Outdoors North: Little places that have a massive hold on our lives

John Pepin, Michigan Department of Natural Resources
It’s not a house said Judas Priest, it’s not a house, it’s a home” – Bob Dylan
On this early morning in a northern hardwoods forest, the conditions presenting themselves are more reminiscent of an early or false springtime that might typically occur during March.
The air is mild and humid. The soft patting sound of dripping water from melting snow is everywhere. In the background, off in the distance, the drumming of woodpeckers on tree trunks or branches produces a dull, almost humming sound.
There is also a surrounding of the trilling type calls from untold numbers of goldfinches perched invisibly within the dense, green branches of cedar trees.
The sun is not shining. Instead, the sky has a gray-white, woolen sock feel to it which, for me, alternates between feeling warm and cozy and claustrophobic.
Over the past several weeks, these Great North Woods have been blessed with a heaping helping of wintertime, thanks to snow showers, icy temperatures and blustery winds.
The favorable conditions arrived in time to make Christmastime seem like the idyllic scenes many of us have pictured in our minds when we think of the holiday.
Then, as soon as Christmas Day concluded, the conditions abruptly changed to these drab, warm and unseasonable springlike elements.
On one of the late nights, it even began to rain at our house. If I closed my eyes to listen to the raindrops hitting the roof, it was easy to imagine it was spring or even summertime, rather than winter.
The strange December weather sent my mind back to the days when I returned to my native Upper Peninsula after several years in California.
My then-wife Sharon and I arrived in December from Los Angeles. Sharon came to California by way of her Indiana home state where mild winters had occurred, but she had since become an avid sun worshipper.
That meant our buying a house in this four-season part of the world was going to be a gamble for our relationship, even if that house was situated on a beautiful piece of property with hundreds of feet of Lake Superior shoreline.
That previous summer, we came to the area to look at houses.
We had first considered buying a cabin that was off-the-grid but decided that would be too much of a change all at once.
Instead, our realtor found us that small, cozy cabin-like house out on the Lake Superior shore.
Within the first few moments of seeing the place, I was hooked hard.
The house had redwood-stained cedar siding, with a wood stove, modern furnishings that looked brand new, a hot tub on the back deck facing the lake, a screened-in side porch and a sizeable yard cut into the tag alders that even included an L-shaped pond.
The sky seemed endless across the horizon and the shoreline was rocky with a fire pit built into the boulders, with fallen birch log benches. A grassy path to the lake skirted the pond with raspberry brambles and wild strawberries found along the way.
Our December arrival back in Michigan allowed us to avoid being in California for a significant earthquake that occurred on Jan. 17 in Northridge, which is where I went to college.
However, as luck would have it, the winter we encountered here in Michigan was punctuated by numerous consecutive days with subzero temperatures.
The following springtime, summer and fall were exceptional. I had begun to make a list of the birds I encountered within our property.
Eventually, my bird list would grow to more than 120 species, in addition to bobcats, wolves, bats, bears, gray foxes, flying squirrels, beavers and other creatures that frequented the property.
Each spring and summer, the pond was filled with frogs and toads all singing in incredible concerts. On rainy nights, gray treefrogs would sometimes affix themselves to the windows on the house.
With a black light and a white bed sheet, we found countless beautiful species of moths that were living in the surrounding woods.
With help from my dad and friends, we built a woodshed, tool shed, horseshoe courts, a clothesline, bird feeding station and barrel and hand pump fountain for the gardens that Sharon planted outside the front of the house.
One January night, I had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room. At about 4 a.m., I was awakened by a flickering light that had permeated the room.
It was the best display I have ever seen of the northern lights out over the lake. The curtains of greenish light were not only flickering, but rising and falling, cascading up and down.
I woke up Sharon and we watched together, amazed at the spectacle.
That second winter was much warmer than the first. It ended up being a record snowfall winter, which did not amuse the sun worshipper.
There were several days when lake effect snows blew in off Lake Superior and dumped on the front side of our house almost completely burying the front door.
Our house was situated at the end of a narrow, two-track dirt road, close to a mile long, which contributed to the remote feeling of those wintry days.
As luck would have it, the following winter — our third — was yet another consecutive record snowfall winter.
Sharon decided to take a trip to California to visit and stay with friends for several weeks. After returning, she volunteered for a job at the bank where she worked to travel to other banks to train employees on a new banking computer program.
Her travel took her away from home during the week. She would come home on Fridays and leave again Monday mornings or Sunday nights.
This arrangement worked for us in the short term, but in the long run, it strained our relationship to the breaking point. We ended up at an impasse. Sharon wanted to move back to California. I wanted to stay here.
Eventually, I suggested we compromise and move someplace neutral that we both could enjoy. Sharon was dead set on California.
Long story short, she moved to California, and I stayed here. It was a sad ending to our relationship that in retrospect might have been written before we started.
Who knows?
Ironically, she lives in New Mexico today, a place I gladly would have settled.
In that break-up, I ended up needing to sell the house because I couldn’t afford to live in it by myself. It was a horrible time for me.
I loved that home and property so much. It was like a little lakeside, north woods kingdom of everything I loved and appreciated – quiet, beauty, nature, isolated.
Even after I had moved to an apartment, I kept a set of the house keys in the console of my truck for several years and I still have it.
What I find strange particularly is over the past several months, again this week, I have had clear and vivid dreams about that lake house.
Probably three or four months ago, I dreamed that Lake Superior was flooding, and the waves were wildly crashing at the shore during a winter blizzard.
I volunteered to brave the conditions on the two-track road to see if there were survivors at any of the lakefront homes and camps because I knew the way in.
I found people there and surveyed the incredible damage with them. The house was still standing but was covered in ice.
About a month ago, I dreamt that I returned to the house to find the new owners not at home. It was in the dark of night. I walked around the property with a flashlight and entered the house through an open back door.
I just wandered around inside looking at everything, crying.
With the flash of car headlights, the owners came home and found me there. I explained who I was and why I came there. They empathized but told me I had to leave.
A couple nights ago, I had another vivid dream about the house.
In this one, the house was owned by my dad when he died. Many of the inside features of the house blended with those of my childhood home. The home was in great disrepair, but I was going to buy it.
I was overjoyed to be returning to that little piece of land along the lakeshore. This time, I was crying tears of happiness. I woke up feeling an overwhelming and tremendously deep sense of relief.
It’s so strange to me that little place still has such a hold on me.
Like a lot of things in life, realistically speaking, too many changes have occurred to make our dreams come true.
The place where the house is has changed so much, with the construction of a new home by the neighbors, that the isolated character of the place we knew is gone forever. The horseshoe courts and the pond are still there, according to Google Earth.
I have since married the Queen of Shebis and we live in another house that hooked me hard when a realtor first showed it to us — another beautiful setting, close to nature.
Still, anytime I pass the road leading to the lake house, I look that way, and my mind slides sideways for a mile or two.
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.