A View from the Wolf’s Eye
(for the Love of an Island)
by Carolyn C. Peterson
3. The 1990’s, Listening (and letting go). In the 1970s I became attached to Isle Royale, a place I have come to know and love more than any other place on the planet. In the next decade, our children stretched me in new ways, yet grounded me in this world more firmly than ever before. There were more lessons, however, and in the 1990s my ears were attuned to new voices and my spirit was challenged; I am learning which things I can let go and which connections are sustaining.
Rolf kept the Isle Royale wolf-moose project small; funds are always difficult to come by, Bangsund Cabin's table seats only six, and our research activity has an impact on the wilderness we love. Field techniques have changed somewhat, but the research effort is highly consistent, making year-to-year comparisons meaningful.
The Park Service gave Rolf permission in 1988 to handle a few of Isle Royale's wolves to determine the cause of their population crash in 1980-82. This meant live-trapping and taking blood samples in spring, a step I dreaded because of risk to the wolves. Rolf had the same concern, but he could not tell whether disease or genetic problems were adversely affecting the wolves until blood samples were analyzed. Also, radio collars would save a lot of air time in winter when locating wolves from the study plane.
Beginning in 1988 we carried radio receivers and antennae along with our "kill kits" when we hiked. From radio signals we learned that wolves do not avoid humans as much as we had thought. One wolf hung around Daisy Farm, close enough to hear the park ranger's evening program. Another time, when Rolf was away at a conference, I was assigned to keep track of the East Pack by monitoring radio signals from Ojibway Tower. The boys were not interested in a hike, and at the ages of 8 and 11 they could be trusted on their own for a couple of hours. From atop the tower roof I heard, in the direction from which I had just come, the loud signal of the male wolf who ranged the length of the island. I really expected I might see the fellow, his signal was so strong. As I hiked back down the trail, the beeps continued to come from the same direction. He's right in Daisy Farm Campground, I thought. But no. . . from the Daisy Farm dock the signal, now very loud, was coming from near our cabin across Rock Harbor. As I groped in my pack for my binoculars, I had a brief moment of panic. Our boys were playing on the beach, unaware, of course, of the nearby wolf; I was surprised by my momentary loss of faith.
Undoubtedly enticed by our fragrant bone rack and the carcass of a drowned moose not far down the shore, the collared wolf hung around behind Bangsund Cabin for several days. When our summer assistants returned from a trip, we used telemetry equipment to try to catch a glimpse of the wolf. He was close; we could even smell him. He led us in one direction and then, a few seconds later, "reappeared" directly behind us, but we never saw him. Stripped of technology, the human animal is a modest creature indeed! This wolf died in January 1991--- old, starved, and with the usual complement of broken bones. He is now mounted and looks unrealistically beautiful in the visitor center at Windigo.
The same year Rolf first handled some of the wolves, Earthwatch volunteers began to lend
their physical and financial support to the summer project. Since Rolf and I were not contributing to the fieldwork as much as we had in our first years on the island, we needed some help. Earthwatch, a private non-profit organization based in Maynard, Massahusetts, matches paying volunteers with field research projects all over the world. I wondered who would pay to do what we do, but, not only did volunteers come, they came in significant numbers. And, most importantly, they enjoyed themselves! From Australia, Italy, Israel, New York City and Los Angeles, from age 15 to 74, they had little in common when they arrived except a love for wild places and a desire to contribute to a research project they deemed worthwhile. For a week they put their lives in the hands of a team leader, usually one of our summer assistants. The trips were often very difficult, and even though a common focus fostered team spirit, many Earthwatchers found it the most challenging week of their lives. One volunteer jested, "You should offer an alternative: Pay double and skip the hike!" Two volunteers were quoted (though they told me they were joking) in their California newspaper as having survived "a hike in hell!" But rainbows, moose sightings, trail food and storms knit individuals together. The generosity, self-denial, sensitivity, tolerance, and forgiveness practiced by these volunteers are a prescription for our planet's ills. Earthwathers have a chance to live a bit like wolves in a pack, making personal sacrifices for the common good, a habit that has fallen into disuse in our culture. Even more so than a wolf pack, an Earthwatch group is democratic-- everyone gets the same-sized cup, and there is no pecking order. My spirits soar when I think of these fine people, living and working all over the world, making a positive difference.
As "expedition coordinator," I packed food and equipment for our Earthwatchers and rewarded them at the end of their trips with fresh food. In our first year, we were overly confident and accepted 58 volunteers. Three teams of six people were in the field simultaneously, and three days after they left the island, another 18 folks were ready to start. One stormy night there were 26 people eating dinner in our small cabin. By the end of August I was exhausted and irritable; the next year we down-sized.
Between Earthwatch trips I needed some time to recover and prepare for the next group. Our Earthwatch leaders, often our summer assistants, had the same needs. Since I was chief cook and bottle washer for a "family" of seven, I was always on duty. At one point I aimed some sharp, hurtful words at one of our assistants. Then, feeling terrible, I retreated to the hill south of our cabin, where I sat and sobbed in shame and frustration. In the empty aftermath, the wind in the trees overhead and the lichen at my feet soothed my anguished heart and gently exposed my pride and selfishness. As my anger changed to remorse, my determination to explain my side of the story evaporated. Suddenly I felt not only free but also courageous enough to apologize. I learned that humble pie has a pleasant aftertaste.
Earthwatchers have made terrific field assistants. A group of strangers tends to be quiet, 
open to the island's lessons; a wilderness setting brings out the best in human nature by constantly reminding people of our place in creation's beauty. Also, among new faces, a whiner or bully has a chance to change, to shed a bad reputation, to become the person he or she really wants to be. Good-natured banter is common on Earthwatch trips, and humor is arguably the most important contribution Earthwatchers make to this research project; a good laugh keeps a scientist's perspective healthy. We have been blessed with some loyal volunteers who return year after year. Mike Thomas came 14 years in a row, and he met his wife Kim on one of his early adventures here. Ron Eckoff began in 1989, coming every other year until retirement allowed him to come more often, bringing friends and relatives. Volunteer Tim Pacey has become a team leader, and the project's dealings with life and death helped him accept the tragedy of his young son's passing.
Faithful Earthwatch volunteers Mike and Kim Thomas with the largest antlered skull in our collection, retrieved in 1999.
While Earthwatch greatly expanded our family, our summer assistants became increasingly influential role models for Jeremy and Trevor. Rolf has always selected his help carefully, looking for honest, hard-working young men and women who enjoy being outside. Our mealtime conversations may not have pleased Emily Post, but they reflected our shared commitment to Isle Royale. Our capable assistants first served as aunts and uncles, then siblings, and, finally, friends to our boys. Doug Smith promised three-year-old Jeremy a trip to Lily Lake, and, true to his word, in 1991 he led Jeremy to all the "hot spots" at the west end of the island. At 13, Jeremy was almost able to keep up with 6'5" Doug. Another wonderful assistant, Tim Laske, invited Jeremy on a canoe trip with him and his new wife. How many newlyweds have the heart to share a canoe trip with a 14-year-old?
Earthwatch jolted 15-year-old Jeremy forward in his development; when our scheduled Earthwatch leader became suddenly ill, we roused him from sleep and asked him to consider leading the trip. I will cherish forever Jeremy's humility when confronted this responsibility; it was the first time in a couple of years he had admitted there might be something he couldn't do. He was very concerned about operating the white-gas stoves, and while the volunteers approached the island, a six-hour boat ride from Michigan, he practiced lighting every stove in our cache. At the same time, he memorized bird songs, names of flowers, and the history of the island's moose and wolves. He was a good leader, and we had never been more proud of him.
The wolf decline in the early 1980s gave Rolf the impetus to tackle the writing of a summary of his years with the wolf-moose project. He wanted to explain the options open to the NPS, should the Isle Royale wolves disappear, and to encourage people to make their opinions known, because a decision about the future of wolves on Isle Royale should be made in consultation with the public owners of the park, particularly scientists. Rolf gently stated his own position: as long as there are moose on Isle Royale, there ought to be wolves.
But he got off to a slow start. I had been hounding him to write, but my nagging was totally ineffective. Then, alone at the cabin for a few days in 1994, I thought, "By gum, I'll write my own book," and for the next three days I sat at our table, completely absorbed and exhilarated as words appeared on the paper. When Rolf learned what I had been up to, he was afraid I had taken his good stories. As he read the first page, however, he chuckled, "I don't think we have a problem here." My project spurred him along, and he quickly finished his book, The Wolves of Isle Royale-- A Broken Balance (Willow Creek Press, Minocqua, WI, 1995, and reissued by the U. of MI Press in 2007.)
Like an artist who learns to notice light, color and shape, I found that once I began writing, new ideas kept surfacing. Every hike, every book, every new person had a lesson for me. In a discussion with Paul Hayden, an editor at Lake Superior Press, I had made a remark about hoping to change the world. "Why? Is anything wrong with it?" was his quick response, which stuck in my head for a long time. Since college, I had been certain that the world was full of problems, and I was eager to fix one or two. By focusing on problems, I was developing a furrowed brow and losing my joy, thinking of things I (and others) should be doing rather than praising and encouraging the goodness that envelops us abundantly, even now.
While working on my manuscript in 1994, I met Gendron Jensen, an artist-in-residence on Isle Royale who specializes in much-larger-than-life drawings of bones. On a buggy, rainy afternoon he spent more than three hours selecting a few specimens to take to his studio. Puzzled, I asked him just what he was looking for. "I am waiting for one of the skulls to speak to me," he matter-of-factly replied. I had found, lugged, cleaned, labeled, measured and stored these bones, completely oblivious to the energy our new artist friend detected in each specimen. Those bones do not speak to me, but I have no doubt that Gendron can hear them. Scientific or artistic value-- who is to say which is more important? Fortunately, a single bone can serve several purposes. And while Gendron's reverence for bones is foreign to me, I am in awe of his genuine and powerful experience. There is a glow about Gendron Jensen, a man whose sense of wonder is intact.
Years later, I was telling a group of visitors who had come to see the Bangsund Cabin bone collection about Gendron Jensen’s ability to hear the language of bones. One gentleman took me aside and thanked me for telling Gendron’s story. “My son is an artist, too,” he explained. “Great!” I responded. “What does he draw?” “German washing machines,” was his reply.
Beginning in 1994 I assisted with the park's breeding bird survey each June. At last, birds were the focus of a hike, and I could stop to identify various sounds without having to rush to some distant point with a heavy pack. Rolf and Trevor were among my patient recorders, getting up at 5:00 am, taking notes and swatting mosquitoes. Birds establish their territories by singing, and even though some birds imitate their neighbors' songs and some individuals do not sing "by the book," a systematic survey of songs can indicate trends in species abundance. I realize that birdsong has a serious purpose and is quite aggressive, but it is among my favorite music, even so.
Years later I took an ornithology class at MTU and learned that birds have evolved in amazingly diverse ways in order to penetrate a wide range of habitats. A "bird brain" is a marvel of nature. (I must speak to my brother, who for years got a rise out of me, by calling me "bird", short for "bird brain"!) A black-capped chickadee can remember a phenomenal number of seed-storage sites and actually grows an enlarged hippocampus, the part of the brain that houses spatial memory, as needed. When no longer useful, the hippocampus degenerates; a bird cannot afford to carry around extra weight. A green heron uses an old leaf or other bait to attract fish to its feeding site. The malleefowl male builds a compost heap in which the female lays her eggs, and he carefully monitors the temperature of the nest, removing material during the day and adding insulation at night. Flight itself is an engineering wonder, as are the methods birds use to navigate during their long migrations.
In 1995, just as Jeremy went off to college, Rolf took a short sabbatical in Yellowstone National Park to participate in the wolf restoration project. Trevor attended school in Gardiner, MT, and I used the new perspective to decide what to do with the rest of my life. From our house at Mammoth Hot Springs, we looked up to mountains in all directions. We bought our few housewares at a church rummage sale and lived simply. Working on a quilt in the afternoon sun, I listened to the silence. (Blaise Pascal: "All human evil comes into the world because people can't sit still in a chair for 30 minutes!") This was new, and I realized that my mind had become numb from constant stimulation. Full of other people's ideas, I had become complacent and passive, even cynical. But now, sitting quietly, I set my internal radio on "scan" and heard some amazing things. Manageable projects came to mind, not ideas for global change, and I had the time to act on my intuition’s nudges; sometimes it felt as though I was participating in miracles. Proper timing can make all the difference, rendering my actions powerful and effective instead of intrusive.
To help decorate his Yellowstone room, Trevor used this quote from Markings, by Dag Hammarskjold:
I thought of people who transmit light clearly, like Pete and Laura Edisen. As Isle Royale fishermen, they worked long hours at a job that was physically demanding, sometimes dangerous, and always financially risky. Valuable nets might be lost in a storm, and after a poor season Pete and Laura could not afford the boat ticket back to the mainland. Yet the Edisens never let desire for something "more" interfere with their happiness. Content with their blessings and completely engaged in life, they did not want the sort of lifestyle that is killing our planet. Twenty years after the Edisens taught me to see light through the cracks in Bangsund Cabin's walls, I came across these words by Leonard Cohen:
"Ring all the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering;
There is a crack in everything --
That's how the light gets in."
My mother's father was another clear lens. I remember, even as a child, noticing his constant good humor, and as I grew up I learned that his difficult experiences could have made a lesser person a bitter old man. His father had died when Grampy was 12, his mother was poor, his wife was ill for much of their married life, and the Depression and medical bills consumed most of his hard-earned money. Nevertheless, for about forty years he produced a weekly family letter, a single typed page recounting the events of his week with unfailing good humor. He never complained; if things at home were difficult, he included an anecdote from the minister's sermon or a joke from the "I Love Lucy" TV show. Grampy's faith in a loving God produced his radiance; he looked outward for the Light and transmitted it clearly. My grandfather, like the Edisens, was rich a la Henry David Thoreau, "in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone." (Walden, p. 74 in Random House edition, 1950.) Immune to the temptations of wealth and status, my heroes were generous and joyful, more interested in loving than in being loved.
Dorothy Bishop, a Yellowstone friend, loaned me one of her favorite books, 1000 Beautiful Things, edited by Marjorie Barrows. I hand-copied page after page-- prose and poetry of people like Amiel, Peter and Catherine Marshall, Norman Vincent Peale, Goethe and Bryan Jeffery Leech. My mind steeped in beautiful thoughts, I awoke in the middle of the night with an image that seemed to knit all these beautiful ideas together. We are all connected through this attitude circle; at all times we can choose to respond to the fears that our brains conjure up or follow the loving impulses of our hearts, which pull us closer to God.
The Yellowstone sabbatical taught me to listen to the "music of the spheres," and to act on the impulses aroused by that music. Isle Royale is one of my favorite channels, but I am not always open to its messages. Experience has taught me to listen for similar messages on other stations. I believe all peak spiritual experiences, whether prompted by nature, religion, a new friend, small children, art, music, literature, meditation, science, tradition, hearty laughter, or a simple act of kindness, spring from the same source, producing a heavenly sense of well-being and connection. (These peaks show up as "beauty" on the circle.) The fact that we are not all tuned in to the same channel makes life interesting. I tend to be easily bored in an art gallery, but if I hear Tchaikovsky's “Fifth Symphony” while driving, I might a road hazard! How sad that we sometimes try to impose our own mystical pathways on one another, as if there were only one way to know the power of the Spirit! And when we learn to CELEBRATE diversity, not merely tolerate it, how much richer we will all be!
Refreshed and inspired by Yellowstone's grandeur, Trevor, Rolf and I returned to Houghton in time for the 1996 winter study. That winter was, in Pete Edisen's terms, a "pea-doozer." It began early, with violent storms, cold and snow. When the 38th winter study opened in January, moose were obviously suffering. Wind-whipped shorelines had more exposed food for moose, but 2500 animals had overbrowsed the fir, aspen, and mountain ash. Several moose reached too far for twigs and fell off cliffs. After mining their last fat reserves, stored in bone marrow, many moose, especially the calves and the old, starved. Rolf spotted 60 dead moose during his seven weeks on Isle Royale in winter 1996, close to the record 64, found in 1972. In that earlier year wolves were in on the killing and led Rolf to the carcasses; in 1996 most moose died in late winter from starvation, and their remains were usually untouched by wolves.
Tick infestations in 1989, 1992 and 1996 killed many moose.
Nature dealt moose yet another blow by delaying spring. Rolf and his May Earthwatch volunteers had to hike the final mile to the island on the ice of Washington Harbor. Snow covered much of the ground until the third week of May; Trevor found a patch on the Fourth of July! In desperation moose sought south-facing slopes, where the sun brings out the first new vegetation, but these areas produce lichens, mosses and juniper, inedible for moose. Many moose seemed to have slipped or tripped and fallen, without the strength to get up again. One old bull broke two ribs on his last fall, and several moose seemed to have become entangled in juniper bushes.
Why weren't we seeing more evidence of wolves at these "kill" sites? Perhaps even starving moose are capable of defending themselves against wolves. More likely, there were so many of these "push-overs" that wolves didn't ever encounter most of them. Also, those starved moose had little fat for hungry wolves; perhaps a straved moose doesn't taste good. A beaver or snowshoe hare might provide a juicier meal.
In summer fieldwork in 1996, our teams recovered 226 moose carcasses. Led by our noses, we found only the most obvious ones, and few had been touched by wolves. Two bulls died within a quarter mile of each other, very near the Greenstone Ridge Trail above East Chickenbone campground. On the park trail, between the dead moose, were two fresh wolf scats containing hair from beaver and snowshoe hare. The late spring had undoubtedly forced beaver out of their lodges and onto snow before their ponds opened up. Beaver count on spring to melt their ponds by early May. Without water for escape, beaver are sitting ducks for wolves, and beaver-on-ice is a wolf delicacy, duck soup. Beaver, even in spring, have more body fat than a starved moose, and beaver don't kick.
Moose bone inventory at Bangsund Cabin, 1996
The trip began well, though the boots that had worked well in the rain the previous week seemed to have lost their charm. As I sloshed and slipped through the mud, I met two young men from Detroit who were having a wonderful time despite a four-day rainy spell. They eagerly told me of wolf tracks on the trail ahead; these brightened the next half-mile.
The dead moose advertised itself with a now-familiar odor. It was another starved bull, lying on its side, legs outstretched where it had fallen, exhausted. A few ticks eagerly awaited a new host, so I pulled my socks over my pant cuffs and donned rubber gloves. There must be some powerful chemistry at work on a carcass, because the surrounding vegetation was rust-colored and dead, as from a burn.
Cutting off the head was easy with a sharp knife. The exposed hide was dry and tougher than jerky, but the underside was still being consumed by maggots and insects, nature's clean-up crew, and was soft. From the teeth I could tell that this bull had seen many winters. "Spring" had taken his last ounce of energy. I hoped it was a warm, sunny day when he died and that he didn't die shivering.
I decided not to try to get the hide off the skull. It would dull my knife, and a furry head would be less likely to break the plastic bag that lined my pack. I was already beginning to worry about the trip home. I had brought Trevor's mid-sized pack because the report was of a "little bull," but this was no midget. Later I measured his brain volume to be over 500 cubic centimeters, one of our largest. The head could fit into the pack, the metatarsus tied on top, but if there was an arthritic pelvis, I was in trouble.
Unlike the skull, attached to the backbone by just one vertebra, the pelvis lies between the sacrum, tailbone and two femurs, and all were covered by tough, sun-dried hide. Again, the underside was the easier half. It worked best to flip the rear half over. I found myself chatting with this old bull, apologizing for the posture I had forced him into, rear legs 180 degrees from his front ones, thanking him for donating his body to science.
After much experimentation, I put the metatarsus, with hoof and hair because the knife was now too dull for skinning, and arthritic pelvis together in a plastic bag and carried them in one arm. The 5 1/2 mile trip on a muddy trail was dangerous now, with a heavy and unbalanced load. The air was humid and the vegetation wet; I wore raingear and got soaked from the inside.
At home I was greeted by Trevor, still at work on that rhubarb pie, and Joe and Jeff, who had found their cow moose in a similar situation as my bull, on a south-facing slope. Her skull showed osteoporotic lesions, and her upper first molars were so decayed they looked like chocolate caramels. She must have been several years overdue for her annual physical.
The moose census of 1997's winter study recorded the full extent of the devastation of the previous winter --only 500 moose remained. Rolf counted 24 wolves, not the large increase one might have expected. The free lunch program for Isle Royale's wolves came too late to affect litter size. Also, all those moose died in a very short period of time; of what use are 1000 Thanksgiving dinners, all served on one day, when you don't have a freezer? Finally, starved moose are of marginal nutritional value, especially for reproducing females, who need fat. Most of those hundreds of carcasses were consumed by maggots. “What a waste!” one might say, unless one is a maggot—Grandma is still talking about the bounty of 1996.
With the young and old and sick moose culled by weather, wolves had to work hard to make a living in 1997 and 1998. Carcasses examined during those winter studies were extremely well-utilized. With junk food no longer available, wolves ate good meat, and both the East Pack and Middle Pack produced litters of five pups in the spring of 1997. By winter 1998, however, all but three of those pups were dead. It seemed the supply of old, vulnerable moose was so low that the adult wolves were struggling. Rolf looked at blood samples and determined that lack of food, not disease, caused the drop in wolf numbers to just 14 in 1998. Three collared wolves died that winter, killed and eaten by rivals from other packs.
For years after the die-off in 1996, our summer crews had great success finding bones, and our collection of bones at our summer field headquarters was quite impressive, attracting many park visitors. Some were eager to help with our project, and I was glad to put them to work. One nice man figured out why the pilot light on the refrigerator kept going out, and another helped us start a cranky old outboard motor. This latter fellow and his wife also inventoried our collection of moose incisors, the teeth Rolf uses to determine the age of a moose.
Trevor began leading Earthwatch trips in 1996. What a year to begin! Bones from a moose killed by hungry wolves are "cleaned up", but the bones of a starved moose must be extricated, a smelly, messy project. Trevor learned to share his knowledge and walk at the front of a line of Earthwatchers. Even as a youngster, he had been resourceful and level-headed during a crisis. One fiercely windy day, returning to the cabin after a dead-moose expedition, Trevor and I could see waves and wind battering our camp. The 18-ft skiff was lunging against its cleats on the dock, which was loose from its anchor and listing to the northeast. The wind had torn a large section of roofing paper off the cabin roof and was flapping wildly. Even before we reached shore, Trevor had done "triage" and set his priorities. I simply followed orders-- "hold the ladder, hand up the nails, pull on this rope." Like his brother, Trevor loves Isle Royale; it is a source of inspiration for both boys, a place with both memories and further enticements that they can return to as long as they live.
Rolf has a hunch that the volume of a moose's brain is significant. I have my doubts but have learned to measure moose brain volume nonetheless. Using a 60 cubic-centimeter syringe, pressure gauge, plastic tubing and a Mickey Mouse balloon, I pump water into the balloon placed inside the cranial cavity until the pressure gauge registers 3 lbs per square inch. The process goes smoothly most of the time, but when a balloon bursts because of sharp protrusions inside the skull a new setup must be made and calibrated. If the skulls sit for a few weeks in our yard, they can become housing for wasps, spiders, or garter snakes. One disgruntled beetle showed his disapproval of the brain volume project by pinching the balloon to death when it threatened to squash him.
Otter inspects cabin floor repairs by author, 1996
The next morning he emerged at about noon, stretched luxuriously, groomed himself and swam off. He was back in less than five minutes with a large herring in his mouth. On the dock ramp he bit off the fish's head while the tail still flopped. Perhaps the motion bothered him, because he turned the fish around and ate the tail next, then the rest. After more grooming, he swam off, but he became a regular occupant of our downstairs quarters. He seemed to enjoy people more than his own kind and appeared at our Earthwatch banquets and Fourth of July picnic. A visitor, floating on an air mattress in Moskey Basin, yielded his perch when the otter used the air mattress as a dining table. When we replaced the cabin’s linoleum and made repairs in some of the floorboards, he was on hand to inspect our work. He observed our outdoor activities, especially bone boiling. One day Trevor was sitting out front, greasing his boots, when the otter lay down, stretched out on his back and fell asleep at Trevor's feet, twitching his paws in dream.
Just a few days before we had to close up the cabin and return to town in August of 1996, Rolf and I were up late one night, entering autopsy information into the computer that was hooked up to a 12-volt battery. We heard a thump at the door, followed by the otter's hrumphing noise. We knew he had learned to open shelter doors at Daisy Farm; when Rolf opened our door he came in with the confidence of a regular guest. The shag rug just inside the door delighted him, and he lay on his back, stretching and wriggling with obvious pleasure. We continued our work while he groomed himself and explored the cabin. Finding nothing of great interest, he let himself out.
Two days later he came inside again and repeated his luxuriating on our rug. Something outside caught his ear, and instead of going to the door he went to the window, conveniently low, and stood on his hind legs, paws on the sill. My window box was in full bloom, and the petunias and marigolds blocked his view, so he decided to go out the door after all. This was the last time we saw the otter. Something died under our cabin during the next winter, and the smell was unusual and fishy.
Our friendship with the otter was a rare event; we have always kept our distance from Isle Royale's wildlife. The otter's death reminded me of the cost of attachment. The cycle of life and death is beautiful only if I love the whole more than any one of its parts. Yet human love, personal attachment to family and friends (including animals) is one of the best parts of being human. Love makes us vulnerable, and when the pain of separation hurts, the regularity of nature helps us handle the grief.
An otter probably doesn't ponder, let alone seek, immortality, but whether our spirits outlive our bodies has been the stuff of human poetry, philosophy and religion for ages. Each of us is free to choose what we believe about such things, putting what we’ve been taught together with our own thoughts and experiences, and our perspective on death affects everything we do. Throughout my life I have tuned in to the voice of the wilderness for wisdom, and I have also discerned a still small voice within my heart. There are yet other voices. In 1997 I was awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call from my sister: "Mom died an hour ago."
Mom's death was a shock to me, even though she had suffered a major stroke three years earlier. Frustrated by her disability, she had lost her enthusiasm for life. As I sat alone with the reality of Mom’s absence, I felt miraculously enveloped by her love. The words to one of her favorite poems by Eugene Field, "Little Boy Blue", came into my mind. As a child, I had thought that this was a poem about toys and stuffed animals abandoned by a child who died suddenly, and I had cried for those unhappy toys that didn't understand death. As a mother reading to my young children, my tears were for the grieving mother in the poem. Now, it seemed that Mom was telling me not to make a monument of my pain but to unlock the nursery and share the toys. "Be of good cheer and reach out to your friends; I am not far away," she seemed to say. For three years it had seemed I was without a mother, but suddenly she was back again, bringing me encouragement and energy. Ever a good mother, she extends her love unconditionally, even now.
I had visited Mom in her nursing home a week before she died. Oblivious to the kindness of her old friends, caregivers and other residents, she was discouraged and wanted to die. That she did not die in this frame of mind seems a miracle to me. At her memorial service, one of the nuns from the nursing home staff told me that Mom had wheeled herself to Mass just hours before she died. Mom had been a Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Episcopalian, but something drew her to Catholic Mass on that last day, and Sister Susan wanted me to know what the priest had said at the service, because Mom had nodded her head in agreement with his words: "People in Duluth tend to prefer certain seasons over others, but God is in all seasons, and in the same way He is with us in all parts of our lives, especially the parts we just hate." That night, Mom was sitting out in the hallway, superintending traffic while watching a nature special on TV. Nurses saw her reach out to another resident, smile and pat her arm. It will always seem to me that Mom’s heart had become an open channel once again, and love surged through her with enough power to take her earthly body and release her heavenly spirit.
In my training to be a Hospice volunteer, an oncologist told me that we do not die a moment before we are, at a deep level, ready to go. I believe my mother chose her moment to depart, and about a year later my father gracefully “crossed the bar” (see Tennyson's poem by that name, a favorite of those who were born in the first decade of the 20th Century.) He had spent more than a year in the dementia ward of the same nursing home where Mom had been. He had not been an easy patient. In his illness, my soft-spoken father, champion of precise language and decorum, struck out and shouted at his caregivers. One of his male nurses told me he liked dealing with my obstreperous father, that this energy was evidence of his will to live. But during the unique occasion when my sister and brother traveled to Indonesia, Daddy stopped eating. By the time I arrived in Duluth (against his will-- he had told the nurses he didn’t want me to come), it was obvious what he was up to; there was an aura of calm and power about him that I had not seen in years. I told him I had come to wish him well, not to hold him back; I can only hope he heard me.
The dementia ward is a good place to die; people wander in and out of rooms, making themselves at home wherever they are. One woman sat in Daddy's reclining chair and took the chocolate I offered her. She asked me what that man in the bed was doing. When I told her I thought my dad was dying, she went to his bedside for a close look and said, "Well, that doesn't look too bad, does it?"
I sensed that my father, a dignified and private person, wanted to die alone. He seemed to have chosen this time, with my siblings as far away from Duluth as one can get, so I returned to Houghton after a three-day vigil. Somehow, it didn't seem that he was alone at all-- his soul was well-connected to something I couldn't sense, something beautiful and peaceful. He died the next day, and I feel his spirit with me always, loving me just as Mom does, unconditionally. He kept one of his favorite quotes, by T.S.Eliot, under the glass that covered his desk:
They constantly try to escape
From the darkness without and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect
That no one will need to be good.
My parents were given long lives and beautiful deaths, and I did not feel as sad at their passing as I was thankful for their love and examples. Reverend Howard Anderson, the minister of Mom and Dad's church in Duluth, acknowledged my gratitude when he said, "Sin is the failure to be joyful." I concentrated on the love that was my parents, a love that is with me still, not on the grief of loss.
My parents' passing prepared me for another difficult milestone: our boys' leaving home for college. Just as I learned to receive love from my parents more directly, I would try to convey my love to Jeremy and Trevor in new and more effective ways. The enormity of the empty nest hit hard the first time I confronted leftover tidbits in our refrigerator. The pain reminded me of what I had felt after a miscarriage 19 years earlier. Then, hormones brought me down quickly, and Jeremy's singing helped me rebound; now, rain and fatigue made the pain acute. Jeremy called the night Trevor left and instantly knew my heart. "Empty nest, eh, Mom?" He was sad, too, out in Yellowstone, beginning his first summer away from Isle Royale. We encouraged each other on our separate paths. Rolf's tearful low point came the next morning; he and Trevor shared several interests and personality traits. We were at the end of a wonderful era and allowed ourselves time to be sad.
Launching our sons was a major exercise in faith, and it seemed that when I had doubts, Rolf was strong, and vice versa. We chose to trust life to be good to our boys; I hoped and prayed that they would feel upheld by the love that surrounds us all, to look for the good in life. I am glad I heeded my sister-in-law's advice to stay in the nest until Jeremy and Trevor flew away. As teenagers, the boys needed less of my time but took more of my strength. The challenges were nearly overwhelming and the goal unclear, especially when in town, surrounded by temptations, far from nature's calming influence. It was difficult to deny our boys the things they wanted when we could afford much more than they needed. Indulgence, however, brought unstable peace. Jeremy often found my presence at home oppressive; he would have liked the use of the car, phone and kitchen to himself. And Trevor, in the way of all youngsters, observed, "It must be nice to be a grown-up and do whatever you want all the time." Friction made it easier to let go and taught me that family doesn't always bring out the best in us. I am glad I kept a journal so that I won't glorify the past. As Will Rogers quipped, "Things ain't what they used to be, and probably never was."
Children watch their parents to see what life is like up ahead, and we wanted Jeremy and Trevor to know that it just gets better and better. To give our sons the best send-off, Rolf and I had to be responsible for our own happiness. If the boys constantly looked behind them to see whether the home front was OK, or if they felt we were living through their lives, they would not have been fully free to pursue their own destinies.
William Blake said it well:
"He who bends to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise."
All the years our sons were growing up, I gave much time, when in town, to community organizations. This sort of work has its pitfalls, however. I often took myself and my work too seriously. One year I wrote a large enough grant proposal to give myself a small salary, and that pittance robbed me of the joy and meaning of volunteering. The obligations of the project also encumbered my time and thoughts so that I was not open to higher impulses. It can be convincingly argued that all my volunteer efforts up to this point, even though good parenting, contributed to the gap between the "haves" and "have nots." Now it was time to invest in programs that served all children.
While caring for a ten-month-old child in Yellowstone, I recalled the spontaneity of small children and the significance of silliness. The love which children exude is expansive and unconditional; closeness to children is a privilege that should not be restricted to parents. To help fill our nest, at least on Saturday mornings, Rolf and I took on a "Little Brother” through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program. We involved him in some of the wonderful community programs that had nurtured our own sons. The Legos were put into use again, and we heard another whole set of wise sayings. As we saw the beautiful soul of this boy, we did what we could to keep the sparkle in his eye.
When Chris was 10 we invited him to spend a few days with us on Isle Royale. He settled right in, relaxing into the spirit of the place. He rowed Jeremy's boat and dug canals and harbors in our stony beach. We taught him a few card games, a new experience for him. On the last day with us he announced he'd like to come to the island again. "Good!" I replied. "We were afraid you might get bored here." "Oh!" he said, "It is boring, but I like it anyway."
During the child-rearing stage of my life, Rolf game me a work of art consisting of an oval granite stone and a metal stick figure with arms outstretched, pushing against the stone. It was appropriate, because I was trying so hard to change the world. I wanted "She Tried" to be inscribed on my gravestone. But when I returned from Yellowstone, I found that the stick figure, which has cute, round buttocks, can also rest on the stone and reach upward in celebration. It is a precarious position; it's much easier to topple the figure from this position than from the pushing pose, but I think this is appropriate, too, because it takes discipline to maintain a cheerful outlook.
Like our “little Brother”, the elderly people I met through Hospice and volunteering at a nursing home have shared their wisdom. "When you are near a dying person, you'll feel you are on holy ground," I was taught. With my own father, as well as with Hospice families, I have known this phenomenon. The words that needed to be said have flown from me, without real thinking, as heart calls to heart. Why do we wait until a person is dying before treating each other with such respect? Joseph Campbell, in The Power of Myth, wrote that the next century must be spiritual or it won't be at all. I have experienced what Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul calls "daily epiphanies" when I have learned from the gifts that are placed in my path, such as the joy of sharing a poem by Edgar Guest or Longfellow with elders. When I asked one of my friends in the nursing home how she maintains her good humor she replied, "What else do I have to do? It's my new full-time job!" A forgetful mind can still be wise. She had already lost her health, husband and home, and unafraid of death, she had no worries. My elderly friend was content with her lot, free from our fast-paced culture that praises the busyness of the ant above the singing of the grasshopper, and unencumbered by the belief that humans are by nature sinful and must earn their favor with God.
Our children have come of age at an exciting, hopeful time. Wolves are now tolerated in areas where they were once poisoned and trapped, and they will soon be removed from the list of Endangered Species in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Books about simple living, bringing out the best in each other, forgiveness, and community are on bestseller lists, and people, overwhelmed by the explosion in knowledge and technology, are learning to trust "the force." Some scholars look for scientific explanations for ethical behavior, and others are finding that science, ethics and faith are completely compatible. Children are working their way back into the center of adults' lives, and the feminine side of the human psyche is getting more press. Talk show hosts encourage us all to take responsibility for our lives and to resist the bondage of our materialistic, competitive culture. Ministers inspire us to become fully human, to receive love freely and to pass it along. As we use our technology and global perspective to act locally we are finding powerful antidotes to despair, fear, and cynicism. People who seek justice in this world realize that loving good is more effective than hating evil.
As I let go of my parents and children, I have found more joy in loving my neighbor. No longer preoccupied with my family, I am free to notice and respond to the people that appear in my path. I once thought of Isle Royale as a refuge from people, and each spring, exhausted by the rat-race of activity and projects, I had run to the island for soul restoration. But the people I have met on the island have taught me that people are one of God’s very best things. Dwarfed by the beauty and wholeness of creation, we rise to our potential and bring out the best in one another.
One summer I allowed a painful experience from town to spoil the peacefulness I was accustomed to feeling on Isle Royale. I churned with anger and thoughts of revenge (and learned that voodoo doesn't work!) The island couldn't help me because my heart was not open to its messages. When I returned to town and went to church, the first sermon I heard was about forgiveness: "Do not come to the communion table until you are reconciled with your brother." The person for whom I had nursed a grudge was sitting nearby, and I asked him if we could talk later that day. Over lunch I remarked to Rolf that I was going to explain how I felt, to tell my side of the story. "Candy," Rolf replied, "I don't think you were listening to the sermon very well." Those words rattled me as I pedaled my bicycle to this fellow's home. We walked around his property for an hour or so, and as he explained what, from his perspective, had happened the previous spring, I realized that I had imagined all sorts of things that were not true. I had stupidly allowed my anger to fester all summer. Suddenly, after months of pain, my heart was free. It felt so good, I could have done double back-flips.
The human heart, like the chickadee brain, expands with use. Ask the parents of a large family-- they may confuse their kids' names, but they never run out of love. Although our American schools have been busy developing our competitive nature, our intuitive capacity to love and to forgive has been virtually unexplored, let alone tapped. What exciting possibilities lie ahead! As I gaze at the marigolds in my window box I am amazed by their indiscriminate generosity. Come hummingbird, sphinx moth, bumblebee or butterfly, the response is the same -- what was freely received is freely given. Courage resides in my heart, saying "Yes!" when that still, small voice nudges me to give. But my brain talks me out of all sorts of good impulses, reminding me of the cost and the danger, and so I live below my best.
For most of my life, my mind seemed to thrive on complexity; I remember my pride when, in town, I found I could cook dinner, talk on the telephone, and amuse two small children, all at once. (One night I was about to pour vegetable oil on the spaghetti when I noticed three dead mice at the bottom of the bottle!) Frenetic activity precludes reverence, however, and although successful multi-tasking sometimes brings satisfaction, this feeling is very different from the joy I derive from things I do not control or understand. Even on Isle Royale a rigid schedule makes it impossible to enjoy a powerful storm. And fretting over my mistakes in the kitchen spoils my fun with the guests seated at the table. The storm and food are not the problem.
Humans have not always acted the way we do today. Perhaps wolves tell the stories of their ancestors, who lived with a human culture that, like theirs, was sustainable. Biologically, people are programmed to be social, and we have within us the instincts to be friendly, trusting, and 
generous, but we have made some bad decisions. At the age of 15 Jeremy observed, “We have used our powerful brains to justify actions we know in our hearts to be wrong.” There are signs that we are moving towards sustainability again, and we can exercise our freedom to make choices that will benefit the common good.
A painting by Garry Meeches is the logo for the “Wolves and Humans” exhibit at the International Wolf Center in Ely. It depicts the energy of the sun flowing through a moose, into wolves and back again to the sun. Humanity’s presence in the painting is 
only as the observer, who honors the beauty and interconnectedness of creation. In Meeches’ work, a powerful brain and heart are in harmony. Whether we learn to live with wolves is still uncertain, but Isle Royale offers visitors a great place to walk around in wolf country for a few days with other creatures in a relationship of mutual respect. (While we have changed our minds about wolves, it is important that they maintain their fear of us—those teeth are incredible weapons.)
Henry David Thoreau wrote, "In wildness is the preservation of the world," and I would add, " in community is the preservation of wildness." Unless we learn to live closer together there will be no room for our fellow travelers, the wildlife. Jonathan Spence, professor of history at Yale University, has written about the civilization of China during the Ming Dynasty in the mid-16th century. "The Chinese were very used to running cities with more than a million people. Perhaps one of the proofs of civilization is that we can live together in large numbers in crowded places." Orlando Patterson, professor of sociology at Yale, echoes Spence's words: "An urban condition is always one in which there is greater freedom and equality. There is a German saying, 'Town air makes free.'" (New York Times, 4 April 1999, Magazine p. 54.)
Our next-door neighbors at the Edisen Fishery for several years have been Les and Donna Mattson, wonderful people who greet the many folks who tour the fishery and lighthouse. Les and Donna appreciate the old ways of doing things, such as the use of cotton nets that are more visible than nylon ones and allow some fish to escape. Les listens politely, without even a twinge of envy, to boaters who try to impress him with their fancy gadgets. Living close to the water, he notices changes such as the lack of young herring in the stomachs of fish he catches (and he blames the cormorants.) Donna enjoys the hares, gulls, hummingbirds and moose that pass through their yard. Les and Donna live fully in the present, laughing about the past and future. Pete and Laura would be pleased.
When they were eighteen years old, both Jeremy and Trevor volunteered to be the host/ranger at Daisy Farm Campground. In 1995 the Park eliminated several seasonal positions, leaving their largest campground without a shepherd, and Jeremy thought it might be fun to help smooth the feathers of boaters and hikers who sometimes have trouble sharing the place. He made bulletin boards and a reading box and put interpretive signs in outhouses, and Trevor started his evening programs by playing his violin. Teaching visitors about moose, wolves, birds, trees and shipwrecks, our boys encouraged park visitors to focus on the island, to look outward in the same direction. Wilderness experiences, especially in the company of strangers, remind us that, despite our outward differences, we are surprisingly similar underneath. The stratified society we have created has left our hearts unsettled. Equality is a "given" when campers are weathering a storm or blessed by a rainbow.
Life in an old fishing cabin, next-door to old-style commercial fishermen, becomes ever more enjoyable as we fall farther behind the "real world." Temptations are easily resisted. Visitors to Bangsund Cabin sometimes suggest "improvements." Certainly the place is a handyman's dream, but I love it the way it is, with inherent imperfections, like me. Sitting on the ground, the lowest logs fight a perennial battle with the soil; Rolf has come to their rescue when necessary. The beauty of the cabin is its simplicity and utility. It's the only place I have ever lived where I can freely pound a nail into the wall when I need a hook. The cabin is merely a base from which we launch trips into swamps and ridges, and I hope never to lose this perspective.
Isle Royale gives us the fun of solving some problems ourselves. Living without running water in the summer is really no hardship; as a matter of fact, we appreciate our water more when we must haul it. Modern plumbing forces us to be wasteful; the effort required to carry our clean water in and dirty water out inspires ingenious methods of water-saving. When we can pile dirty dishes in a dishwasher, we don't think about the hot water and energy that is required to clean them. Wash dishes in hot water on an 80-degree day a time or two; you will figure out how to make the process more efficient. If nothing else, you might develop some empathy for people who live with major inconvenience every day of their lives.
In 1998 our propane refrigerator acted up, and we decided to lessen our ecological footprint by getting along without it. Ice and a cooler under the cedar tree worked just fine, and our propane consumption was down by half. Ice cream is one of the blessings of town life. The next summer our field assistant, Marcel Potvin, surprised us with an old, restored icebox, which suits our needs perfectly.
For showers, we made the transition from modern plumbing gradually; perhaps living with engineers at Purdue and MTU caused us to dabble with "intermediate technology." In the early 1970s we mounted the gas tank from an old boat six feet high on supports lashed between two trees. A rubber hose and cork controlled the water pressure. We located this set-up on the hill behind the cabin and lugged buckets of heated water 50 yards up a steep slope, over windfalls and through a dense fir stand, then climbed a rickety ladder to fill the tank. Now there was an energy-intensive invention! Today we heat a three-gallon pot of water and stand behind a tree, pouring water over ourselves with a two-cup dipper. Warmed by the sun, serenaded by warblers-- these are my favorite showers. Why do we so often let other people's inventions rob us of elemental joy?
Although marking time on a calendar may be precise, there is satisfaction in telling seasons by the sounds and silence of birds, the flowering of orchids, the smell of witch's broom, or the thump of fir cones on the roof, cut from a branch above by a squirrel. Nature's rhythms are subtle, and it takes time to become familiar with them, but they are comforting, and the hours spent in nature's classroom are some of life's best.
My preferred method of contacting mainland friends and relatives is still paper, pen, and the U.S. mail. Speed and quantity of communication are not related to the significance of the things we say to each other, except perhaps inversely. When I make time to write, I am more thoughtful and focused, concentrating my love in one direction. At the other end, the reader approaches the mailbox with a hopeful heart, helping magic to work through my words. A letter is never disruptive, and it can be reread, shared and cherished. A handwritten, personal letter is a creative outlet for me, a way to care for the people I love.
Even grocery shopping is more fun when done by mail, I think. Food arrives once a week via the NPS boat Ranger III. I have learned that "large" means different things to different people, that baking powder comes in five-pound cans. When I ordered "meat sticks" one week, expecting to get a spicy trail snack, I received a customized package of wooden skewers. It's a rare week that I do not forget to order something, so we have learned to "make do," and the resulting new recipes can be quite interesting. Inevitably, my list is a jumble of items, and I'm certain the clerk who fills my orders gets a lot of exercise. We have learned to be thankful for whatever we receive.
In considering the fishermen who lived on Isle Royale 75 years ago, I realize that their frugality and simplicity were not a matter of choice. Unlike us, these people had almost no expendable income and little free time. On moving day I am particularly mindful of how much stuff I cart to and from the mainland each year and how I clutter my life. Isle Royale reliably speaks with a clear voice: The freedom we seem to cherish, to do and have whatever we want, distracts us from exercising a more precious skill-- to make the most of whatever we’ve been given. I learned this first in 1971, within the green log walls of Bangsund Cabin and through the good example of Pete and Laura Edisen, and I benefit from every annual refresher course.
us to minimize our impact and maximize our praise. With luck, we will be occupied for a long time with our projects and will always remain humble before a universe that is ever marvelous. To read the next chapter, click here...
