A View from the Wolf’s Eye

  by Carolyn C. Peterson

           As I move through life’s stages, Isle Royale’s humble beauty does its best to help me negotiate my particular hills and valleys.  Change is good, I tell myself, and then work to see the positive side to the challenges that confront me.  “The hardest ideas to jettison are those that have helped us in the past,” wrote Jared Diamond, in Collapse (Allen Lane, 2005). IMAGE- pretty pic  It is so easy to fall into comfortable ruts and to want to stop the clock, especially when life has treated us well.  And the pace of change in the world is so rapid as to be alarming.  Isle Royale reminds me to take a broad view when considering the future of the world, the transitions in my family, and the relationship between my inner and outer life.  The term limit that is placed on each of us helps us ascribe meaning to each chapter of our lives, as do the events in the particular slice of history experienced by each generation.

            The world shrank abruptly for all Americans at the start of the 21st Century.  Rolf was teaching at the university and I was at home when my neighbor called:  “Turn on your TV, NYC and Washington are under attack.”  Her daughter was a student in D.C., and Jeremy was working in Central Park.  In shock I watched the pictures of the second tower coming down, and when I heard Jeremy’s cheery voice on the phone, “I’m OK, Mom!” I could barely squeak out my relief.  My grief would not be personal.  

          For a while, it seemed some good might come of the tragedy.  The world (most of it, anyway) wept with us, and Americans became like all other people, vulnerable to the violence of terrorists.  It didn’t take long for our leaders, who saw the world in terms of “good” and “evil”, to manipulate us, to tell us that we could regain our security through violent action, and the national mood lapsed into paranoia and vengeance (“If we don’t fight them over there……..”)   This policy, not surprisingly, was tremendously unpopular with the rest of the world, as well as those of us who believe a truly strong nation does not overreact to pain.  

         Isle Royale, remote as it is, did not escape this defensive mood; law enforcement personnel and equipment, funded with homeland security funds (borrowed, not taxed-derived) became a priority.  We now have nine gun-carrying rangers on staff, and it saddens me to see Isle Royale visitors approached as potential terrorists or, at best, petty criminals.   The guns set up a barrier between staff and visitors and undermine the sense of community that Isle Royale offers.   When park employees are obsessed with security, instead of service, the friendly, welcoming spirit of the island is difficult to hear.  Olaus  Murie wrote, “In the evolution of human spirit, something much worse than hunger can happen to a people” (quoted in Jonathan Waterman’s book  Where Mountains Are Nameless, p. 237.)  

          Whereas  September 11th jolted us on what I consider the wrong path, climate change just might help Americans pull together, regaining our courage and sense of mission.  The heating of the planet, which has affected Lake Superior and Isle Royale suddenly and dramatically, cannot be blamed on others, thank goodness.  The whole exercise of placing blame is a waste of energy.  Regardless of the cause of the violent weather patterns we have been observing, the solutions will involve ingenuity and cooperation at every level, within and without our borders.  And the changes that need to be made will also serve the cause of social justice.  Again, the whole planet seems smaller, connected and vulnerable, a situation that provides humanity its greatest opportunity.  Fear and vengeance have no roles to play in this drama.

           1998 was the first hot summer in what would become an alarming trend.  Five of the six summers between 2001 and 2006 were the hottest on record (JAV, in press.)  Moose are miserable when overheated, and instead of foraging and putting on the fat they need to get through the winter, they lie down in the shade.  It’s as though the rise in summer temperatures has come too quickly for moose to figure out how to cope.  Some seek water, but a visitor saw a cow moose come to the shore of Chippewa Harbor two days in a row to stand in the cold water, the main part of her body in the hot sun.  On the second day, the cow fell over, dead.  Rolf performed an autopsy several days later but found nothing unusual.  What does heat stroke look like?  IMAGE – MOOSE IN WATER

            By 2007 the effects of hot summers were obvious on Isle Royale.  When I arrived in May I saw beaches I had never seen before, and I learned how boaters explained hitting bottom—“hard water”.  What had been little islands were now points, and permanent docks were so far out of the water they were useless for short people.  The huge surface area of Lake Superior makes evaporation a major factor in the water level, and evaporation continues through much of the winter when, as in 2007, there is little ice.  Water levels would have been even lower were it not for the massive Ogoki and Longlac dams to the north and east of Lake Superior.  Built in the 1930s and 40s, they have diverted waters destined for Hudson Bay to Lake Superior (see Peter Annin’s The Great Lakes Water Wars, 2007.)

         At winter study that year, the warm temperatures required Rolf to fly to the island in a helicopter to determine whether there was sufficient ice (there wasn’t) for the study plane to land.   Once the plane arrived, windy conditions and the virtual lack of snow made it difficult to track wolves and count moose.   The number of moose was the lowest ever recorded, despite a food supply that was way above average.  Ticks benefit from the warming of the climate, and they were a big problem for moose during the winter of 2007; we examined an 11-month-old calf at Windigo in May that had died of the combined affects of low fat and ticks.

 

 

   CAPTION

 

           Thus, as the project nears its 50th anniversary, we are in territory that Durward Allen never anticipated when he began the study in 1958.  In 2006, the numbers of moose and wolves were quite similar to what had existed 48 years earlier, but the wolves were now in three packs, not one, and the forest was much different, with maples creeping northeastward, edible fir at the west end almost gone, and the “1936 burn” grown beyond usefulness to moose.  Also, drainages that in the 1970s had been active beaver habitat were now grassy meadows, supporting a whole different cast of characters, such as sandhill cranes, rather than great blue herons. IMAGE – DRAINED BEAVER POND Beaver had killed the aspen and birch they needed for food and construction within a safe distance (about 150 ft) from their ponds, changing the landscape forever.  Hotter summers adversely affected the moose, changing the dynamic between them and their predators.  Between 1995 and 2005 the wolf and moose populations fluctuated dramatically, emphasizing the complexity and unpredictability of natural processes.  We are more humble than ever about what we understand.    

We have learned that it takes time for some facts to emerge, as in the case of canine parvovirus.  Not only did the disease go undetected in Isle Royale wolves until blood tests were done, seven years after it was introduced the vector by which the disease was brought to Isle Royale was not known for another ten years.   At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the International Wolf Center in Ely, MN, Rolf spoke with a Duluth veterinarian who remembered treating the first victim of parvovirus in Duluth in July of 1981. That dog had contracted the disease while celebrating the Fourth of July on the island with a dog from Chicago; it is illegal to bring dogs to Isle Royale, but two boaters had violated that rule.

Rolf is intrigued, as always, by the nature of wolf predation, which seems to change, over time, complicated by weather, insects, vegetation, and age structure.    We rejoice in new knowledge that forces us to refine, and sometimes discard, our original theories.  This is the excitement of science, the process of exploration, the willingness to admit that an earlier explanation doesn’t tell the whole story, a belief that in time, with careful observation, we get closer to the truth.

        Wolf-human relationships changed some 8 – 10,000  years ago, with the advent of agriculture and domestication of livestock, and they are about to change again.  With advanced technology and persistence, our ancestors were able to destroy those animals they did not like, especially wolves.  They thought they were doing the right thing, but wolves suffered greatly.  Those that were domesticated are still fulfilling a niche of our choosing-- "man's best friend."  But in the past half century, there has been a major shift in public attitudes about the wolf, and people are now honoring its right to a place on the planet.   That we can and do admit our past mistakes is a tremendous testament to our intelligence and wisdom.  Now that wolves are re-established in several parts of our country, it remains to be seen whether we learn to live with them.  We may have emerged from the mindset that had us humans evaluating all other species, encouraging the “good” ones and doing our best to eliminate the “bad”, but we are susceptible to another trap in our thinking: to honor a single species rather than whole ecosystems.  Those who “love” wolves need to move forward, recognizing that what wolves need is space.  Not until we see ourselves in a respectful relationship with all of creation will we become the best stewards.

Although the story gets more complicated, we continue to enjoy sharing what we THINK we understand with all those who are interested. IMAGES – BANGSUND SIGN & ANTLERS The sense of privilege we feel, spending so much time on Isle Royale, has only increased with time, and we welcome visitors to the cabin.  I tell folks, “If you pay your taxes, you own this place as much as we do, so come on in and see what your money is doing.”  

Rolf made signs out of old newspapers, covered with contact paper, to greet visitors to Bangsund Cabin, especially those who stop by when we are not at home.  Because the signs are “low tech,” Rolf can change them as new information is learned.  The gravesite, we were told by Ron Johnson, Laura Edisen’s nephew, contains the remains (not much left, says the archaeologist) of between 12 and 20 miners, not just one, as we had supposed, who died in a drunken brawl between the miners of the Siskiwit and Mine Point mining companies.  

We enjoy featuring the Bangsund family, flying the Norwegian flag in their honor, and in 2002 John Bangsund, the nephew of Jack, visited and recounted more stories.  He was pleased to find the cabin where he had spent his childhood intact and well-loved.  I jumped at the opportunity to ask John whether the Bangsund family resented our presence in their cabin and was gratified to hear his response:  “Oh, no, fishing was not a way to make a living!”  He remembered the economic uncertainty his parents had endured, even when times were good.  He studied engineering, worked for Raytheon, and returned to Isle Royale in a fancy boat.   He said he would like to write a book about commercial fishing on Isle Royale, and when I told him that Buddy Sivertsen’s Once Upon an Isle did that already, he said, “Ah, but that was about West End fishermen.  Those folks were rich.  Here at the northeast end things were much different.” He also said that there were four reasons for the demise of the lake trout fishery. Besides the lamprey eel, over-harvesting and nylon nets, the fishermen learned, towards the end, that the female trout came to the surface just before they spawned to “ripen the roe.”  When the fishermen set their nets high in the water at that season they caught a lot of fish. The realization that humans can affect the supply of fish in a lake as big as Superior is relatively recent.

The display of antlered skulls is the main attraction at Bangsund Cabin.   Trevor built racks for the 140+ fellows in the back yard to get them off the ground, and Rolf puts the skulls away each winter to preserve them.  We know quite a bit about some of these bulls, and we enjoy sharing their stories and attaching labels to the skulls.  Although Isle Royale moose have relatively small antlers (islands tend to create large numbers of animals, which gradually become smaller in stature), the spectacle of so many together is outstanding, as is Rolf’s interpretive guide to the bulls with unusual antlers.  Because Isle Royale bulls are not hunted, they are able to grow old and asymmetrical.

We have kept a guest book since 1997 to help us remember the people who have visited.  We often talk about more than wolves and moose.  History, religion and politics are important to me, and I enjoy relating these topics to the work Rolf is doing.  Science must be communicated to the public for at least two reasons.  First, the study is supported by public funds, and scientists are accountable to those whose taxes pay for it.  Secondly, because democracy pre-supposes an educated electorate, science must inform the public so that good decisions are made.  From what people have written in our guest book, it seems that Isle Royale speaks to its visitors in various ways; in general, people leave the park feeling refreshed and hopeful.  

It seems many people have lost faith in themselves and each other.  If I have learned nothing else from Isle Royale, it is that nature is essentially good, and it stands to reason that, if butterflies, fir trees, moose and wolves are good, certainly people are, too.  (I continue to believe our compassionate hearts, which respond to vulnerability wherever encountered, are our best part.  Were humans endangered, would wolves lift a paw to save us?)  For some reason, however, we hide our gentle and generous nature behind various facades; our masks become a bad habit and our unexercised good parts are allowed to wither.  We all suffer from the same malady.  Perhaps what makes for sainthood is the courage to expose oneself, to be vulnerable, trusting that the goodness in oneself will touch the goodness in others.  When on Isle Royale, people are so encompassed and inspired by the wonder of nature that they are able to shed the hard exterior.  

As National Park Service priorities changed, favoring law enforcement rather than interpretation, I volunteered to give evening programs at Daisy Farm. IMAGE – MOON RISE My long history with “Y” camps taught me the importance of “evening devotions”, a gathering of folks for a conversation about something important.  Often moonrises or rainbows over Middle Island Passage, moose ambling through the campground, or singing loons change the focus of the evening.  I prefer discussions to lecture and always manage to work in a theme of reverence toward nature, including humans.  What we believe affects everything we do and say, and it is worth articulating our thoughts, bouncing them off each other in respectful dialogue.   For example, if one thinks of this world as a battleground where the forces of good and evil are constantly fighting, one can justify exclusiveness, even violence.  In contrast, I believe there are really only two forces at work in this world, love and fear, and that love is, slowly but surely, overcoming fear.  

              A recent visitor, a retired Methodist minister, spoke with me after one of my programs and related a piece of wisdom he had learned on the worst day of his life, when he was told he needed open heart surgery and his wife had incurable Parkinson’s disease.  “Please, God, if you have anything to tell me, now would be a good time,” he remembers praying that evening.  The words that came to his heart were these:  “You will do your best, and trust that you have always done so.”  Think how much good we could do if we received this blessed assurance in our hearts and extended it to everyone we meet!  

Sitting on a beach in a national park, we talk about the experience of sharing public land, where nobody needs a key or credit card and nobody frets about the chores of home ownership.  We are all winners here, a rare feeling in our competitive society.  Sharing a pubic park is a little like attending an inspiring lecture or concert, after which we all go home with something in common.  There are no winners or losers.  And sharing a bond with strangers awakens a part of our hearts that can always use more exercise.

I remember that my courses in economics taught me to think in terms of scarcity: given a fixed supply, the price increases with demand.  But from Isle Royale, looking at the boundless sky, we open our hearts to a larger scale, thinking in Carl Sagan’s terms: billions of stars, millions of galaxies.   The whole is more than the sum of its parts, a much more empowering and hopeful perspective than what I remember of classical economic theory.  

From Isle Royale our materialistic lifestyle back home seems a trap.  Our yearnings to feel connected to nature and to each other conflicts with a lifestyle that promotes isolation from and competition with our neighbors.  Surely our forefathers didn’t expend all their energy and wisdom for our freedom to consume without limits, to pamper ourselves at the expense of the common good, and to pursue security and safety as our national and personal passion.  We are capable of so much more!  Daniel Quinn (Ishmael, p. 110) put it well: “The people of our culture don’t represent the final stage of human development.”   As a Christian, I think of what a positive difference my religion could have made in the world in the past 2000 years had its emphasis been on unconditional love and peace with justice (which necessarily involves wise environmental policies) rather than personal salvation.    

We could certainly use leaders to inspire us to do what we know in our hearts is right, such as use mass transit, build smaller homes with more efficient plumbing and heating, overcome our fears about people who are different from us, participate in public decision-making, etc.  Until that leader arises, we must all pitch in, counting on our desire to do the right thing, a characteristic we all have in common.  Education is leading us forward, and as we realize the mistakes we have made, we change.   When I was a child, on canoe trips in northern Minnesota, my mother, a Girl Scout leader who cared deeply for wild land, burned our cans and then sank them in the lake, following the wisdom of the day.   I hate to think how much metal was dumped in those lakes!  But we thought we were doing the right thing!  At Daisy Farm, I advise folks not to slam shelter or outhouse doors and to notice how it feels to do something that helps other, even though they might never know of your good deed.  Part of the Isle Royale experience is the good feeling of acting within the confines of conscience.

“A man should never be ashamed to admit he was wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is a wiser man today than yesterday” Dag Hammarskjold,  Markings.  I have changed what I tell visitors about natural selection when I give tours of our bone yard.  Whereas arthritic vertebrae, jaw infections and broken bones attest to the selectivity of wolf predation in a natural ecosystem, we humans have done what we can to remove ourselves from that evolutionary process.  People pass along genetic problems, generation after generation.  Years ago I felt this was a major problem, but one day, while giving the tour to a person with severe physical disabilities I realized the narrowness and mean-spiritedness of that view.    

One morning in July, I was cleaning metatarsal bones in the front yard when I looked up to see a huge 3-masted sailing ship setting its anchor between our cabin and Daisy Farm.  The captain zipped to our dock in her Zodiac to make us a bargain:  if she and her crew could see our moose bones, we could tour their ship.  What a deal!  The “Denis Sullivan” is the flagship of the State of Wisconsin, and it carries groups of people (who participate as members of the crew) for various expeditions on the Great Lakes.  The next evening they invited us to see a movie: “Around Cape Horn,” filmed in 1929, narrated in 1980 by Captain Irving Johnson.  The commentary is rare!  Two sailors were swept overboard in a storm, but barely any mention was made of it.  The ship was carrying nitrates from Chile to Germany as part of the secret re-arming of Germany, yet all the crew felt the mission to be sacred.  Actually, most of the crew probably didn’t even know what was in the cargo hold.   Fifty years later, it seemed the captain continued to believe in the mission.  I guess it has always been easy to lose one’s perspective.  I remember Olaus Murie’s last words, “Our purpose in life is to figure out why we are here.” (In Jonathan Waterman’s book, again.)   The captain and crew were products of their time, believing that one group of people could win at the expense of others.  

In addition to the long-term monitoring of the wolf and moose populations, several other studies have been done by graduate and undergraduate students in the fourth decade of research.  Leah Vucetich showed that mice that were confined to small islands in Rock Harbor had less genetic variability and poorer survival than those living on the big island.  Leah has since learned to extract and analyze DNA from wolf scats, hair and other tissue, and this technique allows us to monitor the life span of individual wolves on Isle Royale without having to handle the animals.  She is also studying the hair-loss patterns due to winter ticks on moose.  Keren Tischler demonstrated that the aquatic plants moose eat in summer are extremely high in protein.  She used stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen to estimate that aquatic plants make up 10 B 37% of the summer diet of moose.  Madeline Campbell showed how young balsam fir trees have diverged on the two ends of the island: at the east end, growth is normal, but at the west end trees are stunted and do not produce cones because they are so heavily browsed. Ken Mills measured the antlers of all those specimens in the back yard (he spent much of one summer devising a way to measure antler volume) and found that Isle Royale moose have the smallest antlers of any moose population in the world.  He also measured the volume of the antlers of old bulls (standard measurements don’t work) and found that they become smaller and less symmetrical after prime age (about 10.)  Jason Duetsch devised a method of determining the sex of a moose skeleton by measuring an angle in the pelvis.  Joseph Bump is studying the significance of nutrient recycling from carcasses, making comparisons between Isle Royale and Yellowstone, and between wolf-killed and starved prey.  A new project is to become more sophisticated in our assessment of date of death when we find carcasses in our summer hiking.  Marcel Potvin studied wolf activity patterns and found that attendance at den sites was unpredictable and unrelated to the density of moose.  John Vucetich has published several papers and is interested in everything. IMAGE – JAV & LMV  One paper, on the relationship between wolves and ravens, suggests that the presence of ravens, on the planet long before wolves or moose, probably led to wolves living in packs, so that more of their food goes to other wolves, not scavengers.

Unlike the wolf packs Marcel studied, our family showed a regular and predictable activity pattern around our den site, Bangsund Cabin.  As their wings gained strength, Jeremy and Trevor found other home bases and new friends.  Isle Royale has been a source of strength for each of us in different ways.  The reunions on the island, though infrequent, are wonderful.

Jeremy called us late one night in 1998 from somewhere along the Pennsylvania turnpike.  He had been driving for two days in his little red MGB, trying to get from his summer job in Yellowstone National Park to an important first class of his senior year at Swarthmore College.  Tired, wet and frightened, he called for advice about his route, wondering if the smaller roads would have fewer big trucks.  We got out an atlas and a magnifying glass and squeezed our sleepy eyeballs to focus on a map of Pennsylvania.  I asked him if he were alone.  “No, I’m at a truck stop,” he replied.  “Good,” I said, “Now talk to the waitresses and truck drivers and get their advice.”  I then lay awake the rest of the night, wondering how he was doing, sending my love.  In the morning he called to say he’d made it.  In time he will accumulate enough of these experiences to trust life’s goodness, and until that day comes, I will uphold him with my faith.

Jeremy returned to the island in 2000 to lead an August Earthwatch team, and in 2002 he visited just before moving to Argentina for a year.  He had decided to go to law school but wanted to look at the world from outside the borders of his native country.  He happened to be on the island at the same time as a group of journalists, and one of the leaders encouraged him to volunteer for the English-speaking newspaper in Buenos Aires.  Jeremy took that tip, and his work for the “Buenos Aires Herald” inspired him to write a book about Robert Cox, who had been the paper’s courageous editor during the “Dirty War” in Argentina in the late 1970s.

The following June, Jeremy came to Isle Royale from Argentina, bringing a beautiful young woman, Maria.  On her first evening on the island, we all hiked to Ojibway Tower, and while on the roof listening to wolf radio-collar “beeps” we saw the alpha pair of the East Pack come up the trail from the southwest.  It seemed a huge blessing, a positive sign, and we were delighted when Jeremy and Maria  told us, two months later, of their engagement.  Immigration has not been easy since 9/11, and there were lots of delays because Jeremy and Maria  wanted to do everything properly.  But in November 2004 they were married in Formosa, Argentina, which sits on a huge freshwater aquifer on the border with Paraguay.   Instead of taking a honeymoon, the newlyweds spent several days serving as interpreters for their parents.

Trevor’s separation from Isle Royale was gradual, also.  After a summer as the volunteer at Daisy Farm he held a Resource Management position for the park.  Living at Mott Island headquarters was not easy for him, but he took advantage of the electricity and acoustics of the carpenter shop to record himself on the fiddle, mandolin and keyboard.  He led an Earthwatch trip in August.  The next summer he worked at Acadia National Park in Maine, again for Resource Management, and tried, as the new kid on the block, to convince long-term visitors of the presence of rabies in park raccoons.  In 2001 he did a research project on Kent Island, on the border between Maine and New Brunswick, Canada, but he was able to come to Isle Royale for another canoe/kayak adventure with us.   In 2002 he and his lovely girlfriend Sarah were the campground hosts on Jewell Island in Casco Bay, Maine.  The following summer Trevor brought Sarah to Isle Royale in September.  She, like Maria, brought us good luck-- we heard wolves howl as we hiked from Lake Richie to Moskey Basin.  Sarah joined the family in August of 2005, and the newlyweds continue to live in Maine, where Trevor works for an environmental consulting firm and Sarah is an environmental educator.  

Seeing our sons happily married is a source of great joy for us and seems an affirmation of what we tried to teach them-- to trust, to follow their bliss, to courageously commit themselves to another person through marriage.  We did as much as we could for our sons, but Maria and Sarah are bringing out the best in them.  We trust that all four of these young people will continue to experience the freedom and empowerment that we have found in marriage.  

 I rejoice that our children are better suited to the current world than I am, and I treasure the lessons they continue to teach me.  One fall, when Rolf and I returned to Houghton, we discovered some vandalism (destroyed benches) at the school forest where we have put in a lot of volunteer effort.  Rolf was inclined to let the place go benchless for a year, but we talked with Jeremy, working at the time for the NYC Parks Department, who said, “You must fix things up right away.  You’ve got to forgive the vandals and make repairs so that people don’t get used to seeing broken things.”

Jeremy’s initial assignment at the Parks Department had involved handling angry phone calls from disgruntled park users.  He liked the work: “Angry people are so interesting,” he said.  I recalled the many afternoons he had come home from school to “push my buttons,” and I finally understood the silver lining in that cloud.

In August of 2003, between the visits of Maria Victoria and Sarah to Isle Royale, Rolf’s mom, who had been failing gradually from heart/lung problems (she grew up in the plume of a coke plant in St. Paul) passed from this world.  At her memorial service we sang “This Is My Father’s World”, and I felt that her soul was free and at peace in the natural world of northern Minnesota, a place she dearly loved.

The following week Rolf and I were paddling on the south shore of Isle Royale, trying to circumnavigate the island in nine days.  Strong winds and high waves forced us to change our plans (on day six we were not even to Long Point), and as soon as we decided to turn back the trip improved.  The waves no longer seemed sinister and threatening, only playful and beautiful, and I felt Rolf’s mom’s spirit was guiding us. She NEVER complained about roadblocks or challenging weather, and she understood that striving for perfection is full of ego and activity and has nothing to do with reverence and praise.  She was perfect in her love, and her example is a beacon for me.

Our ”little brother” Chris visited us on Isle Royale every summer, but it seemed his light was becoming more and more dim.  In the spring of 2005 he decided to leave home and live at Father Flanagan’s Girls and Boys Town in Omaha, NE.   Rolf and I delivered him to his new home, where he is making a fresh start, while chafing at all the rules!  Somehow, the love I feel for Chris seems purer than my feelings for my own children.  Family attachments can so easily overpower us; they can limit us just as our attachment to material possessions does, tying us too closely to THIS world and distracting us from our ultimate connection to ALL people, things, and places.  From an Isle Royale perspective, it is easier to not only commend our family members to God’s keeping but also to reach out to our neighbors.

For four years, beginning in 2002, a group of journalists visited Isle Royale as an Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources, the brain-child of Frank Allen, formerly a reporter for “The Wall Street Journal.”  Environmental problems tend to be underreported in the media because they require a great deal of time to both understand and communicate to the public.  In the Great Waters Institute, fourteen journalists from around the country were given a 10-day tour and were informed about issues such as diversion of Great Lakes water, the effects of mining, paper mills and power plants on the watershed and the usefulness of abandoned copper mines as habitat for hibernating bats.  After an intense week, the group came to Isle Royale, where they could let their new knowledge sink in while being reassured that the processes of nature are alive and well.

In 2003 Rolf took a sabbatical so that we could be on the island from late April through October.  On the 24th of May, while camped in a shelter at Windigo, we were awakened by a very strange sound, like the breathing of Darth Vader. IMAGE – NEW BORN CALF WASH CREEK Rolf figured out that we were listening to a cow in labor at the edge of the creek just below the shelter.  At 4:00 a.m. we couldn’t see a thing, but we could hear the bleating of a newborn calf.  We spent much of the next day with the new family, watching the mother cross the creek to feed, leaving the little one alone for hours at a time (Did she consider us competent babysitters?)  She wanted her calf to swim Washington Creek, but the calf was perched on a rather high bank and was not ready for diving lessons.  Eventually the cow led her tiny newborn to a better launching site, and the calf cooperated.  After its first swim, it seemed quite proud of itself and almost pranced along the far shoreline and then into the woods.

On the last day of September of that same year a cow moose died in Daisy Farm Campground.  We had heard this “gravelly-voiced cow” for a few days, and campers had reported that she, although really thin, was being courted by a bull.  Wolves were nearby, and she lay down as close as she could get to a campground shelter, where she expired that night.  Rolf didn’t want wolves coming into the campground, and he found a dozen willing volunteers to help him haul the carcass into the woods, where he performed an autopsy.  The cow had a massive infection in her lungs and heart, and later we found that she had some sort of malady that affected all four distal leg bones-- they were covered with excess bone in a lacey pattern.  Doctors who have seen the bones surmise that the cow had a parathyroid gland malfunction.  She was twelve years old and suffered from arthritis.  Judging from her voice in those last days, she was ready to die, but I hope she had a bit of fun on her last night.

In October we spent five days on the Feldtmann Loop, a trip we had not done for about 30 years.  On our first night, in the campground at Feldtmann Lake, we watched the full moon rise and listened to the Middle Pack of wolves howl nearby.  The next morning we met a fellow in the next tent-site who was the chaplain in a juvenile prison in the Chicago area.  He, too, had felt blessed by the moonlight and wolf song as he began his weeklong first adventure on the island.  The next night we camped in a really lousy spot at the east end of the lake; Rolf said a former graduate student had camped there often, but then we remembered that this fellow had not needed much space. That night also was memorable because of the loud squawking of a young great-horned owl, a sound we had heard on rare occasions but had not been able to identify.  On the third day we revisited some of our favorite places on Feldtmann Ridge, where we met the Chicago chaplain again.  He had learned the Isle Royale pace (slow) and was having “the best vacation of my life.”  That night we camped at Siskiwit Bay, and I remember waking up in the middle of the night and noticing an interesting pattern as the moonlight came through the mosquito-netting: the moon was at the center of a cross of light, just like Jesus’ cross, and it seemed the perfect combination of natural and Christian symbols.  The next day we poked around the ruins of Island Mine, a good demonstration of phenomenal human ingenuity, put to use for questionable ends.  On our last day, while hiking into Windigo, we watched a large bull moose, with polished antlers, run from us, and I am still pondering what could possibly make a big bull moose fear people.

Staying on the island through the fall was so delightful that the next August, while packing up to move back to town, Rolf decided to give notice to Michigan Tech of his intention to retire in June of 2006.  He would be only 57 years old, but the time to transfer the direction of the project to his colleagues, John and Leah Vucetich, seemed right.  Rolf would continue to be involved in all aspects of the research project but would step down from commitments at the university.   I think I was as excited as Rolf about his retirement.  At the beginning of the baby boom retirement crowd, we represent a generation that had careers we chose, jobs that did not wear us out.  We have a lot of energy and idealism, and we look to the next generation, better able than we to think outside the box, to tell us how to help.  There is so much more to Rolf O. Peterson than was expressed through his job at the university, and I want him to have the freedom to follow his bliss, the freedom he has given me for 30 years.  He’s an artist whose talents are just beginning to emerge through painting.  Most people won’t see any change in Rolf as a retiree because he will continue to be involved in the Isle Royale research, winter, spring, summer and fall.

        In 2006 more visitors saw wolves than ever before.  With numbers of moose very low, wolves were hungry, and they seemed to come to campgrounds to look for moose, especially cows with calves that seek protection from humans.  Rolf hoped that the “fearless” wolves were an anomaly—hungry, daring yearlings, perhaps.  By winter 2007 there were 10 fewer wolves in the population, and it seemed that the “problem” wolves were gone.

We continue to use Earthwatch volunteers to help us find moose bones, and they have made such important contributions that in 2007 we decided not to hire summer field assistants.  The technology of GPS has brought us such accurate reports of skeletons from park staff and visitors that Rolf and I, now on the island for so much of the year, are able to visit the reported sites and collect the bones ourselves.  While I miss having young people as part of our summer family, I understand budget constraints, and I appreciate my new freedom.    

 No matter how long we are on the island, I am never eager to leave the place where I am able to be fully present, whether hiking, sitting at the cabin window, entertaining visitors or measuring moose bones.  In addition, I’m always aware of geological time, the day and night sky overhead, the processes of forest succession and evolution all around me.  Sometimes I feel even more connected to my family and friends while physically separated from them, and I can send loving energy to them when they are struggling with crises.  As my yoga teacher says, “A lighthouse does not run all over an island looking for boats to save; it just stands there shining.”  Rolf has a far better sense of timing than I do, and I still have a lot to learn from him.  Grateful for all my blessings, I continue to see myself as “support crew” for other people’s good projects.  

Just as Isle Royale helped me learn, raise our children and become a citizen of the world, it now seems to be guiding me as I confront my own mortality.   Old things die and are replaced by new life, improved by the process of natural selection.  To see the good in the changes is the challenge, always.   The beauty of life’s cycle derives from the finite limits of time and space allotted to every living thing.  Think of the energy we put into denying and forestalling the aging process!  Imagine all the Hallmark cards you have to remember to buy to honor all your relatives’ birthdays.  Birth would not be special, rebirth unheard-of, and life would be unimaginably tiresome.   I remember the words that spoke to my mother’s heart on her last day:  All stages of life have merit.  Our bone exhibit at Bangsund Cabin probably seems rather frightening and gloomy to some visitors—most enter from the northeast, on foot, and the first point of interest is a miner’s grave.  And moose bones are our major display.  Sometimes I wonder if children think of me as the Baba Yaga when I emerge from our old log cabin!  

           In March of 2006 Jeremy and Maria presented us with our first grandchild. IMAGE – FAMILY PHOTO As I looked into those perky new eyes, uplifted, expectant, confident in the love that produced him, I marveled at the original blessing endowing each new life.  A friend gave me an interesting little book years ago by Finn called, Mister God, This Is Anna, in which the protagonist, a five-year-old girl says, “It is not the evil in humanity that makes man a lonely creature.  It is the goodness in him that cannot get out, that does not reach to the goodness in others.”  A newborn baby, so vulnerable yet fearless, has the power to bring out the best in every human being.   Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural Speech, delivered in 1994, should be read at the birth of every child—

Our deepest fear

Is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves: who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you NOT to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone.

And as we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

 

I have a minister friend, a regular Isle Royale visitor, who always asks me why wolves must kill moose in order to live.  I have suggested to him that, were I a moose, I would rather die quickly from wolves than slowly and painfully with painful teeth or joints, and it would be comforting to know that my body would be recycled into something “new and improved.”  Nature’s winnowing always moves towards healing and wholeness.  “But why must creatures suffer?” continues my minister friend.   I told him about endorphins and explained that moose that have been wounded and are surrounded by wolves seem to go into a state of shock before they are actually killed by wolves.  For humans, perhaps the point of suffering is to force us into each other’s arms.   Our tendency to compare ourselves to others, and our knowledge of the possibilities available can add to our misery when times are tough.  And it seems we suffer when we feel abandoned and alone, an experience all humans share at different times.  It happened to Jesus on the cross, and in that brief moment when he cried out, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” he suffered.  I have always liked the last verse of Leonard Cohen’s song “Suzanne” -

“And Jesus was a sailor, and he walked upon the water,

And He spent a long time watching from a lonely wooden tower,

And when He knew for certain only drowning men could see him,

He said, All men shall be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.

He himself was broken, long before the sky would open,

Forsaken, almost human, He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.”

    

    In a spiritual sense, this life is only part of our experience.  We are given opportunities to make our lives meaningful, to overcome challenges, to learn to live with insecurity, to find out who we are and how we are related to everything else.  We are all given glimpses of the big picture, and at these times we experience the “peace that passes all understanding.”  As we age, we can have more of these experiences if we keep open minds and hearts, resisting the ideas that would make us afraid.  

            Now that Rolf is retired, I spend half of each year on Isle Royale.  Even so, it is difficult to maintain a healthy perspective when I return to the “real” world.  Recently, a new thought occurred to me that is helping me put my two very different lives together. I have spent Sundays my whole life (when not on Isle Royale) in churches (Congregational, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist) that proclaim “God Is Love” on banners in either the sanctuary or fellowship hall.  When I was a child, Bible stories, stained glass windows and beautiful music helped me understand a love that was different from what I received from my family and friends.  Through education and experience, my faith has continuously evolved, becoming ever more inclusive and powerful.  God is love, indeed.

    I was never taught fear, which opposes love, in church.  I learned that in other places, like movie theaters, the evening news, magazines, school, and doctor and dentist offices.  At church I only heard that love casts out fear, and that every problem could be made manageable if I let love, not fear, rule my heart.

    Coming of age in the 1960s, I was exposed to great ideas from other cultures.  The more exotic the author’s picture on the book jacket (Gibran, Gandhi, Zora Neale Hurston), the more electric was the discovery that we all yearn for the same things. The teachings of Jesus (love God and neighbor) held up well in comparison with other religions, and it still seems to me that Jesus, more than any other person in history, realized the divinity that is available to all of us.

    It has occurred to me that God, who is love, is also the physical force of attraction that works to pull all matter together.  But what counteracts gravitational force, working in the way fear does to oppose love?  Recently, a physicist told me that there is no fundamental force in nature that opposes gravity.  Wow!  We live within God’s love and gravity, forces that will prevail, no matter how long we try to resist them.  All the walls we erect, including belief systems, will crumble.

    It seems to me that human history is a gradual progression.  Despite a few major setbacks, humanity as a whole has moved steadily from tribalism toward diverse and vibrant community.  Technology has allowed the transportation and communication essential for intercultural understanding.  Our nation is blessed with phenomenal diversity and a remarkable legal system that is itself evolving in the direction of inclusiveness and empowerment.  We believe that universal public education is required for self-governance and that scientific knowledge enhances our reverence for life.  If our community is to be sustainable, however, we must not confuse our wants and needs.  Lanza del Vasto, an Italian follower of Gandhi, exhorts:  “Strive to be what only you can be; strive to want what everyone can have.”

      Rolf speaks of Isle Royale as an outdoor laboratory, but that image does not work for me because a laboratory excludes the general public, for whom the parks were established.  Also, labs are for tinkering, and the island is a natural park, a look-see sort of place; tinkering is not allowed.  I much prefer to think of Isle Royale as a circus, the best sort of circus, because nature runs the whole show.  People come to the circus for many different reasons; the wolf-moose drama occupies only one of several rings.  There are clowns, and otters are primary in this role.  We humans are in the audience, vital to the whole performance.  Rolf is in the audience, too, watching and describing what is going on with the wolves and moose, sharing his findings with anyone who is interested.  The park maintenance staff makes sure our seats work, and rangers serve as ushers-- the interpretive staff helps visitors understand and appreciate the island; the enforcement officers make sure we don’t interfere with the show or prevent others from enjoying the performance.  Not everyone is watching the same thing-- some come to dive on shipwrecks, some come to fish or hike or photograph wildflowers—but as long as you respect my bliss, and I yours, we get along just fine.  Sometimes a spectacular display of northern lights or a group howl by wolves will have us all jump to our feet, and then we realize how very good it feels to share an awesome moment.  The differences that may have divided us earlier in the day-- your noisiness or my smelly t-shirt-- fade as we receive blessings together.  We aren't bothered by the closeness of the seats because we have become less irritable and less irritating.  And this realization, this deep connection to other human beings as well as to the wilderness, is the most special gift Isle Royale can offer.

    The fact that nobody owns the island circus is significant.  The enjoyment we experience is enhanced because we are not distracted by concerns and temptations that inevitably accompany private ownership.  And it feels so good to share our “oohs and aahs” and laughter with strangers.  Finally, both the animals that perform for us and the land we share are protected by law.  Public lands offer a society an opportunity to practice collective stewardship; acting together, people have different priorities than when determining the future of private property.

            We are a funny creature; we think we want to be in the ring, receiving accolades from the audience. But the ring is a lonely place, and our ego trips have short-lived benefits and long-term costs.    The joy of looking outward together, laughing or marveling at what we see, actually feels better than being in the limelight.   Sometimes, in the stands, we are so overwhelmed by the beauty we have seen that we must express our joy-- through art, music, or hugging our neighbor.  We might even rush out for a moment into the ring.  The trick is to know when to return to our seats!

            Many of us stop going to the circus when we become adults.  We say that we have more important things to do, such as earning money for tickets, forgetting that these performances are free.  Sometimes we stay away from the circus because we are grieving over the loss of a loved one, but at this circus those who have passed on have the best seats, and we can feel close to them when we attend the next performance.  Some of us become pre-occupied with selecting “the best” seats, and others of us are so busy fiddling with camera equipment that we miss the action, forgetting that the circus is continuous, and live performances are far better than videotapes.  Sometimes we are distracted by the toys we bring with us (have you noticed how we love to compare our camping gear?) or the games we play with each other in the stands.  Fortunately, in a public park, when my activity disrupts your enjoyment of the show, the ushers will keep me in line.

    And Isle Royale is not the only show in town.  Many people, perhaps most, would never want to come to this place I love so much.  This is good; the island cannot handle many visitors.  But I am certain everyone is capable of feeling the way I feel when here, and I encourage folks to keep searching for experiences that keep their inborn sense of wonder alive, reassuring them that we all are significant players in life’s adventure.  Art galleries, museums, concerts, as well as other public lands might all be considered circuses.        

The temperature under Isle Royale’s big top is rising.  All the performers are affected, but the humans in the audience are the only ones that might be able to do something about it.  In the process, we can ennoble ourselves, embracing the unknowns of the future with hope, changing the myriad things we can change, individually and communally.  Knowing that forces beyond our control are pulling us together, we can resist the voices that seek to divide us, making us arrogant, cynical or afraid.  Always, the still, small voice inside aligns our thoughts and deeds with the quiet power that uplifts us.  

    Fifty years of research have taught us to be humble as we try to predict the future.  Nature is marvelously complex, and unexpected events have dramatic results.  Regardless of our activity, the processes of birth and re-birth, of healing and change, will prevail.  As we continue to watch and learn from Isle Royale, we must think beyond single species, honoring the interconnectedness of all life, searching for answers while accepting ambiguities.

    From the wolf’s viewpoint, fearful humans make dangerous neighbors.  In the past 60 years knowledge has helped people overcome their fear of wolves—when asked to draw a wolf, most of the school children Rolf encounters draw animals with closed mouths, not bared fangs.  But other sorts of fears continue to paralyze us, and instead of learning all we can about what frightens us in order to overcome our fears, we invest far too much effort trying to protect ourselves.  Life is a risky business, but fear is a choice.  The only antidote to fear is love, and people have a unique ability to receive love and pass it along, reveling in the web of life that inextricably holds all things together.   What wolves need now is for us to become fully human, to open our minds to new knowledge and our hearts to the guiding and expansive power of unconditional love.  Then we will give wolves what they need most—space.

    When our “little brother” Chris was eight or nine years old, I was helping him with a Cub Scout project, thinking of ways to save the planet.  “Stop making war,” was Chris’ first idea.  I tried to steer him in the direction of bicycles or recycling, but he was insistent.  I finally got the connection and marveled at the intuitive wisdom of a child which knows that violence in any form harms both the planet and its inhabitatants.  From the perspective of the wolves and moose on Isle Royale, major players in my favorite circus, vulnerable yet unafraid, the best thing we in the audience can do for them is to get along with each other.  

 

 

This page is under construction.  

The text is complete, but images will be added in the upcoming weeks.