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"Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to," - Bob Dylan
Amid the gray-white skies choked with acrid smoke from numerous wildland fires situated to our northwest, I headed out to explore the scene. I needed to get out of the house. I'd been sheltered there for a few days behind brick walls and double-paned glass, hiding from smoke that was thicker than a winter coat and temperatures hot enough to have fried the devil's hind end.
This event, whatever it would eventually turn out to be, was not over yet. So, I decided not to ramble too far afield. It was also getting late in the day for a woods trip anyway, especially with work in the morning. I cruised along the reservoir basin with its high-water level inundating numerous familiar sights.
Fishermen were positioned on the rocky banks or floating and bobbing in boats trying their luck. My guess was walleye and northern pike were what they were after. It might have been a good night for fishing.
I based this assumption on a pair of loons I saw swimming not far offshore. They had a couple of fledglings with them. The family looked like it was engaged in some type of teaching-learning experience, as well as trying to get something to eat.
Like cormorants, loons hunt for minnows in the shallow waters. They drop their heads beneath the surface to "peer" into the depths below. If the adult loons had been without the fledglings, perhaps they would have opted for deeper waters where larger fish are present.
The fledglings looked like they were nearing their 12-week-old stage when they become independent from their parents - almost ready to fly and fish on their own. By November, the chicks hatched this year will migrate south. They will return after 2-5 years looking for places to nest and raise their own families. I turned the corner at the bottom of the big hill and continued to head north.
The smoke, though much more dissipated and dispersed than it had been over recent days, still slumped over the tamarack branches here and the rooftops of several camps and homes I passed along my way. When I hit the dirt road, when the Jeep dropped off the pavement, big clouds of dirt billowed up behind the vehicle. Everything was so dry.
The plants growing around the creek at the bottom of the hill were wilted into what was left of the water. The creek was dried up down to its muddy bottom in a few places, with the remaining flow confined to the middle of its curvy course. On the downstream side of the road, the creek eased over boulders huddled at the edge of the wide pond it spills into.
In earlier, higher water times of the year, the pond is deep and the inflow from the culvert that feeds it is roaring and white with foam. I moved past a new clearcut and around several familiar bends in the road. I turned off and drove over an old logging road to a vista under a red pine grove.
I saw a handful of birds fly up into the trees. As I got closer, it became clear to me that they were robins - reminding me that though they are common in backyards and on our lawns, they are primarily a bird of open forests. I got out of the Jeep to look around. It was still very warm out, but not hot like it had been.
Tiny bugs that I call sand flies were everywhere. They were landing on my arms, neck and legs to bite. As I bent down to swat at a fly on my knee, I noticed that the plants on the ground were decorated with fresh and ripe blueberries. I reached down and picked up my first handful for the season. So delicious.
The taste of all the wild berries I eat from these still largely untamed North Country woods and plains inherently contains an essence of this rugged and ravenous land they haven't been able to reproduce in grocery store berries. The taste of even one wild blueberry, raspberry, blackberry or thimbleberry explodes in your mouth. It's incredible.
If you're picking fresh berries for a pie or some other dessert you'd like to make, my advice is to first pick and eat three or four handfuls of berries to satisfy your initial craving. That way, you are likely to fill your berry container more reliably and maybe before those damned biting deer and horse flies find you out there somewhere under the jack pine boughs.
While you're picking blueberries, I recommend you listen to the beautiful songs of the white-throated sparrow and the hermit thrush. They are often heard in these places. The sparrow's song is well-known, with some of its notes said to be replicated in the first line of "Oh, Canada." The rhythm of the notes is often sung like it's saying Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody.
The thrush song is my wife's favorite of all birds. It sounds like a woodland flute. The first note of its song typically begins with a varying pitch each time it is sung. Though it's a plaintive, haunting and lonely sound - whenever I hear it, it's a sound that reassures me that I am not alone.
A few more turns and I got to a bridge over the rivière des morts.
The gate on the dam upstream must be open judging by the plentiful water rushing down through the green and blue scene below me. The smoke was still hanging in the back of the setting obscuring my view of much of the woodlands.
I decided to take a side road up to the lake that creates the basin behind the dam.
When I got there, the water level was much higher than usual. There is usually a generous portion of beach to wander along, as well as rocks to sit on.
On that evening, the warm lake water was up over almost all the sand and gravely beach. Two big boulders that used to sit a good distance back off the water's edge were now only a couple of feet away.
Since I was here last, someone had painted a peace sign on one of the rocks and a heart on the other.
And while the water covered the beach, that gray-white smoke covered the water and much of the horizon. The typical wide and blue skies here were greatly abbreviated. The far shore was completely hidden.
The near rim of the lake was decorated in each direction with gray and faded driftwood that had been washed upon the sandy shore or, on stormy days, pushed farther up onto the beach.
I wouldn't be wishing on the stars. I wouldn't be able to see them.
Meanwhile, the sun that had hung over me behind the clouds throughout this outing was still visible, though casting only a dull dandelion-colored light toward the earth.
The sun was sinking down. It was getting late in the day.
In an hour or so, it would be dark.
I left the Jeep windows down on the ride back. Each time I heard a hermit thrush singing in the woods. I stopped the Jeep to listen to it. A few of those birds were quite close to the road.
There were a couple of white-throated sparrows singing too, as well as an ovenbird with its loud and location-shifted teacher-teacher-teacher song.
I finally spotted one deer out wandering around in that new clearcut forest as I headed home. It was the first large animal I had seen. I think they were all trying to stay low given the heat and the smoke.
There were deer tracks on the road, but no moose or wolf sightings or tracks.
When I hit the blacktop again, any mosquitoes that had found their way into my Jeep were pushed or sucked out the front passenger windows.
Surprisingly, there were no animals crossing the road, but the loons were still out on the lake when I passed.
I had no idea now, but the following day the weather would be wild. Severe thunderstorms would bring high winds, countless lightning strikes, heavy rains and hail.
At least one waterspout would twirl up from the surface of Lake Superior, twisting into the skies like a big, agitated snake.
I would record some of the sights and sounds as the storms blew in across my backyard. I would be amazed by some of the storm reports I'd see and hear.
But for now, I pulled my Jeep into the garage, got out and shut the door behind me.
I looked up, but I still couldn't see anything but smoke up there.
I turned and walked away, back towards the house.
Back to the barn for this horse.
Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan's world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.