and the driver wanted us to move our cars out of the way so he could get through.
Saved at last by a tardy truck driver and the blessed chloride that eats jagged holes in our automobiles.
As the other cars edged off the road, I loitered between the middle and right lanes until the truck passed. Then I moved in quickly behind the huge salt spreader and followed the yellow monster through a maze of stalled vehicles. I nuzzled the back of the truck for about a mile-and-a-half —determined to hold my place—until we came to the first cars, parked smack in the middle of an open road. No accident. No barriers. No pulling to the side of the road. “Let’s just stop here, Jimmy—until spring.”
I still don’t understand what happened that night. I passed the salt truck on the three-lane stretch ahead and had no trouble moving about 35 miles-per-hour over the ice. Within about 15 minutes, I was rolling into the Holiday Inn parking lot on West End Avenue, exhausted and bewildered. It had been more than eight hours since I entered the traffic jam and I still had heard nothing on the radio indicating that there was a problem on the highway.
I stumbled into the empty lobby and rang the bell to summon the desk clerk. Within a few minutes, I was on the elevator to the seventh floor. At the end of a long hallway, I slipped the key card into the slot and pushed open the door. I was surprised when the door caught on the end of the security chain with a loud crash.
“What the #%!?” I heard a sleepy, but startled man say from inside the darkened room.
“Oops. Sorry, “ I said, as I closed the door and made a hasty retreat to the elevator. “Wrong room.”
Back in the lobby, the desk clerk apologized repeatedly and set me up in a vacant suite on the fourth floor. I climbed into the elevator once again and shuffled down another long hall to the replacement accommodations. Inside, I threw my luggage on the floor and flopped onto the bed. It was nearly 5:30 a.m. and I was scheduled to be at Elite Post in less than three hours. I turned out the light and quickly fell into a hard sleep.
It was going to be a rough day—one sure to make me long for a good ole Michigan winter.
From the early February edition of The North Woods Call
You think winter’s tough in the north woods?
Try getting around on snow and ice in the southern United States—say Tennessee.
My friend—a native of Nashville—calls it “Hillbillies on Ice.” I call it weird.
I learned about these challenges one strange February night on Interstate 40 in middle Tennessee. My American Airlines flight had landed at Nashville’s International Airport around 8:30 p.m. Temperatures were dropping fast and a drizzly rain began to fall as the big jet touched down and taxied to the terminal gate.
No big deal. I’m from Michigan. I’m used to slick pavement and winter driving. My biggest concern was finding the Holiday Inn and getting a good night’s sleep. The next day would bring long hours in the edit suite at Elite Post on Music Row, putting the finishing touches on the Kellogg Foundation’s sustainable agriculture video.
I stopped by the Avis desk and picked up a small rental car. Then I threw my luggage into the trunk and headed out for the 20-minute drive into Music City, and a warm bed at the Holiday Inn.
Traffic was light as I left the airport. I was pleased to be keeping such a tight schedule. At this rate, I’d have plenty of time to go over the edit script before turning in for the night.
That’s when I saw it—up ahead in the westbound lanes of I-40. The prettiest display of colored lights I’d seen since Christmas. Flashing yellows. Blinking reds. Sparkling whites. All accented by an icy glare on the road. By the time I realized what I was getting into, I was far past the last exit ramp, rolling down a long incline toward a huge, six-lane parking lot.
At least it looked like a parking lot. There were cars, trucks, buses and vans everywhere—lined up like summer tourists at nearby Opryland. I lifted my foot from the accelerator and pressed hard on the brake pedal, sliding to a not-so-graceful stop behind a pickup truck carrying two middle-aged men armed with open beer bottles. I was relieved to stop before I rammed the vehicle, because it was one of those legendary trucks with a gun rack bolted over the rear window.
At any rate, all three westbound lanes were clogged as far as I could see. In a matter of seconds, I was imprisoned in the middle lane of a busy interstate highway, boxed in tighter than Carrie Underwood’s blue jeans by several other vehicles that came sliding in behind me.
“Must be an accident,” I told myself, reaching to shut off the ignition. “They’ll probably have it cleared in a few minutes.”
I opened the car door and stepped outside. It’s a good thing I had a tight grip on the metal doorframe, or I would have been stretched out on the cold, hard pavement with my feet wiggling in the air. Several other people were also dancing around on the slippery blacktop, like clumsy Olympic figure skaters going for the gold in street shoes.
I climbed back inside my car and started the engine. The heat felt good on my chilled bones, so I let the motor run for 15 minutes or so. Not being particularly interested in dying of carbon monoxide poisoning on a Tennessee highway, I eventually turned the motor off and waited until I started to shiver before switching it on again.
After the first hour, I was getting a bit antsy.
“What’s going on up there?” I asked the driver of the car parked next to mine, who seemed rather unconcerned with the delay.
“Probably just the weather.”
“A little ice on the road? C’mon. You’ve got to be kidding.”
He wasn’t. We sat for another hour. Then another. Then another.
None of the other drivers seemed to think it was unusual to be sitting still on Interstate 40 in the middle of the night with no indication that the traffic would ever start moving again. They just sat patiently in their cars and trucks and buses and vans—an apparently typical winter night on the Nashville freeway.
After the fifth hour of starting and stopping and re-starting the car—too tired to stay awake and not wanting to fall asleep—I was sure I was either on Candid Camera, or lost in the Twilight Zone. It was surreal. I had been spinning the radio dial, listening to various news broadcasts and generally searching for a credible report about the huge traffic jam that had the city tied in knots. Nothing. Not a single mention of it on the airwaves. And nobody but me seemed to think there was anything unusual about the information blackout.
“Does this happen often?” I asked a young woman standing by the car behind me.
“No. It’s just the ice,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’re not used to that down here, you know.”
Oh, really? As if they were used to spending the night on blocked freeways in sub-freezing temperatures.
Along about 4:30 a.m., I leaned my seat back and was drifting in and out of a fitful slumber. I don’t know how long I slept, but I was awakened with a start. Bright lights were shining in my rear-view mirror and a loud air horn was rattling my car windows. A huge salt truck had come weaving through the traffic behind me and the driver wanted us to move our cars out of the way so he could get through.
Saved at last by a tardy truck driver and the blessed chloride that eats jagged holes in our automobiles.
As the other cars edged off the road, I loitered between the middle and right lanes until the truck passed. Then I moved in quickly behind the huge salt spreader and followed the yellow monster through a maze of stalled vehicles. I nuzzled the back of the truck for about a mile-and-a-half —determined to hold my place—until we came to the first cars, parked smack in the middle of an open road. No accident. No barriers. No pulling to the side of the road. “Let’s just stop here, Jimmy—until spring.”
I still don’t understand what happened that night. I passed the salt truck on the three-lane stretch ahead and had no trouble moving about 35 miles-per-hour over the ice. Within about 15 minutes, I was rolling into the Holiday Inn parking lot on West End Avenue, exhausted and bewildered. It had been more than eight hours since I entered the traffic jam and I still had heard nothing on the radio indicating that there was a problem on the highway.
I stumbled into the empty lobby and rang the bell to summon the desk clerk. Within a few minutes, I was on the elevator to the seventh floor. At the end of a long hallway, I slipped the key card into the slot and pushed open the door. I was surprised when the door caught on the end of the security chain with a loud crash.
“What the #%!?” I heard a sleepy, but startled man say from inside the darkened room.
“Oops. Sorry, “ I said, as I closed the door and made a hasty retreat to the elevator. “Wrong room.”
Back in the lobby, the desk clerk apologized repeatedly and set me up in a vacant suite on the fourth floor. I climbed into the elevator once again and shuffled down another long hall to the replacement accommodations. Inside, I threw my luggage on the floor and flopped onto the bed. It was nearly 5:30 a.m. and I was scheduled to be at Elite Post in less than three hours. I turned out the light and quickly fell into a hard sleep.
It was going to be a rough day—one sure to make me long for a good ole Michigan winter.
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