John Pepin, Michigan Department of Natural Resources

After three days of sunny skies, warmer temperatures and consequent melting snow, waking up to see that the blue-gray skies and snow showers had returned felt like a crippling gut punch.

The calendar says March is here and wintertime should be thrashing in the final throes of its seasonal death. The robins of springtime, with their bright, brick-red breasts and delightful songs will be back among us to nest in about two weeks’ time.

In some places, at least a couple larger groups of robins have been reported recently, as have early arrivals of some other birds, like red-winged blackbirds and Canada geese.

There’s a grass and mud-spun nest the robins left on a nesting platform at my house, under one of the eaves of the garage roof. Over the past few months, I’ve seen the nest fill up with snow.

I need to get up there and clear the space off before the birds come back. Robins don’t reuse nests they built the previous year. They lay more than one brood each summer and build a new nest for each group of hatchlings.

That means they build two or three nests every summer season. I guess that’s why they are so good at nest building. They can spin one up in no time. Judging by the one here, their nests are able withstand good bouts of inclement weather.

With more morning light, I hear the chickadees, woodpeckers and other birds starting to test their spring songs out on the bare-treed woodlands, even in the snow.

It won’t be long before we’ll be hearing the tumbling and rumbling of thunderstorms, which for me, raise hopes for rebirth, growth and renewal, especially after March has decided it will taunt us with its ebb and flow of more snow.

Can the early shoots of green plants through the wet, black mud be that far away?

In just a little while, I will be listening to the quacking sound of wood frogs as they begin to chuckle in the swamps, letting us know they have awakened. While some may soon be clucking, others may be still frozen in their torpor-type suspension.

I recall taking a springtime hike after supper one night to a lake hidden up within the mixed forests, not too far off the shoreline of Lake Superior.

While I walked the sandy trail, there were still patches of snow remaining that covered some parts of the way ahead. Coming around a corner, I heard the “peent” call of an American woodcock, coming from a clearing.

Within a minute or two, the bird took off from in front of me, spiraling into the skies where it performed its dipsy-doodle, mating drop back to earth. The bird again landed on the ground and within a few seconds made the same “peent” call before repeating the entire maneuver.

Below me, down a steep, gray-sand embankment was the river, swollen with spring runoff. I continued down the trail to a place where I knew I needed to cut through the woods to my left.

I walked over crunchy reindeer mosses, white and clumped, that covered the ground beneath scraggly growths of jack pine. The landscape in front of me sloped up a hill.

When I reached the top, I stood upon a ridge that looked down on the river. At this point, the water was churning loudly as it flowed between and over rocks.

This would be one of the places I would stop to cast my fishing line toward steelhead waiting in the river.

I knew that once I walked carefully down this steep embankment to reach the river, any way back out would be steep and strenuous. The water looked high, but it was still fishable.

Along the racing river, the sounds of the water’s movement were near deafening. If someone yelled to me, I would not have heard them.

I thought about whether indigenous people had one time stood or camped where I was now. It was likely they had. I often think about how it might have been to live in those times.

It was undoubtedly a much harder existence amid the rugged and dense wilds of this part of the world. However, I sense there was also a great deal of peace to be found here beyond the reach of the noise and bustle of modern civilization.

I imagine there would also have been something quite satisfying about the hard work and the realization of being able to succeed in surviving here with the trees, rocks, plants and wild animals.

The animism of these people was no doubt a logical extension of the everyday lives they led. There is a sense of belonging when walking or just sitting in nature that comes in the knowing of the surrounding natural environment.

The rocks provide welcome shelter, even here among the racing rapids. The skies bring knowledge of the changing seasons and directional signals. In life and death, the plants and animals offered things to learn about how to live.

Trees provided birch bark for canoes and other items, which led to making transportation and trade easier.

It’s easy to romanticize this lifestyle, but it was no doubt grueling.

At a bend in the river, I found no fish biting, but a way up the embankment that would allow me to rejoin the trail. I started out slow and then began to move faster.

At the top, I was huffing and puffing, hiking up the hill with chest waders on and lugging my fishing gear, while underneath a heavy layer of warm clothes made the trip more difficult than it would have been during a sunny autumn day, for example.

The trail to the lake snaked around cedar, hemlock and spruce trees while moving travelers closer to the roughly 12-acre lake.

In a switchback type of arrangement, another hillside flanked the right-hand side of the trail, which led up to a wooded plateau perhaps 150 feet high.

Here in the bottom of the canyon, the trail to the lake was often covered by thick mud, slush and snow. The walk wasn’t far, but it felt like I was very deep in the woods.

Raccoon tracks were here, and otters were in the river. The lake had a solitary duck sitting still atop the water about halfway across. It was too far away for me to identify.

From this spot, like many others I encounter, I stopped to assess the quality of this place based on how many human-made noises I could hear.

Tonight, was good. I didn’t hear anything I could recognize, like the often-heard chainsaws, cars or off-road vehicles, shotgun blasts or people yelling or laughing.

Those are the finest moments for me. Those I take stock of and try to absorb into my bloodstream, lungs and brain. I cherish these silent times that seem increasingly harder to come by.

Sometimes, just experiencing the quiet of the woods can cause tears to come to my eyes. It is in these times that I am feeling strongly connected to the land and nature around me.

I often don’t want to leave these places and times. I have a sense that the longer I stay the greater I will be touched and the deeper my ties to everything surrounding me will be.

I also get a feeling that if I stay late enough, I will see or otherwise experience something few ever do. Sadly, as is often the case, I can’t stay too late tonight.

Deadlines and commitments.

I soak up the silence and the chilly, clean air before turning my boots toward the place where I left my Jeep. I again see and hear the woodcock on my way back. I stop to enjoy that display for a few minutes.

The somewhat sparse placement of the trees of this jack pine forest allows me to see into the now gathering darkness as I move north. I don’t see any animals, but I sense they are there just into the shadows watching me pass.

They are seemingly more accommodating of visitors than I am. They do not protest my being there among them. They do not attempt to threaten, cajole or otherwise convince me to leave.

I often feel that sometime long ago I was touched deeply by these outdoor experiences. Whatever I was before that happened, I am no longer that person.

I have become dependent on these quiet and emotional moments alone.

It is as though I have been entranced and bewitched by a swamp angel and I can no longer stop hearing her beautiful flutelike song echoing within me.

Let the air be chilly and damp tonight, like it often is this time of year. Let me have another few moments within the stark quiet of the woodlands. Let me once again experience that profound peace.

I will walk wherever I need to go to get that. Point my boots toward the place and I will walk all night and day if I need to.

Every step is worth every breath of clean air I breathe.

I am alive again.

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.