JOHN PEPIN

“My dogs are barking, there must be someone around,” – Bob Dylan

On a black night, out among the still bare-limbed maples and birches, I heard the barking of an unfamiliar dog. The sound came from a direction where no dogs bark.

I wondered what kind of dog it was and why it was barking. Most of all, though, I kept thinking about where the heck it was and how did it get there, this plaintive voice barking in the wilderness.

The sound was originating at a point so far off from me, I knew I’d never have my questions answered. It struck me as weird, and it stayed with me.

For its voice to carry that far, the dog had to be sizeable, but not too large. I’d say a mid-sized canine, though not a coyote, certainly not a wolf.

The voice lacked the “wildness” possessed by those native species. If it was a person speaking, the dialect would seem to be polished or refined. My impression somehow was that this dog was black and was in some way ailing.

I returned to my listening post the next night and then again on the following night. The barking was over – dog gone.

It’s strange but striking to have become accustomed to the sounds of an area. Any new waves rolling across the aural landscape immediately jump out at me.

First of the year birdsongs are a good example – the first song or white-throated sparrow are good examples of these types of incidents.

A similar thing happens in the spring and fall when the leaves are down.

Any creature I see scampering across the ground, along a dead and fallen tree or over boulders – even in the periphery of my field of vision – zaps out of the scene like it was bathed in blue or pink neon.

On the other hand, familiarity with a circumstance can also breed unexpected results.

Years ago, I maintained a work office at the top of a flight of old, wooden stairs.

This office was in a municipal building where some former government offices had been rented out as office space to a handful of businesses.

If you got to the top of the stairs and then looked across a wide and wooden-floored common area, my office would have been situated on the far side.

I could see people as they arrived at the top of the staircase, and I would greet them with a wave, a smile or a lift of my chin.

But the thing that struck me as strange was that after being in that office for a few months, I didn’t have to see someone to know who they were.

I could correctly identify which of the upstairs denizens was coming up the stairs, after they had only taken a couple of steps.

Of course, I was aided by the facts that the old staircase produced sound loudly and distinctly and that the room the stairs were located in was big, with a high cavernous ceiling. But still, it was not something I would have thought possible previously.

Sometimes, the absence of hearing certain sounds or other experiencing other sensations can produce this “jumping out of the canvas” reaction too.

Lately, for example, I am longing to hear sounds of water eagerly tumbling between rocks, rolling in rapids, and slipping around corners, trying to get to wherever it is streams want to be most – on the level.

I am sure that when I hear that sound when I’m out walking or fishing, it will be a jolting, consuming and saturating experience.

It’s been too long since I’ve felt warm sunshine on my arms and legs or raindrops or the summer wind, cooled by traveling over the big lake before brushing across my face.

I haven’t seen green grass for months now.

Springtime’s apple blossoms and requisite wildflowers, in all their airy perfume, seem like some vague, numbed memory or reverie from a withered time gone by.

I am overdue to experience these things.

The lonesome bark of that forlorn dog is still on my mind. Where was it and why?

To me, it sounded like it was far away from home, like it had wandered off and got itself lost. For some reason, something about the quality of the voice made me think it was a male dog.

Maybe in the hours or days ahead I’ll see a new “lost dog” poster tacked up to a tree or telephone pole alongside the road here.

My dog is barking, there must be somebody around, I got my hammer ringing, pretty baby, but the nails ain’t going down.

I feel out of place somehow, like that dog in the woods, like a shark in a tank without any water in it. It’s a kind of subterranean nagging or tugging feeling that hasn’t pinched my consciousness with any clear or recognizable understanding yet.

Early spring snow keeps rolling around back and forth, covering the woods, and then receding, then covering the woods again, like some frosty, white tide.

I can see it sometimes in the eyes of people I meet that this late date for winter’s boisterous antics is starting to gnaw at people.

It’s kind of like the look the babysitter has on her face when you get home late from going out to dinner and the kids have been more than a little challenging.

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.

Familiar places, familiar scenes all suddenly somehow unfamiliar.

And then, like somebody somewhere heard my barking out there in the woods, forlorn and forgotten, the clouds seem to have broken the sky open, hatching a big splash of beautiful blue.

A robin, who looks like he’s had it with winter too, walks around places where the snow is lacking along the dirt roads, concrete or cobbled bricks, looking for worms.

A northern flicker looks uncomfortable sitting in the snow on the ground. The loons seem to know it’s not time to arrive yet. The lakes are still frozen.

I think it’s time to sing a new song, find some new melodies and words – springtime melodies. Hopefully, these blue skies overhead are here to welcome me and familiarize me with just that.

Snow or not, the birds are still singing their spring songs, the sun is still setting later and later each night and the early flowers have buds bulging, ready to pop open.

There’s a scene I keep seeing in my mind, in my dreams, that I don’t think exists in real life. It’s somehow set here though. Maybe it’s a picture from the other side.

I have a high vantage point, looking down across a river in a valley that I’ve experienced before, its black, cold waters turn blue in places as they snake around bends through a pine forest.

I make it down to a low ridge, now at a significantly smaller elevation than before, within a hundred yards from the river. I then am walking down along its banks in the evening, with the sun going down.

I am struck with a strong sense of having been there before, but I can’t place the time or the circumstances. It also seems new and unexplored. For some reason, my dreams and thoughts keep returning to this.

It’s kind of like that dog barking in the woods. I wonder how long I will continue to hear that barking coming from a place where no dogs bark?

Perhaps I’ll be walking in the woods one day and see some sign or otherwise get a message about who he was and where he is now.

In the meantime, I’ll do what I always try to do – keep walking with my senses open tuned to the sights and sounds around me. Heading where the winds blow me with my head down and my lights working.

Sunshine, snow or rain, like the proverbial mailman, I keep delivering along my route working for that handshake and a nod at the end of my time.

Dogs bark at mailmen all the time. Sometimes they bite, dogs that is.

EDITOR’S NOTE: 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.