John Pepin

“Get back to the country, back where it all began; get back to the country, back on the road again,” – Neil Young

“The old graveled and rocky road ahead of me looked like it had taken a significant beating over the wintertime. It was gray and weathered, seemingly starved, shriveled and thin, like a dead elephant, its skin deflated, bones exposed.

The road’s ribs were rattled clean of flesh by rusty pickup trucks, along with daredevil off-road vehicle operators, with their big knobby tires, and the considerable rains of springtime and autumn.

After the months that had passed, I could see there were numerous new ruts dug into the road, most with water trickling down them, like blood trickling from a wound.

There seemed to be a determined presumption that this road, like so many things nature and humankind may have dealt with harshly, would fall away in chunks and pieces, with its utility and worth obsolete.

But I knew better.

This road has been here since I was a young kid, when it was in arguably worse shape. I had never seen before then, nor since, a road with wood planks laid across its ruts to allow vehicles to pass over its many gaping and eroded scrapes and tears.

It has survived more than a half-century since then.

And if one were to only look around, they would see countless features of this northern hardwoods landscape in similar condition – faded, withered and gray, missing a piece or two of this or that.

So, I sputtered on ahead, wondering if the way would be cleared for me across the length of this remote byway.

I knew there were traditionally at least two or three low spots where swollen waters from vernal ponds and ephemeral rivulets might cover the road to depths of more than a couple of feet. But with that gravel road base, I knew I’d be willing to attempt passage through a good-sized road puddle.

In several places, the road was uneven, especially where there were ascents to higher terrain. Timbering in some of these places exposed ridgelines for exploring on other days that might provide grand views across the countryside.

I rounded a corner at an open spot where a couple of wide puddles covered the road.

A large hawk lifted into the air from a low place at the edge of the road. It may have been finishing a meal or about to grab one. Either way, I wish I had seen the bird before I startled it into flight.

As it glided through the trees, gaining altitude, I could see that it was a rough-legged hawk, told by its dark morph plumage and the thick black band at the end of the tail.

It was headed far north to the colder regions for the summer months.

The sighting provided greater confirmation that I was in a continued period of overlap between springtime and the fading scenes of winter.

If I had any doubts about that, I could compare still present banks and piles of snow scattered among the woodlands and the low swamps and cedar growth with the singing of recently arrived spring migrant birds echoing from the trees.

At a pond that reaches its highest water level at this time of the year, spring peeper frogs where also singing. Many people confuse the chirping, high-pitched sounds these frogs make with the songs and calls of birds.

It’s understandable.

I was hoping I might spot a moose here at this pond that is surrounded with deep and greening wetland reeds and grasses, but I didn’t.

After a couple of rises and drops in the elevation of the topography, I found myself at the first of the low spots I feared might have been flooded, but it wasn’t.

I stopped my Jeep when I heard a winter wren singing loudly from somewhere in the wet underbrush. Despite its name, this bird – which boasts a song of more than 200 notes – is always a welcome sign of spring to me.

At another woodland pond nearby, I heard another singing winter wren and then a third at the next pond I approached.

Though I encountered some puddles, there was no flooding over the road to be concerned about. I remember crossing one of those places when I was a kid sitting in the back seat of my dad’s rusty, old blue Pontiac.

Water was coming up through the floorboards as we went through the water, the car creating big waves that rolled into the cattails and pussy willows on both sides of the road.

At another corner, I stopped the vehicle and got out when I heard a bird loudly announcing its presence. It was a northern waterthrush, which despite it being called a “thrush,” it is a warbler.

I listened and tried to mimic the bird’s song to bring it closer. It did come to within 50 feet or so in the thick wetland growth, but the sun created only a silhouette for me to see. I never got any closer than that.

At an inland lake, I stood along the shoreline looking down through the clear water to watch a couple of crayfish crawling around on the rocky bottom. Small fish broke the water surface not too far from me.

Roadside waters that had started out on my journey flat and as clear as mirrors, now presented a dappled surface with warm winds pushing up over the scene.

I heard a white-throated sparrow singing from the woods on the other side of the lake. This signature bird sound of the great north woods was a tell-tale identifier that things were decidedly shifting toward fairer and longer days.

One thing the winter had taken away in its leaving was the trash people had left along the shoreline of the lake to spoil the experience. At first glance, it might seem that these people didn’t care about nature.

However, I surmised from the cigarette butts, broken fishing bobber and food wrappers that those who discarded these items here liked spending time in nature, fishing and soaking in the glorious scenery all around them.

Given that, what would make them decide to leave this garbage here?

For me, that’s where the disconnect lies.

Would they like to arrive to find the broken plastic bait containers, beer cans and dirty diapers of others, or even themselves, waiting for them?

I doubt it.

These early days of May, before the greening of the woods has completed, the grays, browns and blacks of the dead leaves, vegetation and other growth of last year is depressing to see.

Garbage makes it worse.

It seems that of all the seasons, the transition between winter into spring must be the most difficult to perform.

It’s like all the natural world is flashing colors at its harvest best in the autumn only to be followed by the dead, grave silence and bare branches of wintertime.

From that, nature needs to resurrect itself not only to a state of just demonstrating proof of life, but to produce something as joyous, green and growing as spring, no less.

It is truly one of the greatest transformations I can think of.

It’s an incredible magic trick that seems impossible to perform.

In a few moments, I am standing at the edge of a creek that is flowing at a high rate, giggling and laughing as it rolls. All the blues of the water are sparkling in numerous shades I find comforting and exciting.

The sound of the racing flow is an immediate and tremendous medicine. It is as though I am hearing the water for the very first time.

It makes me feel alive.

Before I know it, I have again arrived at an intersection I know well.

This is the crossroads where I need to decide between turning around and heading back into nature or turning toward home and the iron city.

Like a hammer in the back of my head, there is pounding of tasks needing to be completed, bells ringing to answer and fiddlers to pay.

This is another rough transition, the one where I decide against my best instincts to turn toward “civilization” and my many waiting commitments and responsibilities.

Turning that steering wheel, I feel like it’s connected to my brain. The motion makes a loud squealing noise, like that of a rusted iron valve handle.

There’s a screaming pressure build up, a straining on my arms and mind, like everything is going to burst.

But once I make the turn, I head down the highway, finding my lane in the rat race.

I glance over my left shoulder back toward the hills of trees, the singing birds and the rippling waters and the nature of everything.

I grit my teeth and sneer like a cur dog.

I’ll go, but I damned sure don’t like it.

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.