‘Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.’ Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
In the summer of 1978, I worked as a naturalist at Interstate State Park in northern Wisconsin. I loved plants and figured I knew every plant in the park by both its common and Latin names by the end of the summer. I was a bit geeky in a sense and collected plants. I’d carefully choose the best specimen in the woods and bring it home and put it in a plant press I had made. After it was pressed and dried I would mount it on archival paper and make labels with archival ink.
I maintained my own little herbarium. I was so proud of that herbarium and loved looking at the beauty and intricacy of each of those flowers in the collection.
Those plants that didn’t end up in the herbarium ended up in my mouth. If it was edible, I’d eat it. I had all of the Euell Gibbons books and was guided by his mantra of eating where I did not sow. I was obsessed with plants.
After I had identified most of the plants at Interstate, I was keen to check out the flora of other parks so in August I hitchhiked up to Bayfield, Wisconsin and then took a ferry out to Stockton Island in the Apostles Islands National Lakeshore.
I spent the weekend camping on the island and explored its bogs where I found all sorts of flora which didn’t exist at Interstate. I was particularly captivated by the English sundew, a rare carnivorous plant.
My interest in botany always made my journeys in nature more interesting just as a birder will appreciate a walk in the woods. By searching for a certain species or trying to identify an unknown plant we better immerse ourselves in the natural world and pay closer attention to all of its marvels. Without my interest in botany my time on that island would have been boring but I learned to look very closely at nature and learn from it and appreciate it.
On my final day I picked some wild blueberries near the bog and hiked back to camp. I was finishing a delectable desert of blueberries and granola when the sun dipped into Lake Superior and Mother Nature splashed her true colours across the lake while a tiny moon began to appear.
As the great environmentalist Rachel Carson said I found ‘reserves of strength’ while immersing myself in the natural world on that small island in Lake Superior while watching another wonderful day end, yet confident that soon the sun would soon return.
